If straw appliqué is the poor man’s gold, New Mexico is rich in its currency.
Santa Fe’s Pat Griego retired from finance and found her spiritual heart in some stalks of wheat. After taking classes in painting and jewelry, she started piecing together tiny bits of straw after learning the technique from a friend. She showed her work at her first Spanish Market in 2012.
“I always loved this art,” she said as she sliced rice-sized bits of straw into diamond shapes on a dining room table scattered with crosses of varying shapes and sizes. “It just looked impossible,” she continued. “It was a spiritual thing to me. I couldn’t figure out how they did it.”
Griego will exhibit her crosses at the Traditional Winter Spanish Market at the Hotel Albuquerque Friday and Saturday. Organizers moved the annual event from Santa Fe to Old Town Albuquerque after artist complaints that business was flat. The decision provoked controversy among some artists who disagreed with the move.
“At first, I was pretty shocked” by the change, Griego said. “I always thought, ‘Spanish Market is Santa Fe.’ But the more I heard about it, I’m comfortable going over there.”
Straw appliqué developed in northern New Mexico villages during the 1700s when families and churches needed crosses. Creating a hybrid of inlay and veneer, artists spun straw into gold by splitting and flattening the fiber, then slicing it into jigsaw pieces as tiny as the smallest of gems. Some historians have called it “poor man’s gold.”
The eight-point star pattern found in straw appliqué evolved from Rio Grande weavings in the mid-to-late 1800s. This early art form nearly died out in the early 20th century. The Works Progress Administration and the late Eliseo and Paula Rodriguez rescued straw appliqué from oblivion in the 1930s. The Rodriguezes were the first to incorporate figures for biblical scenes. A revived Spanish Market fueled its rebirth in 1965.
Griego creates her detailed crosses after buying the prepared wooden shapes from a friend. She orders wheat or rice straw from a California supplier, then strips the film-like pith from the raw fiber with a blade.
“You’re going to make this feel like a ribbon,” she said as the straw gleamed and curved.
She never draws any kind of pattern or outline on the wood as a guide.
“Everywhere, there’s a diamond shape,” she said.
Griego uses an X-Acto knife to slice the miniscule diamond shapes she will vine into foliage, circle into stars and piece into figures like a microscopic mosaic. She picks up each individual piece with her knife or a toothpick before gluing it in place with Elmer’s. A dust cloth is used to wipe away the excess adhesive.
Griego is known for her crosses: traditional, Jerusalem and the T-shaped Greek tau cross associated with St. Francis.
“Before I start this, I always light a candle and I say a little prayer,” she explained. “I just ask God to help me with my art.”
Art has long been a way of life for Ruben Gallegos, who was born in the Española Valley and lives in Albuquerque. In high school, he sold sketches of his classmates for $1. This year, he will be bringing a series of miniature retablos of the saints to Winter Market. The artist first juried into the Traditional Spanish Market 25 years ago.
“My deep Hispanic roots are from northern New Mexico – growing up in Santa Cruz and Chimayó, I was drawn to the churches and the culture,” he said.
“I love doing saints,” he continued. “It’s a good feeling when my paintings go to somebody’s home. With that, a part of me goes.”
Gallegos’ miniatures range from 2-½-by-3 inches to 3-by-5 inches in diameter.
“They’re very small,” he said. “I’ve always been intrigued by the challenge of painting something that small.”
Sometimes he makes his own natural pigments from local sources; other times he uses acrylics.
“I do very well,” he said of past Spanish Markets. “I’m really excited it’s coming to Albuquerque. I think this is a great opportunity to broaden and share with the state this unique show.”
