Canyon Road

Yesterday we walked the Guadalupe Railyard Shopping District and found a few treasures along the way. At a consignment clothing store called "The Beat Goes On" I purchased a new shirt and a pair of espadrilles from Spain. The store had really high end clothing and their prices were pricey but sometimes a bargain can still be found. Allan wanted to get a new cap from the fly fishing shop but when he tryed it on, it made his head look pointy. So we gave it a pass. Then we stopped by a used book store and found a couple of mysteries by a Cuban author and also a Landscapes of New Mexico art book which was very inspirational. We ended up our day at Tomasita's at the Railyard where we had very hot red chile plates and of course Allan had flan. As it turned out...we still like the Inn at Chimayo the best. But last evening we decided to go to a local brewery called The Blue Corn Cafe for dinner and we had fantastic fish n'chips with two different beers; a lager and and ale, both good. We would definitely return.

Today we walked up Canyon Road looking at all of the galleries and there were plenty to see. We were able to see many pastellists, some with very different techniques. Carole LaRoche uses pastel to paint bright color animals with human eyes looking out at you with very plain dark backgrounds. And of course we stopped at the Ventana Gallery to see some of Albert Handell's paintings. When the sales guy realized that we were just Albert worshipers and not potential buyers he gave up and wandered off. Most of Albert's work displayed today was in oil, however, there were three small pastels of local scenes. Two other pastellists that we saw were Margaret Nes whose pastels are very abstract with simplified shapes, and Will Klemm whose pastels are very ethereal. Further up the road there was a gallery that handled the artists from the early 1900's including Gustave Baumann, the printmaker. Although I have seen many of his prints in books, it was inspiring to see the originals full size. A few were on sale for the bargain price of $28,000. and the gallery indicated that it was willing to negotiate the price. Somehow I don't think any price we could afford could have been negotiated. Some galleries were handling Russian or Chinese artists. We were surprised by the number of foreign artists that were represented. And there were several artists that painted landscapes in oil or acrylic that we admired. We tried to take notes on techniques or colors that interested us since we could not take any photos. There were any number of artists who concentrated on painting clouds with the sky taking up at least 3/4 to 7/8 of the painting.

When we reached the top of the road, we stopped at El Farol to have lunch. Allan had a pork tenderloin sandwich and I had a curried chicken salad sandwich. Sounds mundane? No....they were some of the best sandwiches we had eaten in a very long time. And it was a beautiful setting in a lovely warm day. After lunch we headed back down the road to our truck, stopping at all of the galleries that we hadn't seen on the way up.