Two museums, two parties, one night of fun. Grab the kids, don a costume, and head to the Santa Fe Plaza for a progressive Halloween party on Friday, October 30, at the Museum of Art and New Mexico History Museum. We’ll have music, treasure hunts, ghost stories, tarot cards and more. And it’s all free, from 5–8 pm, with full access to all of our exhibitions. The details:
The Museum of Art invites you to celebrate the Fall of Modernism with Halloween Modernist-style. Come in costume and dance to the music of Big Swing Theory in the St. Francis Auditorium. Tarot card readers will keep with the spirit of the day, and people dressed as dead artists and legends of New Mexico will make an appearance. Take the kids on a treasure hunt and participate in Katie May Be Morbid Card-Making.
The vibrancy of Santa Fe’s Modernist community attracted artists like John Sloan, Stuart Davis, and Georgia O’Keeffe. The artists pushed traditional images into personal expression. The time was the roaring 1920s, and Halloween parties were all the rage with themes such as "Animals" or "Famous People"—all with an Art Deco flair. Halloween in the 1930s was celebrated more by adults than by their children. Costumes were outlandish, and the parties would last all night. Many had lavish parties costing a small fortune.
Just across Lincoln Avenue, the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors invites you to party in the past. Prowl through the Telling New Mexico exhibition to discover people dressed as historical figures who can offer you clues to a family-friendly puzzle. Get a free Halloween mask of a historical New Mexico character to take home. At 6 pm, gather in the spooky Palace of the Governors to hear noted author and folklorist Nasario García tell traditional tales of ghosts, witches and bogeymen.
Growing up in New Mexico’s Rio Puerco Valley, García heard such stories while his family gathered around the potbelly stove on cold winter nights, at campfires during cattle roundups, or while working in the fields at his family’s ranch. His tales about different animals and people will send shivers up your spine while capturing the essence of New Mexican folklore. Witches disguised as small birds known as Coquimbo owls fly around the countryside in the deepest, darkest night. And if you should encounter Bruja Maruja, beware! The witch might want to make a deal with you.
Born in Bernalillo, García grew up in Ojo del Padre (Guadalupe), in the Río Puerco Valley southeast of Chaco Canyon. A distinguished scholar and author, he has published more than 80 works, including 25 books. Among them are Hoe, Heaven, and Hell: My Boyhood in Rural New Mexico; Fe y tragedias: Faith and Tragedies in Hispanic Villages of New Mexico; and Brujerías: Stories of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the Amerian Southwest and Beyond. Learn more about him here: http://www.nasariogarciaphd.com/index.html.
Download an image of Garcia by clicking on the link below.
