¡Colores!; 305; Santero; Interview with Marie Romero Cash; Part 3

And what I'd like to do sometimes to sit down where we can control the elements a little bit more. And kind of probably go over what we've talked about already so we can kind of intercut between you talking here and talking there. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the development of the figures. How you came about that and do they have, are you inspired by what you see other figures that you see? Where did you get the inspiration for this? Okay. The inspiration for the figures that I ultimately chose to be on these fourteen panels came from taking photographs of probably every station in every church that I could find. Photographs in books.

Photographs from the Vatican. I was trying to find a mix that would work in San Teto art because San Teto art is so fine-tuned into what it actually is. There are prototypes that you can use in the different churches so I use not only photographs of other stations in the churches but also ones in books and drawings and everywhere I could find one of the figures that I would ultimately use. So the result is a composite of a great number of stations. I even consulted the Bible to be accurate as to which incident happened first, how many people were there and of course I am allowed to take a great deal of artistic license because there are no standard stations that I could fall upon in this type of art.

So I chose to do it in a style which I call similar to Raphael Eragon who was one of the 19th century San Teto's and it is a style that I am using that belongs to him. Over the years I have developed my own style but in many instances many of the things do are based on this particular San Teto. So the number of figures in each panel was determined by the amount of space that I have to do these things in and also what normal retabels are based on in San Teto art. Normally they are not really cluttered and it has the main figures and it gives you the story of what is going on quite simply. Part of what we are trying to tap into this piece is kind of the multigenerational, not

that your father was an artist in this way, but kind of the multigenerational aspect of northern New Mexico and handing this down from people to people. So I guess I want to tap into what this region feels like to you. Have you been inspired by northern New Mexico? What does that mean to you and particularly the type of family oriented art making of this, you know, the craftsman, I am not saying that very well, does that make sense? When I lived in Florida in the 60s, I was there for three years and after that I was in Phoenix for a couple of years. When I ultimately decided to leave both of these places it was because there was such

a lack of traditional culture and apparently it was something that my soul needed in order to survive. So when I came back to Santa Fe, I realized that this is the place where my roots are. I was able to feel more comfortable in Santa Fe than I have any place else in the world. The reason is because the culture is so embedded, it's a soul thing I think we're born with this culture that has been here for several hundred years and I think we all tap into it in one respect or another. I came back and within a year I was working on an art that was of the region. I was, the San Teto Art is indigenous only to Northern New Mexico, it is not something that you find in Texas or in Arizona and I think that's one of the reasons I was drawn

to it and any time I'm away from New Mexico for any period of time, I just spent almost a month in Massachusetts. I think the thing I missed the most about New Mexico was its culture of being able to speak Spanish to people and not have it looked on as a foreign language and being able to have an understanding of the type of culture that exists here. My parents were always very encouraging for us to pursue whatever we wanted to do in art but all of us have pursued something that is, it is common to this area and no weather. Tell me a little bit about what you feel when you put these together from drawing to what you're doing right now.

Well as much of my work is never complete until the faces and the shading and the final product is done, I lose myself in my work. I lose time of day, time of the month, sometimes all I know is that it's November and I pay very little attention to what day of the week it is. I am allowed to lose myself in this art because the ultimate product is going to reflect me and so I generally throw myself into these projects, heart and soul. I'm usually very quiet when I'm working, I enjoy the peace and serenity of this type of work and there's a lot of inspiration that comes from doing something like this.

You spend your time thinking a little more about what nature is about, about what the earth is coming to. I think just working in an art like this gives you a greater insight into what we were put here on earth to do and as of this moment I think I'm doing exactly 60% of what I was put here on earth to do and the other 40% is something I have to come up with in the next couple of years and decide what my contribution to mankind is going to be in addition to my art. I have a lot of time to contemplate and to think and to become a little more spiritual than you are on a day-to-day basis. Being here in my studio is a lot different than being in the grocery store in the movie theater.

There's a certain serenity and peacefulness and a lot of the solitude that I like. Talk to me a little bit about what this type of art means, what it is folk art, what does it mean on the other side, we've talked about what it means to you, what does it mean, like when these are put up and this type of thing has been done for so long, what is it for, what is its purpose and what is it and what do you mean for it to inspire? This art although it has its roots in northern New Mexico many times is called a religious art and many times is called a folk art, there's a fine line between folk art and religious

art in this respect because it's an art that was established here in New Mexico because of a need to decorate the churches. So consequently once the era of the San Teto was over which was probably right at the turn of the century there was no more need to decorate the churches because they had already gone into a plaster Paris and all the other types of art that were available over the Santa Fe Trail. So this art died down for a number of years, how do resurgence probably in the 1920s and again in the 1950s and 60s and kind of its final resurgence started in the 70s and it's continued through the 80s and into the 90s. There's a lot of times that people will say, oh I'd love to have one of those pieces

but I'm not a Catholic and that is always amazed me because I am a Catholic but I also like other arts and so I like to think of much of this as a folk art. In this particular instance of doing stations of the cross I like to think of it as more on a religious level than I would a folk art. In many cultures I think the art has died down because there weren't enough people to continue the perpetuation and here in Santa Fe in northern New Mexico I think this is an art that has endured since probably 1760 or earlier and is now over 200 years in being in existence.

So I think it's an art that will probably flourish and stay here. Sometimes it's oriented, sometimes it's oriented towards collectors and sometimes it's done for churches but nonetheless it continues to flourish as an art. Let's talk a little bit about the history of this, why so long ago did they need this type of thing? What was the most important to the emotional psyche of the common man at the time? Most of the people that came to New Mexico in the 1600s were settlers, they were not practicing artists and so after the Pueblo revolt much of the art that was in the churches was destroyed.

So when New Mexico was resettled around 1692 and the churches started to be built probably in the 1700s, mid 1700s, most of the churches had no decorations so there was very little art that could be put into the churches and it's been said that the Franciscans may have trained some of the artists but I think what it was is there was such a need for decoration in the churches that the Santenos themselves developed, they probably had an inborn talent and began to use it in providing art for the churches. So you find that much of the art that was done during that period is of a primitive nature. So I'm thinking that they were probably self-taught and furnished pieces for the churches

that were sometimes very primitive and misunderstood probably but as time progressed you got into the late 1700s and early 1800s there came a group of very sophisticated artists probably who had been trained in Mexico and had been trained as artists and they began to carve and paint patron saints for the churches and so there was a more sophisticated look but nonetheless it always took almost two to three years to have art come from Mexico and this was not something that the priests were willing to wait for. So during that process the Santeno art developed and some were very sophisticated, some were

trained artists and for the most part they were farmers and artists who spent much of their time painting when they weren't farming and farming when they weren't painting. And in many instances there might have been one that was Santero only and not did not have another profession. Some of these Santenos produced some of the greatest art that you see at Chimayo and Truchez and Trampus and some of the other historic churches. Tell me what it's like being an artist that for you personally was such an art form that has had such a spiritual and distinct kind of history to the more for the people rather than to me what it is is more for the church for the people that kind of art rather than

something that you would see in the Louvre that Michelangelo would have done but yet it still has a creative spirit that ties the both together. What is it like to be in that type of atmosphere of doing something that has such a distinct history to it? One of the biggest problems encountered in doing this type of art is number one being a woman and historically the Santeros were men that's why the OS is on the end of the word Santeros rather than Santeras and it hasn't been until the 1970s that women actively started doing Santos, carving and painting. So the difficulty was not only in getting the commissions but fitting into an art that

was primarily male dominated and not to say that it was male dominated for any reason other than the fact that males historically did this type of art. So once I got into a larger scale type of work it became apparent to me that I have to focus on several things. One was earning a living and the second was being able to do art that was going to remain in churches or other institutions for long periods of time and this always isn't easy to do. You can't always make a living doing church art and you can't always make a living just doing Santera art. So it's been a struggle. Some people primarily do art for themselves that they do not sell and they consider it

completely religious. Others like myself do a number of pieces, it's either folk art or it's religious art or it's a combination of the two. I don't know if that answered your question but I get involved in what I'm doing and kind of forget where I met with stuff. That's what I first thought. In a formal kind of interview, but this is certainly a good start. How fast I'd like to get the progression of these, as you're working on the faces and skin tones and the hallows, what would be your next step and do you have any kind of time for him?