New Mexico Mercury

Insight New Mexico - Sherri Brueggemann

V.B. Price talks with Sherri Brueggemann, who heads Albuquerque's renowned Public Art Program, about the city's collection, the philosophy behind it and where its headed.

Weekly Poem: Sea In My Palm

Sitting on the train,
clickidy-clack, clickidy-clack, clickidy-clack,
hour after hour, after hour,
towns slip further and further away
as the ocean rises to greet us.

I watch the waves grasp the coastline,
spew white fingers of foam over tops of stone,
and I am pulled from my green coach chair...

Provincial Matters, 1-13-2014

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

El Machete - Climate Change

Climate Change

¡COLORES! January 10, 2014

Designer Alexander Girard created a mural of over 5000 pieces celebrating all faiths...

¡COLORES! - January 3, 2014

New Mexico photographer Jamey Stillings shares his vision for the construction of the largest solar thermal power plant in the world, Ivanpah Solar...

Acequia Booksellers Closing After Ten Years

Books define my life.  As a writer I read copiously and love to shop for books to read or add to my research library.  As a book artist some of my works focus on castoff books I alter into art.  That is, I take a worthless textbook and transform it into a book sculpture.  Altered Books is a popular new art genre.  This year a few of my artist books have been exhibited at the University of South Dakota, University of Puget Sound and in a Book Arts Show at the New Mexico State Capitol rotunda gallery in Santa Fe...

One Year ago—jots what?

One Year ago—jots what?
God—spell the word! I—can't—
Was't Grace? Not that—
Was't Glory? That—will do—
Spell slower—Glory—

Such Anniversary shall be—
Sometimes—not often—in Eternity—
When farther Parted, than the Common Woe—
Look—feed upon each other's faces—so—
In doubtful meal, if it be possible
Their Banquet's true—

Disney’s Façade in Saving Mr. Banks

Having grown up in Orlando, Florida, I had the sort of close relationship with Disney that allows the perfectly executed fantasy to be slowly chipped away.  The Victorian houses on Main Street, USA, reveal themselves as empty, one-sided plaster. The waving characters of your childhood eventually become your fellow college students, sweating off last night’s binge drinking under a costume in Florida’s 100% humidity.  The happy families are desperate, like ours, to make the Disney experience worth the savings and idealism spent on it...

Nicolas Poussin’s “The Holy Family”

In a discovery by art critic William Peterson, the Baroque master becomes a participant in the "renewal of the world."