santa fe and adobe

if i had to say something definitive about new mexicans, i'd say we are driven by our passions rather than making money. it's a joke out here that a job is just something we do that gets in the way of us living life. it's an obvious answer when you realize there's almost 20 thousand artists living and working here out of the 75 thousand total population. this number changes the balance of the whole soul of the place. it must be the highest percentage per population on the planet, and throw in the assorted shamans, healers,alternative health centers, yoga studios, inventors, green party, left over hippies, spiritual communes, writers, it must up the ante even more, making this huge a stew of floating creativity. how could any one work when we have so much art to make, plays to write, ideas to put forth? new mexicans are also fiercely independent, resourceful and funloving, and ultimately survivors, finding ways to live their lives in an economy where there doesn't always appear to be one. well that's not entirely true, we have some new homes being built, the restaurants, and of course the tourists, but these seem like small industries when you compare them to California's giant business engine, and it takes a certain getting used to in being able to live here. i was in the post office one day and this guy was telling joe the postmaster, joe i'm leaving, i'm moving back to Philadelphia, i'm going back to the united states, and joe responded, oh, you're coming out from behind the adobe curtain. and it is all adobe here, adobe in all shades, all colors, adobe, new and old and a hundred years old, santa fe being america's oldest city. new adobe, cracked adobe, patched adobe, falling down adobe, the supporting cast of brick streets, muddy roads, and everything brown, austere. it seems tibetans love it here. we have a whole mini tibet working at cloud cliff bakery. you either like adobe or you don't. to me there's something comforting about it, the houses look like giant loaves of warm bread, and the stuff is durable and cheap. i've seen it cracked, battered, almost falling down and yet holding together to form a wall or what resembles a wall and all you have to do is mix some more and add, its the recipe for life in santa fe. we invite the broken, the imperfect, our eye turns it into beauty. when stucco gets old it takes on a patina, a coloring, and you can tell its age from the patching, the knitting and kneeding done to the walls over the years and it then takes on a beautiful aged rustic look, and it has the most wonderful round feminine corners. stucco is applied by hand with trowels and is very unique and individual, it takes on the signature of its applicator, and to me there's nothing more wonderful than a team of plaster men gliding the stucoo on walls like butter on bread, the trowel, the hand and stucco as one. a good plasterer can put it on faster than it can be mixed, and still be resting while waiting for the next batch. its a thing of beauty and i love to get a coffee and stand across the street watching a whole crew mixing, climbing, troweling the stuff on the walls, a giant moving creative dance of the grey stuff. plaster speaks to me, its earthy, rich and sensous, it's durable, and highly flexible, you can mold it into any shape you can imagine and it will last forever, each plaster artist adding his handprint as its applied over the years. that's its beauty, you can see the hand of the maker in it. jgk