Santa Fe – Wednesday

It was a somewhat restless night, not because of street noise, but because of the downdraft from the swamp cooler (which did, indeed, keep things cool) and the very firm mattress. 

Breakfast at the Inn was nummy — a big bowl of granola and a lovely light waffle.  Ate on the porch, which was almost cool.  That said, the weather during the course of the day was warm-bordering-hot, but not miserable.  Margie’d done some checking, and it was likely to be the coolest day of the week, hence our doing Canyon Road.

Then … off to Canyon Road, one of the key art districts in Santa Fe.  When we were here last time, we bought the Gary Mauro watercolor  we have over the fireplace. This time …

… well, I’ve already written about what searching for art is like in Santa Fe.  And we, indeed, did not buy anything, but made copious notes over the ten grand worth of artwork (well, maybe twenty if we went hog-wild) we really wanted.  Really-truly.

Gah.

And that’s not counting the Nambé store.

It took us pretty much the whole day to do Canyon Rd. from top to bottom — and, of course, that doesn’t count a lot of the side streets, parallel streets, and other keen locales one can find spiffy art.  Some of the highlights of what we found (some of which (cough) may end up being shipped to us …)

• Some amazing watercolors by Robert Highsmith at Marigold Arts.
• Amazing kinetics by Lyman Whitaker at Wiford Gallery.
• Remarkable patina art by Nathan Bennett at Meyer-Munson.
• The usual fantastic lithographs of Michael Parkes at Chalk Farm Gallery (he’s going to be at an opening of theirs on Friday).
• Some spiffy ink/oil pieces by Amy Ringholz at Gallery 822.
• Just gorgeous bronze animals by Tim Cherry at McLarry.
• Nifty decorative art glass by Melissa Haid at La Mesa of Santa Fe.
• A very cool octopus by/at Bogdanoff.
• Some charming animal totems by Molly Heizer at Canyon Road Contemporary.
• Fun stoneware tiles/plaques/pots by Polly Whitcomb at Canyon Road Pottery.
• Even more fun cowgirl oils by Donna Howell-Sickles at McLarry.

Yes, we have, in fact, gone insane.  No, we are not in fact buying all (or even most) of the above, though “some” seems fairly certain.

If nothing else, the above indicates our current taste in art (which is not to take away from other lists thereof) and how our eyes are bigger than our pocketbooks.  The fact of which we are well aware of.

The number of eateries along Canyon Road has dwindled a bit (even as the number of homes converted to galleries has increased in the last decade).  We skipped some overly-busy places, and went to the Tea House, up at the top of Canyon Road.  They had a very nice sandwich menu, and an astonishing list of teas.  Margie ended up with a fun ice chai; I had a coffee/red chili blend that was both tasty and a scosh too hot when all was said and done.  Still, it was uncrowded, pleasant, tasty, and (like most of Santa Fe) a bit on the pricy side.

Got back to the Inn about 4:30p (having gotten a lot more discriminating about the places we went into on the hike back down), and rested for an hour or two, then headed out to dinner.  After that, despite the impending thunderstorms (and the actual sprinkles, though most of the spectacular lightning/thunder was away north), we wandered downtown Santa Fe, took in a few shops, and stopped for a drink/dessert before heading back to the barn.

Tomorrow we’ll probably wrap up the Art Quest, and hopefully do a few other things.  Friday is looking to be a busy Santa Fe day — the opera starts back up, so the gallery folks (a) are holding Many Openings and Shows, and (b) are suggesting we make sure we have reservations for dinner (which we’ve done). 

Long day.  Time to sleep, etc.