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.

Tesuque Drive-In Theater with Mural Quincy Tahoma Painted

August 31, 2004

“History is documented with ‘personal recollections.’”

Mona Ortiz Stetina wrote that in an e-mail to Anne Cavanaugh at the Santa Fe New Mexican.

We had written an article for the New Mexican telling people a little bit about Quincy Tahoma and our project and asked for their help. Along with the article, we printed a picture loaned to us by Dan Fannell whose step father Jim Wilson was one of the many people who had befriended Tahoma. A drive-in movie had provided a giant canvas for one of Quincy’s favorite subjects—a horse being spooked by a skunk. We did not know the name of the drive-in, but had been told it stood on Cerillos Road in Santa Fe.

Anne Cavanaugh did some research and came up with Pueblo Drive-In. Well, plenty of people wrote and e-mailed the New Mexican to set us straight. The theater actually was located at Tesuque Pueblo. It was the Pueblo Drive In, but we had the wrong location. Unfortunately, this, the largest “canvas” ever painted by Tahoma eventually was torn down along with the drive-in. Later, a successor, also called Pueblo, was built on Cerillos Road. Our thanks to the many people, like Mona and Elivra Vigel Ogard and John Rodriquez and others who delved into their childhood memories to straighten us out on this bit of history. History indeed is documented with personal recollections.

Do you know someone with personal recollections of Tahoma?  We would love to share that information here. And if you like reading about Quincy Tahoma and the making of his biography, please share by clicking on the social networking buttons below.

©2012 Quincy Tahoma Blog. All Rights Reserved.