Sunday In The Plaza With Bob

Our former neighbor from Colonial Village, Bob (different Bob), was in Albuquerque on business, and so extended his trip and headed into Colorado. On Sunday, he stopped by on the way for a visit.

We headed out to Zia for brunch/lunch. And then headed downtown to the Plaza. It was Spanish Market, one of the biggest arts festivals downtown, but my work garage parking served us well.

It was crowded, sure, but nothing near what I feared. The Plaza and surrounding streets were filled with booths with displays of all sorts of traditional Spanish crafts. Particularly taken with some of the weaving — the patterns and the color combinations. Oh, and the restored 1951 Ford Pickup, only 200 miles since restoration, with the Virgin of Guadalupe on the door that they were raffling off. We took Bob on our tour of favorites spots in and around the Plaza, and headed back out through the market after couple hours. We needed some culture.

On to Museum Hill. A friend of Bob's had recommended a visit to the Wheelright Museum of the American Indian. Not only had we never been, but we hadn't been up to Museum Hill since moving.

The main exhibit at the Wheelright was of the work of Charles Loloma, who was doing jewelry design from about the 30s to the 60s. A pretty spectacular display, his work covered a lot of ground, to interpretations of tradtional to truly experimental. The material always went to back to his roots, but the work undeniably echoed the trends of the day. But it really stands the test of time.

After a caffeine break, pushed on to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, a favorite of ours. The exhibits there included a guide to the pottery of the pueblos, a rotating exhibit that, like in the past, focuses on a private collection, a retrospective, and a contemporary exhibit of two artists (which seems to be a standard). It continued to prove why we've always enjoyed going there.

We saw Bob off in the evening. Then we headed on to our local comic creators' group monthly meeting, to enjoy being (mostly) done with our anthology and with our Xeric Foundation grant application.