Canyon Avenue

As part of a spate of rather vapid and self-congratulatory 400th anniversary articles about the City Different, the Summer 2009 issue of Art & Antiques called Canyon Road “Santa Fe’s equivalent of Madison Avenue.” In the context of the article, this means Canyon Road is still THE destination for art.

The other point this article makes is that Santa Fe is a unique art destination because of its ability to blend periods and cultures, the old and the new, the traditional and the exploratory. Different cultures bounce off each other and spread in unexpected directions. According to art dealer William Siegal, “the whole premise [of Santa Fe’s success as an art market] is that great art, whether new or old, informs the other.” I read in this a broader idea, that artistic influence in Santa Fe is atemporal as well as cross-cultural. Contemporary painters are still influenced by the motifs on early Pueblo pottery. Pottery and jewelry design takes cues from the land and ancient architecture. That, to me, more than the quaint allure, is what makes this a unique art destination. That is why certain artists (and those of us who work with and collect the art) are drawn here over New York or L.A.
~Heather