Ousted artists to defend themselves.
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For Glenn Paquin and Merton Sisneros, April 25 will be a day of reckoning.
That's when the two Indian vendors from the portal of the Palace of the Governors Museum will explain their side of things at the annual meeting of the portal vendors.
A program of the museum, overseen by a committee of elected vendors, the portal has long been a crucial cultural draw to Santa Fe. But relations grew tense after Paquin and Sisneros were removed as committee chairman and vice chairman by Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman on Jan. 19. Paquin's son, Bruce, also was removed from the committee. SFR first broke the news of the conflict in a Feb. 22 Cover Story,
Since then, both daily papers have covered the story.
Ashman says a litany of complaints, coupled with a petition signed by more than 200 portal vendors, was ample reason to take action.
Paquin and Sisneros deny all charges and say Ashman and museum director Frances Levine were not authorized to remove them because they were elected by the vendors.
"This is our chance to discuss everything with the artists themselves," Sisneros says of the forthcoming meeting (8 am, St. Francis Auditorium of the Museum of Fine Arts). "We're above individual attacks. But our families are feeling the effects of what's happened. And our work has suffered. All we've ever wanted was due process."
Paquin says he plans to present a comprehensive "narrative" that will refute each and every charge levied against them.
Ashman maintains the museum acted appropriately.
"We're not denying them any way of making a living, we just removed them from the administrative function that they were supposed to be performing and were not," Ashman says.
Ashman also says since Paquin and Sisneros were removed, he's received, and not acted upon, requests asking for their removal from the program altogether.
Depending on the outcome, both Paquin and Sisneros say they're prepared to go to court to retain their committee positions and have consulted with local attorney Michael P Gross.
Gross represented Indian vendors in a famed lawsuit during the late 1970s when an Anglo couple from New York sued over their right to sell jewelry on the portal. The vendors, with Gross as their lawyer, teamed up with the museum as defendants and prevailed. This time, Gross says, the museum has overstepped its bounds. He says because the portal program operates as an employee workplace, vendors should be afforded rights to collective bargaining and due process.
"If they don't work out a solution for the foreseeable future in a decent and respectful matter, then the whole program will be threatened," Gross says. "I respect Stuart Ashman, and he's greatly admired by the art community, but when you use a secret petition to get rid of elected people, you're playing with fire."
