I have been reading a fascinating book about the life and business of Fred Harvey, who helped the Santa Fe railroad draw tourists to the western United States in the early twentieth century, and played a role in creating a market for American Indian art.  I plan to write a little more about that later, but first I thought I would ponder the effect of train travel on Tahoma’s life.

During our research for Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist, the first indication that we got of how important train travel was in the early years of Tahoma’s life, came in those valuable school records that the archivist at the National Archives office in Denver sent to us.

Railroad Station at Flagstaff today

There on the printed form for students, along with details like mother and father, birthdate, previous school attended, etc., we saw a line to fill in the “Nearest railroad station”.  Now that’s a detail you will not find on school forms nowadays! Not only that, but Tahoma, who lived in northern Arizona near Tuba City, had to travel slightly more than 77 miles from his home to his “nearest” railroad station in Flagstaff, Arizona–a journey of an hour and a half by car. However, his family did not have a car–they traveled by wagon. So getting TO the railroad station took almost as long as getting from there to Albuquerque on the train.

Lamy Station today

The next interesting thing we learned was that there was no railroad station in Santa Fe. Instead, the train stopped at the tiny community of Lamy, New Mexico. So when Tahoma was switched to the Santa Fe Indian School, he traveled 15 miles by bus from Lamy to get in to Santa Fe.

Yet, for the Navajos and pueblo Indians living in the remote stretches of northern Arizona and New Mexico, rail travel certainly was faster, more convenient, and easier (if more expensive) than traveling by horse and buggy.

We know that the Navajo artist traveled to Flagstaff from Santa Fe for a July 4 PowWow in the 1940′s, and he probably made that trip more than once.  He also could have used the train to get to Gallup for the All-Indian Ceremonial. We also know that he took the train home to see his adoptive family, the Saganitso’s at least one time, and they drove into Flagstaff from Tuba City in their horse-drawn wagon to pick him up.

Santa Fe railroad locomotive

The trains were drawn by steam engines and had tablecloth-service in the dining cars, provided by Fred Harvey.  Harvey’s empire also included restaurants along the way like the one at the beautiful La Posada hotel in Winslow, opened in 1929,(Corrected date)  and recently restored. Tahoma, who was perennially broke, may never have had the opportunity to eat at one of the Fred Harvey establishments, but it is interesting to consider him riding the train from Santa Fe and Albuquerque, through Gallup.

La Posada Hotel in Winslow, photo by Vera Marie

I can picture him gazing out at the stark beauty of the painted desert near Winslow as the train chugged to Flagstaff.

Painted Desert

Or gazing up at the Navajo’s sacred mountains of the West–the San Francisco peaks.

San Francisco peaks, Flagstaff

Train travel is not what it used to be. Have you traveled in the west on trains? What is the most memorable image in your mind from that trip?

Photos of the Flagstaff railroad station and La Posada Hotel are by Vera Marie, the others are from Flickr, used by Creative Commons License. Please click on those photos to learn more about the photographers and see more of their work.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

TUCSON

Donna Hull and her newly purchased book about the Navajo artist, Quincy Tahoma. Tohono Chul Tea Room, Tucson

BOOKWORKS, ALBUQUERQUE

Signing a book for Alana McGrath, former librarian at Santa Fe Indian School, who helped with our research into Tahoma's school days.

Bill Douglas of Albuquerque shows Vera the page in the book with his Tahoma painting of a primitive man, done for a special exhibition at the Laboratory of Anthropology in 1944.

Smiling at Mark Rosacker, volunteer researcher on the book, who did not get in the picture because he was behind the camera.

SINGING WINDS Table at Arizona History Convention, YUMA, AZ

Tahoma biography at Singing Winds table, Arizona History Convention

Vera and Kappa Delta sister Elizabeth Ruffner of Prescott AZ at AZ History Convention celebrate Hózhó

In Albuquerque, I was delighted to meet Suzy and Pete who own a Tahoma painting, that we previously did not know about.  They promised to send us a digital image.  This is one of the huge benefits of doing a book tour. We will continue to learn new things about Tahoma and his work. And we will share with you as we go.

Next up:

May 7, Western Parks Association, Tucson, noon and 2:00 p.m. Must call 520-622-6104 for reservation!

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque

I’ll be heading to Albuquerque later this week in order to speak at the BookWorks book store about Quincy Tahoma’s life and art.  I’m delighted that David Brugge, who wrote the foreword to Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist will be appearing with me. David will be available to answer questions from the audience about his acquaintanceship with Tahoma at Ayani in Old Town Albuquerque in 1951.

Jim Wilson at Ayani Traders, under the buffalo sign Quincy Tahoma painted, Albuquerque, 1951, Courtesy of Dan Fannell

Since the talk is in Albuquerque, I’ll be talking perhaps a little more than usual about Tahoma’s short stay in Albuquerque with Jim Wilson and David Brugge. Along with other paintings by Tahoma, I’ll show slides of the ledger that Tahoma decorated with a buffalo head. I also have a page out of the ledger that enumerates several paintings purchased by E.R. Porter, the nature photographer who first met Tahoma at Ayani, and remained friends with him through the rest of Quincy’s short life.

Ledger Page, courtesy of Mark Rosacker

We have only been able to trace a few of the paintings listed in the Ayani ledger, but I will show a photograph that Charnell took of David’ Brugge’s “Buffalo Hunt,” which is marked in the ledger as NFS. So if you know of any paintings by Tahoma dated 1951, be sure to let us know, because they might be listed in that ledger, along with the name of the original purchaser.

We only know of three other specific times that Tahoma’s life path took him to Albuquerque, but they were all important markers in his life. He spent one year in the Albuquerque Indian School in 1929.  On New Year’s Eve 1947, he went to Albuquerque with a young girl and their partying got him in the most serious trouble of his life.  In October, 1956, he won the Indian watercolor painting competition at the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque, and attended the fair with Eppie Montoya’s family, just days before his death.

It is a wonderful time to be in Albuquerque, because it is American Indian Week at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and next weekend the city hosts The Gathering of Nations, the largest Indian PowWow in the country.  I know I will be frustrated that I cannot stay longer, but at least I hope to visit the Cultural Center and see a Navajo dance while I am there.

If you are going to be in Albuquerque for American Indian Week, I hope you’ll come by BookWorks Book Store at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 28 to say ‘hello’ and see the slides of Tahoma paintings that I will be showing.

Is there an Indian PowWow or fair in the place where you live? Have you attended PowWows before? Tell us about the most interesting things you have seen.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

1951, Jim Wilson at Ayani Traders in Old Town Albuquerque, Courtesy of Dan Fannell

The two young men who had been roaming through the southwest and Mexico collecting crafts and artifacts got to the point where they had accumulated more than they could handle. Although they had traded, like ancient American Indians, feathers for beads, baskets for turquoise, they still had enough to start a store. So they opened Ayani in old town Albuquerque.

San Felipe de Neri Church anchored Old Town from its beginning in the 1793. The Spanish El Camino Real connected Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but that old oad had been eclipsed by the early 1950′s by Route 66.  The “Mother Road”brought  carloads of tourists to Albuquerque and most of them were interested in seeing “real Indians” and buying Indian arts and crafts. Old town thrived as a picturesque home of gift stores and restaurants.

Skull, detail from "Buffalo Hunt" (1949), Courtesy of Placido Ortiz

On a trip to Santa Fe, Wilson met the Navajo artist, Quincy Tahoma.  Tahoma wanted to study a cow’s skull for inclusion in one of his paintings, and Wilson just happened to have one. You can see that skull show up in several of Tahoma’s paintings.

On one of his visits, Wilson found a distraught Tahoma. According to the story that Wilson later told David Brugge, Tahoma was badly frightened. The artist said that he had been partying (drinking) with friends one night and when he woke the next morning, he found blood on the skull.  He had no recollection of the night before and did not know how the blood got there. It frightened him.

Wilson invited Tahoma to come to Albuquerque to live. There, he said, Tahoma would be able to spend his time painting, away from the bad influence of friends who enticed him to drink too much. We can imagine Tahoma asking where he would sell his paintings, since that was always his number one concern. He had established a market and customers in Santa Fe.  Wilson no doubt  promised that he could sell all the paintings that Tahoma produced at the little Ayani shop.

When Tahoma arrived in Albuquerque, he was amused at the crude sign hanging over the door.  David Brugge, admittedly not an artist or sign painter, had fashioned a rough Ayani sign.  So Tahoma went to work and produced a new sign for the store.

Installed in a small apartment which the shop owners paid for, Tahoma was extremely productive. He entered the names of completed paintings in the ledger himself. The still existing ledger shows us where customers came from (entered by the shop owners) and the prices for the paintings.

Ayani Ledger

The first page is a neat list of his paintings and their prices. As the owners add the names and address of buyers, the pages get more crowded. Finally, we learn from the ledger that Tahoma took some of his paintings to Scottsdale.

David Brugge told us that Tahoma had soon begun to drink again, and neighboring store owners in Old Town Albuquerque complained to Wilson and Brugge that he was annoying them. Wilson prevailed upon artist Pop Chalee to invite her friend Tahoma to Scottsdale, and that move began a new adventure in his life.

You will read more details about Tahoma’s stay in Albuquerque in Quincy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist. The book will be available approximately mid-April. Do you want to be one of the first to read the story of Tahoma’s life and see a collection of his beautiful art? Contact us to get on the preorder list. Just send us a message.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Several people recommended that we talk to David Brugge, who, they said, knew more about Navajo genealogy than anybody. David lives in Albuquerque, and although he is retired, he still continues his scholarly study and makes presentations to professional bodies. I was going to Albuquerque, so I contacted David and we got together for lunch. We sat on a bench waiting to be seated at a crowded Mexican restaurant, and I wondered where to start on my long list of questions about Navajo relationships and genealogy.

David casually said, “When I knew Tahoma…” and I did not hear the rest of the sentence. He personally knew Tahoma. At that point, the only person we had talked to who personally knew Tahoma was Harrison Begay. Our reliance on David quickly grew from mining his academic knowledge to drinking in the personal recollections that he could add to our story.

Throughout the process of researching the book, I consulted frequently with David, visiting him every time I went to Albuquerque. We sampled the best East Indian restaurant, the best Mexican, Pueblo Indian at the Pueblo Cultural Center and the neighborhood Chinese along the way. He corrected our errors in explaining Navajo culture and Navajo history, and he told us the story of two young men who tried to help the artist as they were starting a gallery in Albuquerque’s Old Town, a story which I will return to later.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.