Compañeros Member Spotlight: Melissa Eason
Founding Compañeros members Melissa Eason (right) and Gloria Zamora admire work recently acquired by NMHA at the Compañeros launch event.
How did you first get involved with NMHA?
I think this is a typical Santa Fe story - you meet new people, hit it off, and get involved in things you weren’t even thinking of. By chance during a tour of Picuris Pueblo a few years ago, I met Kathy Nelson, a long-time SCAS volunteer and expert on our archives, who ended up suggesting I get involved with the museum. Probably as a consequence, I soon after attended an event here and met Edward Fernandez Vila, also a long-time volunteer, who invited me to start helping him with the work he was doing in the library. Since then, I’ve so enjoyed being involved with our beautiful library. It’s really an amazing collection of resources, for scholars of art, architecture, and history, but also for people who just like to look at beautiful books.
Do you have a favorite category of Spanish Colonial / Nuevo Mexicano art? A favorite artist?
A hard question. As much as I love tinwork and colcha and retablos and bultos, my favorite Nuevo Mexicano art forms are straw appliqué and hand carved furniture. After Paula and Eliseo Rodriguez, who revived the straw appliqué art form in the 1930s under the WPA, my favorite artist is Diana Moya Lujan. She has a beautiful sense of balance and nuance and her work shows such a wonderful combination of imagination and devotion to tradition. I enjoy all of the straw appliqué artists but Diana is my favorite.
My favorite furniture maker is Andrew Garcia, who makes wood furniture masterpieces. Andrew starts with ponderosa pine logs, mills his own lumber, and carves every inch of his pieces so the wood is entirely decorated and then he uses a couple of different colors of natural stains and varnishes. The result is warm and rich and beautiful with surfaces that look almost like leather on some of his pieces. He uses traditional designs in the decorative carving which also adds warmth and richness to his pieces.
What motivates you to support NMHA as a Compañero?
That’s Compañera. The NMHA is a unique and varied collection in a beautiful, historic house. The subject matter isn’t just beautiful, it is historically, and currently, significant and fascinating. Learning about New Mexico history and traditional arts is an enlightening experience. The museum is a window on a part of American history and culture little known or understood in most of the rest of the country and more people should know more about it. I like to try to help make that happen in whatever way I can.
If you could propose any excursion for the Compañeros to go on, what might it be?
I’d love to see more artist studio visits--Felix López, Diana Moya Lujan, Jean Moya . . . or a two for one would be a visit to Andrew and Lorrie Garcia’s place in Peñasco. Lorrie is an amazing santera who makes lovely bultos and Andrew is the BEST furniture carver. He mills his own lumber and has big ponderosa logs lying in the yard.