“The Sacred Site” aka the Broken Wagon Wheel Story (The Taos Society of Artists, part 1 of 6)
“It is high time for (the) artists to come to
the Southwest”. Charles Lummis, ‘The Artists Paradise’
“The story of the founding of the Taos Art Colony
is the chronicle of youthful enthusiasm, of the love of adventure of discovery.
It is also the story of enduring friendships.”
Ernest Leonard Blumenschein
An art colony in Taos was the last thing any of
the artists visiting and passing through Taos were expecting of their trips
here. In the late 1800’s art colonies began springing up in the eastern US,
with the first recorded stateside colony a plein air painting school in
Magnolia, Massachusetts begun by William Morris Hunt in 1877.
It’s noted that Joseph Henry Sharp was first to
visit Taos in 1893, he had come to New Mexico on a trip through Santa Fe
in 1883, (it could take as many as 3 days to journey the 75 miles from Santa Fe
to Taos at this time, thus he did not visit until later). During his studies in
Paris he met other artists from the States, he’d tell them all about the little
mountain town in the remote far north of New Mexico alongside the village of
Taos Pueblo. Sharp, it could be said, was Taos’ first true one man marketing
service, with his illustrations and paintings of this charming place he
convinced others that Taos had (has) much to offer. Sharp and the other Taos Founders were very, very good marketers and market Taos they indeed did.
Joseph Sharp in his Taos Studio
A side note to the founders story, in 1895
Frederic Remington is known to have had a studio for a short time in Taos
Plaza. Remington not being an insignificant artist of the old west I believe
his being in Taos at the end of the 19th century is an important
sidebar.*
The classic story of how Ernest L. Blumenschein (at
24 years old) and Bert Geer Phillips (at 30 years old) discovered (or wound up
in) Taos has been oft told. Blumie was known to tell the tale over and over
through the years with very little variation of the story. In a court of law
he’d have made an ideal witness.
Phillips and Blumenschein studied in Paris
together, later sharing a studio in New York. In 1898 they journey to the
American Southwest, beginning in Denver where they purchase a wagon and gear
along with a few horses. Some of the gear they had purchased the previous year in
New York which had been raffled off by stranded members of the Buffalo Bill
Wild West Show. Once determined to journey west Bert’s father remarked:
“Geronimo is on the warpath. You will lose your scalp!”
Normally the story told is that the artists were
on an illustrating trip from Colorado to Mexico sent on assignment by magazine
editors, they actually came to paint. Artists are often encouraged to be
illustrators in order to ‘make a living’ (in Phillips case his father had tried
in vain to persuade him to become an architect). A few years previous a trip by
Blumenschein was indeed to illustrate the west of Arizona and New Mexico for
magazine stories. Sharp too, had been to the west and Taos to illustrate
stories for newspapers and magazines.
Blumenschein illustration for Harpers magazine of Taos Pueblo San Geronimo Feast Day
At the end of May 1898 they began a journey from
Denver into the Rocky Mountains, each a tenderfoot with no idea how to ride a
horse or hitch it to a wagon, they became quick studies in the art of
pioneering. Even to the bandit groups they encountered along the way the pair looked too much
like travelling vagabonds to be robbed.
Blumy on Horseback, Bert driving the Wagon
Wagon roads were bad, heavy monsoon rains of
summer had washed out the dirt trails, at one point a wagon spring broke along
with other mishaps, the trip included many stops at local blacksmith shops wherever and whenever they could find one. Just north of Taos a wheel spoke broke on a mountain pass,
exhausted they decided with the flip of a ($3. gold, Phillips keepsake from his father) coin, which one of them
would ride into the village of Taos to have the wheel fixed. It was now
September 3, 1898 when Blumenschein who lost the coin toss was on his way
carrying the cumbersome wheel, shifting it in any and every position, in his
lap, along side the horse and so on.
Blumenschein giving the horse a rest on the way to Taos
Arriving into Taos on the 4th at
the local blacksmith shop in Taos Plaza, the wheel was gratefully fixed and
brought back up the mountain on September 5 to where Phillips waited.
The Old Bill Hinde Blacksmith Shop
The exact location of
the Blacksmith shop is at the North side of Taos Plaza on the eastern corner,
marked by an iron horse-head hitching post.
Blacksmith Shop location in Taos today.
Soon after (September 5 or 6), they
together arrived in Taos. Upon their arrival they attempted to camp out at Taos
Pueblo where they were quickly discouraged from doing so. Instead they decided to
sell the wagon, horses and its outfit, then to rent a studio where they would paint
through the Autumn months. At this time there were no other artists in Taos,
yet there were tourist visitors from other parts of the country.
Soon they were invited to visit Taos Pueblo for
the annual San Geronimo Feast Day held on September (29 &) 30. To some
accounts witnessing the ceremony at Taos Pueblo had entranced Phillips,
convincing him to stay and settle in Taos. If this weren’t enough, another
enticement occurred, at a party on October 19 at Doc Martin’s home, there
Phillips met the sister of the beloved doctor, Rose Martin, visiting her
brother from Pennsylvania. Before the onset of Winter, Rose became Bert’s manager
and encouraged Phillips to begin teaching art classes in Taos.
Due to prior commitments back in New York,
Blumy left, bringing with him some of the paintings completed by Phillips. In Chicago
he showed the paintings to gallerists M. O’Brien (O’Brian) and Son who purchased
the entire group, beginning a much needed gallery relationship for the artist.
Phillips decided to remain in Taos, falling in
love with the beauty he found here all around him, the golden yellow aspens of
autumn, the winter white and shaggy animals of crisp winter days and nights by
the fire, the blooming of the wild flowers of the mountains and valley each
spring, and of course the beautiful Rose Martin, whom he married a year later
on October 11, 1899.
The Trailhead in the Taos mountains to the 'sacred site'
The artists engaged the people of Taos Pueblo
although skeptical and fascinated, they agreed to pose for paintings. It was
Phillips who impressed them the most with his very fast running skills, he was
challenged to foot races, time and time again outrunning each of the fastest of
the Pueblo runners.
Most of the early founders of the Taos art
colony lived and painted in Taos during the summers, in winter season they
spread out across the country to homes in Chicago, New York, California and St.
Louis among other places. Phillips was the first of the art colony to become a
permanent resident. The Phillips home still stands today directly across from the Taos
Inn, it has been split up to contain four shops from the corner of Bent Street
to the corner of Martyr’s Lane.
The Phillips House in Taos today.
Through a few photographs taken by Blumy and
Bert at the site of the Wagon breaking down, we are able to locate what we refer
to today as the ‘sacred site’. An almost long forgotten place where two artists
stopped and pondered the potential of creating art in these magical mountains.
The old wagon road and rock north of Taos today
As for the location today it can be found near
the Lama colony, north of Taos near the D.H. Lawrence Kiowa Ranch. The trailhead
and trail are not marked and are quite rough, (especially the start) with a bit
of scrambling the old road eventually reveals itself. The ‘sacred site’, is shown
to be by a boulder in the foreground and mountain range in the distance lining
up with the historic photographs. Walking through the overhanging tree branches
up to the rock is akin to seeing Plymouth Rock at the Massachusetts coastline. It
took a group of 10 historians 4 years to re-locate this site, some of whom no
longer reside in Taos.
The "Plymouth Rock" of Taos today with 1898 image
I am honored and fortunate to know the location, which
was shared with me recently, after 10 years of earning my dues and waiting for
the right moment to be taken there (patience and timing in Taos is everything).
Thus began a unique magnetic draw to Taos, or as
D.H. Lawrence later put it: “The peculiar ‘otherness’ of Taos.”
In 1898 a broken wagon wheel becomes the beginning of the historic Taos Art Colony
* The 1895 date for Remington being in Taos may or may not be correct, this is also the year he becomes actively involved in sculpture, and is quite busy, yet this is the best date I have found.