Taos - American Southwest - page 218

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Tips

A Tip for Museumgoers

If you'd like to visit five museums that make up the Museum Association of
Taos—Blumenschein Home, Martinez Hacienda, Harwood Museum, Millicent
Rogers Museum, and Taos Art Museum—you'll save money by purchasing a com-
bination ticket for $25. The ticket allows one-time entry to each museum during
a 1-year period and is fully transferable. You may purchase the pass at any of the
five museums. For more information, call & 575/758-0505.

beautiful Native American arts and crafts. Included are Navajo and Pueblo jewelry,
Navajo textiles, Pueblo pottery, Hopi and Zuni katsina (kachina) dolls, paintings from
the Rio Grande Pueblo people, and basketry from a wide variety of Southwestern tribes.
The museum also presents exhibitions of Southwestern art, crafts, and design.
Since the 1970s, the scope of the museum's permanent collection has been expanded
to include Anglo arts and crafts and Hispanic religious and secular arts and crafts, from
Spanish and Mexican colonial to contemporary times. Included are santos (religious
images), furniture, weavings, colcha embroideries, and decorative tinwork. Agricultural
implements, domestic utensils, and craftspeople's tools dating from the 17th and 18th
centuries are also displayed.
The museum gift shop has a fine collection of superior regional art. Classes, work-
shops, lectures, and field trips are held throughout the year. Plan to spend 1 to 2 hours
exploring the museum.
Off US 64, 4 miles north of Taos Plaza, on Millicent Rogers Rd. & 575/758-2462. www.millicentrogers.
org. Admission $10 adults, $8 students and seniors, $2 children 6-16, $18 family rate. Daily 10am-5pm.
Closed Mon Nov-Mar, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day.

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San Francisco de Asis church On NM 68, about 4 miles south of Taos, this
famous church appears as a modern adobe sculpture with no doors or windows, an image
that has often been photographed and painted, most notably by Ansel Adams and Geor-
gia O'Keeffe. Visitors must walk through the garden on the east side to enter the two-
story church and get a full perspective of its massive walls, authentic adobe plaster, and
beauty.
A video presentation is given in the church office every hour on the half-hour. Also,
displayed on the wall is an unusual painting, The Shadow of the Cross, by Henri Ault
(1896). Under ordinary light, it portrays a barefoot Christ, at the Sea of Galilee; in dark-
ness, however, the portrait becomes luminescent, and the perfect shadow of a cross forms
over the left shoulder of Jesus' silhouette. The artist reportedly was as shocked as everyone
else to see this. The reason for the illusion remains a mystery. A few crafts shops surround
the square. Plan to spend a half-hour to an hour exploring the church and shopping
here.
Ranchos de Taos Plaza. & 575/758-2754. Admission $3 for video and mystery painting. Mon-Sat 9am-
4pm. Visitors may attend Mass Mon-Fri 5pm, Sat 6pm (Mass rotates from this church to the 3 mission
chapels), Sun 7 (in Spanish), 9, and 11:30am. Closed to the public 1st 2 weeks in June, when repairs are
done (however services still take place).

Taos Art Museum Finds Set in the home of Russian artist Nicolai Fechin ( Feh -
shin), this collection displays works of the Taos Society of Artists, which give a sense of
what Taos was like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The works are rich and