webmaster
03-26-2007, 07:20 AM
Historic Magdalena Gets Popular
with Artists, Physicists, Tech Buffs and Theater Lovers
Contributed by Ben Moffett (moffett@unm.edu) - Roving Reporter for Steppin' Out
Actress Jodie Foster might not realize it yet, but Magdalena, the wide spot in the road near where she made her big movie, Contact, is getting a little trendy.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/vla1.gif border=1 align=right alt="Very Large Array" hspace=3>An imposing two-page photo of the Very Large Array and an unrelated story about Magdalena's art community puts Highway 60 west squarely in the spotlight of the April 2007 issue of New Mexico Magazine, now on newstands.
The VLA photo by picture editor Steve Larese encompasses one of the giant antennas in the foreground and a string of antennas extending into a knobby horizon line under a clear blue sky. The photo was apparently just too big and too powerful to contain on a single page.
The folks at VLA need to think about miniaturizing their next generation antenna field if they want magazine covers instead of so-called "double truck" layouts.
The photo, on page 10-11, contains a three paragraph caption touting "Atomic Age to Space Age" tours available just 40 miles apart at the VLA and east on Highway 380 at Trinity Site, where the first atomic device was exploded July 16, 1945.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/mroimage.gif border=1 align=left alt="Magdalena Ridge Observatory" hspace=3>Both facilities are open Saturday, April 7. Web readers who want to make plans this year or the first Saturday of April and October in any year can log in for details at www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/ (http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/) for Trinity or www.wla.nrao.edu (http://www.wla.nrao.edu/) for VLA.
Naturally, the caption under the VLA photo mentions Jodie Foster and the 1997 movie she starred in.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/maggallery.jpg border=1 align=right alt="Magdalena Arts Gallery" hspace=3>When you're done with the VLA, flip over to page 20-21-22-23 and read the artscapes story by Johnny D. Boggs which is more complimentary to Magdalena, if possible, than was his story on Socorro in the October 2006 issue.
We suspect Boggs is getting ready to move to the area. He starts his piece by telling how several local residents including Vanessa A. Quiñones, Ilse Magener, Bill Strickler, Sara Creekmore and Harry Kroyer dropped by on their way to somewhere else and decided to plop down for a spell.
"Perhaps Magdalena used to be just a place to slow down while traveling along U.S. 60 west to the Very Large Array...", wrote Boggs, "...but today people find many reasons to stop -- or to stay."
Tagged for glory by Boggs is the London Frontier Theatre Company and its original scripts, the Creative Connection, the glass art of Sara Creekmore and partner David Durham, Strickler's wildlife wood carvings, Magdalena Arts Council president Kroyer's woodwork creations, and a whole lot more.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Harry_Vanessa.jpg border=1 align=left alt="Harry Kroyer working wood (L) - Vanessa Quiñones making jewelry (R)" hspace=3>"We have a saying that you can't walk down the street without tripping over an artist, ranger or physicist here," Quiñones told Boggs.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/catbrysch3.jpg border=1 align=right alt="Fabrics by weaver Cat Brysch" hspace=3>Boggs quotes High Flying Art Festival founder Cat Brysch, a weaver, as saying "our goal is to create a high-quality venue for artists, local and otherwise. It's coordinated with the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache, but it's not just for nature art."
What makes the story particularly worthwhile as advertising for the Magdalena arts community is the five pictures that go with it. One is a collection of Creekmore's fused glass bowls. There is also a Strickler eagle carving, one of Magener's decorated eggs, a Brysch spinning demonstration, and a photo of the 1915 Santa Fe Railroad's Standard Frame Depot No. 3, which now serves as the village hall and library.
Boggs is an award-winning Western novelist based in Santa Fe. For inspiration, perhaps it's time he fled Santa Fe faux, and settled in with the Quiñones, the Cat Bryschloos, et al in a town with a real western flavor, complete with a historic stockyard, railhead and a respected and a much loved local theater company whose reputation for putting on great shows extends far outside Magdalena to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and beyond.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/lftc4.jpg border=1 align=left alt="London Frontier Theatre Performance" hspace=3><img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/lftc6.gif border=1 align=right alt="London Frontier Theatre" hspace=3>In another publication I wrote that Magdalena's London Frontier Theatre Company doesn't send off to Italy for scripts as the Santa Fe Opera does, but I was wrong. Director Donna Todd reminded me that, in a manner of speaking, they did "send off to Italy for a script" in one production, Stagecoach to Decameron, an adaptation of five of Boccaccio's 14th-century Italian Decameron tales; but as a general rule Ms Todd writes original scripts for the company to perform. Her plays tend to be humorous dramas about what life was like in New Mexico in the 1920's and 30's - the years before and during the depression. They tell stories about folks who lived in a small New Mexico village during the early 20th century.
Strictly speaking, Ms Todd's plays address more modern issues than traditional Westerns - deftly handling matters of life and death, of poverty, community and social class and of folks taking care of one another as they did in small towns throughout New Mexico a century ago. Yet Todd does it in a way that makes the subjects and situations involved seem humorous.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/lftc1.jpg border=1 align=right alt="London Frontier Theatre Performance" hspace=3>There are video clips from several of Todd's plays in a pair of Steppin' Out video galleries at www.sonewmex.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/509 (http://sonewmex.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/509). One represents a grandpa and his grandson working together in the family garden as the boy tries to find a way to tell his pacifist granddad that he signed up to join the army during World War 1. The scene features both humor and pathos and speaks well of Todd's playwriting skills.
Another clip in the same gallery features an Aunt and her niece arguing while touring New Mexico over whether the niece should let her Aunt -- who has never driven - take the wheel and drive. In the end "Auntie" insists on driving but ends up trying to outrun the sheriff. The clip highlights Todd's extraordinary skill at taking serious subjects and addressing them in funny ways.
There's little wonder fans of Magdalena's theater come from as far away as Santa Fe to enjoy the troupe's productions. It seems likely even Jody Foster would get a kick out of their performances.
That reminds me the London Frontier Theater will be hosting a new play -- the 12th installment in their Lost Wife Creek series -- on Friday and Saturday March 30-31 and Sunday April 1 with finale performances on April 7 and 8. I plan to attend one of those performances on the weekend of the 7th and see for myself what a "20th Century western" is all about. For ticket info and other details, visit www.LondonFrontierTheatre.com (http://www.londonfrontiertheatre.com/)
(Contact Ben Moffett at moffett@unm.edu (moffett@unm.edu)).
with Artists, Physicists, Tech Buffs and Theater Lovers
Contributed by Ben Moffett (moffett@unm.edu) - Roving Reporter for Steppin' Out
Actress Jodie Foster might not realize it yet, but Magdalena, the wide spot in the road near where she made her big movie, Contact, is getting a little trendy.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/vla1.gif border=1 align=right alt="Very Large Array" hspace=3>An imposing two-page photo of the Very Large Array and an unrelated story about Magdalena's art community puts Highway 60 west squarely in the spotlight of the April 2007 issue of New Mexico Magazine, now on newstands.
The VLA photo by picture editor Steve Larese encompasses one of the giant antennas in the foreground and a string of antennas extending into a knobby horizon line under a clear blue sky. The photo was apparently just too big and too powerful to contain on a single page.
The folks at VLA need to think about miniaturizing their next generation antenna field if they want magazine covers instead of so-called "double truck" layouts.
The photo, on page 10-11, contains a three paragraph caption touting "Atomic Age to Space Age" tours available just 40 miles apart at the VLA and east on Highway 380 at Trinity Site, where the first atomic device was exploded July 16, 1945.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/mroimage.gif border=1 align=left alt="Magdalena Ridge Observatory" hspace=3>Both facilities are open Saturday, April 7. Web readers who want to make plans this year or the first Saturday of April and October in any year can log in for details at www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/ (http://www.wsmr.army.mil/pao/) for Trinity or www.wla.nrao.edu (http://www.wla.nrao.edu/) for VLA.
Naturally, the caption under the VLA photo mentions Jodie Foster and the 1997 movie she starred in.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/maggallery.jpg border=1 align=right alt="Magdalena Arts Gallery" hspace=3>When you're done with the VLA, flip over to page 20-21-22-23 and read the artscapes story by Johnny D. Boggs which is more complimentary to Magdalena, if possible, than was his story on Socorro in the October 2006 issue.
We suspect Boggs is getting ready to move to the area. He starts his piece by telling how several local residents including Vanessa A. Quiñones, Ilse Magener, Bill Strickler, Sara Creekmore and Harry Kroyer dropped by on their way to somewhere else and decided to plop down for a spell.
"Perhaps Magdalena used to be just a place to slow down while traveling along U.S. 60 west to the Very Large Array...", wrote Boggs, "...but today people find many reasons to stop -- or to stay."
Tagged for glory by Boggs is the London Frontier Theatre Company and its original scripts, the Creative Connection, the glass art of Sara Creekmore and partner David Durham, Strickler's wildlife wood carvings, Magdalena Arts Council president Kroyer's woodwork creations, and a whole lot more.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/Harry_Vanessa.jpg border=1 align=left alt="Harry Kroyer working wood (L) - Vanessa Quiñones making jewelry (R)" hspace=3>"We have a saying that you can't walk down the street without tripping over an artist, ranger or physicist here," Quiñones told Boggs.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/catbrysch3.jpg border=1 align=right alt="Fabrics by weaver Cat Brysch" hspace=3>Boggs quotes High Flying Art Festival founder Cat Brysch, a weaver, as saying "our goal is to create a high-quality venue for artists, local and otherwise. It's coordinated with the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache, but it's not just for nature art."
What makes the story particularly worthwhile as advertising for the Magdalena arts community is the five pictures that go with it. One is a collection of Creekmore's fused glass bowls. There is also a Strickler eagle carving, one of Magener's decorated eggs, a Brysch spinning demonstration, and a photo of the 1915 Santa Fe Railroad's Standard Frame Depot No. 3, which now serves as the village hall and library.
Boggs is an award-winning Western novelist based in Santa Fe. For inspiration, perhaps it's time he fled Santa Fe faux, and settled in with the Quiñones, the Cat Bryschloos, et al in a town with a real western flavor, complete with a historic stockyard, railhead and a respected and a much loved local theater company whose reputation for putting on great shows extends far outside Magdalena to Albuquerque, Santa Fe and beyond.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/lftc4.jpg border=1 align=left alt="London Frontier Theatre Performance" hspace=3><img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/lftc6.gif border=1 align=right alt="London Frontier Theatre" hspace=3>In another publication I wrote that Magdalena's London Frontier Theatre Company doesn't send off to Italy for scripts as the Santa Fe Opera does, but I was wrong. Director Donna Todd reminded me that, in a manner of speaking, they did "send off to Italy for a script" in one production, Stagecoach to Decameron, an adaptation of five of Boccaccio's 14th-century Italian Decameron tales; but as a general rule Ms Todd writes original scripts for the company to perform. Her plays tend to be humorous dramas about what life was like in New Mexico in the 1920's and 30's - the years before and during the depression. They tell stories about folks who lived in a small New Mexico village during the early 20th century.
Strictly speaking, Ms Todd's plays address more modern issues than traditional Westerns - deftly handling matters of life and death, of poverty, community and social class and of folks taking care of one another as they did in small towns throughout New Mexico a century ago. Yet Todd does it in a way that makes the subjects and situations involved seem humorous.
<img src=http://sonewmex.com/images/lftc1.jpg border=1 align=right alt="London Frontier Theatre Performance" hspace=3>There are video clips from several of Todd's plays in a pair of Steppin' Out video galleries at www.sonewmex.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/509 (http://sonewmex.com/pp-514/showgallery.php/cat/509). One represents a grandpa and his grandson working together in the family garden as the boy tries to find a way to tell his pacifist granddad that he signed up to join the army during World War 1. The scene features both humor and pathos and speaks well of Todd's playwriting skills.
Another clip in the same gallery features an Aunt and her niece arguing while touring New Mexico over whether the niece should let her Aunt -- who has never driven - take the wheel and drive. In the end "Auntie" insists on driving but ends up trying to outrun the sheriff. The clip highlights Todd's extraordinary skill at taking serious subjects and addressing them in funny ways.
There's little wonder fans of Magdalena's theater come from as far away as Santa Fe to enjoy the troupe's productions. It seems likely even Jody Foster would get a kick out of their performances.
That reminds me the London Frontier Theater will be hosting a new play -- the 12th installment in their Lost Wife Creek series -- on Friday and Saturday March 30-31 and Sunday April 1 with finale performances on April 7 and 8. I plan to attend one of those performances on the weekend of the 7th and see for myself what a "20th Century western" is all about. For ticket info and other details, visit www.LondonFrontierTheatre.com (http://www.londonfrontiertheatre.com/)
(Contact Ben Moffett at moffett@unm.edu (moffett@unm.edu)).