Art Palaver On The Road: Taos New Mexico
April 21st, 2008 Daryle Dickens
I am writing this post in the solarium of the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos New Mexico. The solarium is a square glass walled room that sits atop this historic property. The stairs up to this room are steep, narrow, and have very little headroom. To get to the stairway we have to pass though the inn keeper’s office. And one more touch of quirkiness is the fact that the room does not lock, we were just given a key to the front door. And when we checked in the inn keeper told us the room is “magical.” It is probably the most unique room I have ever stayed in. And the history of the house that it sits atop just adds to its uniqueness.
Back in 1918 Mabel Dodge Luhan bought a 4 room adobe for $1500. She then set out renovating and expanding the structure in order to make room for house guests. Guests such as Georgia O’Keeffe, D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, Martha Graham and Carl Jung just to name a few.
Mabel wrote in a letter to friend that she wanted her home to be a retreat for “movers and shakers of the earth. Scientists, artists, statesmen, creators, promoters of values and changers of the world.”
Supposedly the house and grounds have not changed that much since those days. So as I sit up here and look around I can’t help but imagine what it would have been like to be here when those minds walked between these walls. The one I would most like to sit down and have a palaver with is Carl Jung. In the past I have read some of Jung’s writing and it opened doors in my mind that I did not know I had.
And one last unique fact about this place. In the 70s it was owned by Dennis Hopper. He edited Easy Rider here and had friends like Bob Dylan, Alan Watts and George McGovern stay here. That would have also been an interesting time to be here as well.
These days it is an inn and convention center as well as offering artist workshops of all kinds. While checking in I spotted fliers for a writer’s workshop taught by Natalie Goldberg.
It is my hope that these great creative minds and thinkers that have passed through here left something of themselves behind. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to pick up that something and add it to my own creative life.
More from Taos to be posted soon,
Posted in Art History | No Comments »
