artdirector@sfreporter.com
Morning Word
Court rejects PNM appeal over power plant
The state Supreme Court yesterday upheld a decision by the Public Regulation Commission denying Public Service Company of New Mexico’s request to abandon its partial ownership interest in the Four Corners Power Plant, along with a financing order that would have authorized PNM to recoup the cost of doing so. As the Associated Press reports, PNM had originally proposed transferring its shares to the Navajo Transitional Energy Co.; the plant is located on the Navajo Nation and serves customers in both New Mexico and Arizona. One of the PRC’s objections when it denied PNM’s request in 2021 included concerns about how the company would provide electricity to compensate for the Four Corners Plant, given that it had not yet finished solar and battery storage facilities intended to replace lost energy from the San Juan Generating Station. Speaking of which, the Department of Workforce Solutions yesterday reported it has paid out more than $7 million via 350 direct payments to displaced workers from the San Juan Generating Station, under the Energy Transition Act’s Displaced Worker Assistance Fund, with more than 90% going to San Juan County residents. “We heard loud and clear from the workers that their number one need was direct financial assistance to bridge the gaps left when the plant and mine closed,” Workforce Solutions Secretary Sarita Nair said in a statement, adding that DWS also connected 170 people “to retraining and re-employment resources.”
IFAM takes over Railyard
The International Folk Art Market opened this week and continues through the weekend in a new venue: the Santa Fe Railyard. Today’s early-bird sessions start at 9 am, with the general market opening at 11 am. Find the full schedule here, including details on this year’s IFAM lecture series held at SITE Santa Fe, focused on the theme of “Identity is Handmade.” Sunday will be “community day,” during which tickets to the general market will be $15 rather than $25, and will be free for first responders, educators, medical professionals and active-duty military personnel. Performances also are scheduled throughout the weekend. The market’s change of venue from Museum Hill has prompted concerns from residents and businesses in and around the Railyard about the influx of traffic to an already-busy section of town. IFAM is emphasizing public transportation to market-goers; for instance, Rio Metro has added market specific schedules today, Saturday and Sunday and market-goers can purchase Rail Runner “add-ons” with their tickets. The market will feature a free bike valet, and there will be two shuttles operating, one from the South Capitol Rail Runner Station and one from the Santa Fe Place Mall.
Special master recommends water settlement
Earlier this week, US Circuit Judge Michael Melloy, who is serving as a special master in the Texas versus New Mexico water dispute, recommended the US Supreme Court approve a settlement in the case agreed upon by the states last November. In a statement, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the suit “one of New Mexico’s most important water cases in recent history,” and said “we are proud to have reached an agreement that equitably divides the water below Elephant Butte Reservoir to ensure that New Mexico farmers and municipalities receive their fair share of water for decades to come.” The Special Master’s decision, Torrez notes,”is one more step in the right direction for New Mexicans and other arid western states.” State Engineer Mike Hamman in a statement also described himself as “pleased that the Special Master has recognized New Mexico’s authority to administer water within the lower Rio Grande,” noting that his office “is fully committed to ensuring compliance with the settlement and the Rio Grande Compact through water rights administration, depletion management, and supply augmentation strategies that will prevent the burden of compliance from falling on any single sector, particularly agriculture. We look forward to the decision from the United States Supreme Court during their next term.”
Officials tout infrastructure plans
White House senior advisor Mitch Landrieu, who is coordinating distribution of federal infrastructure funds, is in New Mexico this week touting with other officials upcoming investments in the state. Yesterday, Landrieu and US Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM, discussed funds that will soon be available for home weatherization and home energy efficiency projects, for which New Mexico has received $26 million under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Landrieu made other stops around the state with Heinrich, US Sen. Ben Ray Luján and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, including a press conference in Santa Fe to announce plans to expand broadband access, following a a $675 million award. In a statement, the governor says the new funding “will allow us to accomplish our biggest goals and projects.” A news release notes the state will submit to the federal government by the end of the year a plan detailing how the funds will be used. “Access to high-speed internet is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity to fully participate in today’s society,” Landrieu said in a statement. “Building out high-speed internet infrastructure in New Mexico will level the playing field, spur economic growth and opportunity, and help us meet the President’s goal of Internet for All.”
Listen up
ICYMI, the state Cultural Affairs Department’s Encounter Culture podcast kicked off its fourth season in collaboration with New Mexico History Museum, and an examination of Indigenous rights in the aftermath of the landmark 1948 case Trujillo v. Garley. In the fourth and most recent episode, host Charlotte Jusinski and co-host Stephanie Padilla learn about the “complicated realities surrounding Indigenous suffrage” with tribal leader Porter Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo), executive director at Kha’p’o Community School, and June Lorenzo, (Laguna Pueblo and Navajo/Diné), chief judge of Pueblo of Zia.
Quilting for good
Online magazine Good Good Good’s recent story on “How Trans Fiber Artists Are Using Quilts To Tell Their Stories” includes Albuquerque-based nonbinary fiber artist Eliot Anderberg’s new Euphoria Quilt Project inspired in part, the story says, by “a recent group quilt project in Oklahoma that set out to make 18 quilts to represent the 18,000 quilts that were burned in the Tulsa Race Massacre.” Anderberg tells Good Good Good the Oklahoma project made them feel “like, ‘okay, there are people who will want to participate in this project. I can do this.’” The project “invites any trans, nonbinary, intersex, or gender nonconforming folks to send in a quilt block, but also encourages queer folks of any gender identity or expression to send in a block of their own, too.” Anderberg also details some of the guidelines in this Instagram story, and is currently taking submissions. As the story notes, “The prompt is to ‘create a quilt block that expresses or explores your gender expansive joy’ within specific dimensions and made with machine-washable materials. Submissions are welcome from anywhere. “If you identify with the prompt, you belong here,” Anderberg writes on Instagram. “If you are questioning your gender or sexuality, you belong here. if you are straight, cisgender, and want to support the project, you can do so at this time by sharing it with your trans and queer friends.”
Real Unreal talk
Santa Fe-based Meow Wolf’s first Texas location, “The Real Unreal” in Grapevine, Texas opens next week, with first looks already underway. Los Angeles Times game critic Todd Martens writes, in his story “Meow Wolf is ready for Texas. Is Texas ready for Meow Wolf?” that the new “location will be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Meow Wolf’s work, especially its first location in Santa Fe, N.M., for which this one takes many a cue.” Still, he notes, “Meow Wolf isn’t simply leaning on the past. Meow Wolf has arrived in Texas with a statement.” Much of that statement, as Martens unpack its, circles around the company’s decision to open not just one but two locations in Texas (another in Houston is slated for next year), given the state’s conservative politics and policies toward issues such as LGBTQ rights and abortion. “Texas politics is not the preferred topic of the top executives and artists who gave The Times a first look at the Grapevine location,” Martens writes, while pointing out Meow Wolf used its social media platforms throughout June’s Pride month “to delve into the history of LGBTQ+ activism as well as to amplify the work of a transgender education agency.” As for the art in the new location, the Dallas Morning News (which also claims to have received an exclusive first look) describes the set-up thusly: The exhibition “takes place inside the home of a fictional multigenerational family and follows the story of the characters who live inside. The story’s protagonist, Jared Fuqua, takes a journey through different portals across his imagination, as his family searches to find him and bring him home. From dark, leafy forests with tiny glowing lights to a mysterious refrigerator portal, visitors will be able to navigate through more than 30 rooms and hallways inside this seemingly ever-expanding house, which put the details of Jared’s life and mind under a psychedelic microscope.” That does sound familiar!
Summer’s ripening breath
The national heat wave continues, with the National Weather Service forecasting a mostly sunny day here with a high temperature near 94 degrees; winds 5 to 15 mph and—wait for it!—a 20% chance for precipitation via isolated showers and thunderstorms after 1 pm. About the same chance for rain tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night, dissipating on Sunday, which will be sunny, with a high temperature near 96 degrees and a tad more windy. Thanks for reading! The Word is reading one of the New Yorker’s “classic” stories—this one about Elton John—in advance of the Santa Fe Salutes Elton John concert happening during SFR’s Best of Santa Fe party July 28 in the Railyard.
