Tucumcari's Art City combines glamping with monumental sculptures

TUCUMCARI — In less than a year’s time, a 40-acre former horse ranch on the outskirts of Tucumcari has been transformed into Art City, a glamping destination featuring monumental sculptures by local and international artists.

Its founder, Matty Monahan, known professionally as Matty Mo, compared the process of building Art City to the folk story of “Stone Soup,” where an out-of-towner with nothing but an empty cooking pot and an abundance of confidence gets an entire village to make soup together.

“I’m just a crazy person with two rocks and a vat of water that’s boiling. Let’s see if people add their ingredients,” he said.

So far, Monahan said the people of Tucumcari have been “very supportive,” with many hoping that Art City will help revitalize their once-thriving tourist town, which occupies a historic stretch of Route 66.

“It helps that my mother had been here two years prior and works at the dinosaur museum,” Monahan said. “And she has two sisters who have lived here more or less their whole lives. So, I’m not necessarily a total outsider.”

Still, Monahan spent months attending Elks Lodge meetings, golfing with community leaders and hosting cookouts before ever breaking ground on Art City. He said he wanted to make sure the people of Tucumcari accepted him and endorsed his vision.

Art City has a rustic feel with touches of inspired luxury, including a Scandinavian-style sauna, a wood-fired hot tub and a communal outdoor kitchen and dining area.

“One of the design decisions was to make this big outdoor kitchen with seating for 12, and a communal bathhouse, so people are forced to gather and meet each other,” Monahan said.

“We’ve got everyone from some college kids staying in a tent to an elderly couple towing their gigantic RV around the country, and everyone in between gathering around the table and telling stories of the road,” he said.

Before Art City, Monahan’s adventures in creative entrepreneurship included a stint in the NFT market and a series of Instagrammable art experiences under the moniker “The Most Famous Artist.”

Monahan admits that his previous projects were “somewhat cynical” commentaries on the fickleness of social media and art market trends, whereas Art City is about creating deep, authentic connections.

To that end, Monahan has been hosting residency programs of varying lengths for contemporary artists, writers, computer programmers, gardeners and others, offering free room and board in exchange for creative services. Sculptors who are selected can build monumental works on the Art City grounds.

Current sculptures include a boat of reclaimed wood by Ghanaian art star Serge Attukwei Clottey, a giant pair of lips by Los Angeles street artist fnnch and a “Flintstone”-like playground built by veteran Burning Man art crew Dave Keane and the Folly Builders.

Kate Rusek

Art City’s most recent artist-in-residence is New York City-based sculptor Kate Rusek, who builds complex organic forms from discarded industrial materials.

In 2023, Rusek created a monumental, immersive aluminum tapestry at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens. That piece, titled “Imagined Fungal Emergence,” was made entirely from reclaimed Venetian blinds and aluminum fasteners, which the artist assembled in a slow, labor-intensive process.

“It’s a form of meditation that helps me feel grounded,” she said.

In her newest sculpture, “Desert Fungal Emergence,” Rusek uses the same materials and techniques, but alters the overall form to respond to the unique terrain of Tucumcari.

“It’s tremendously influenced by the landscape. I spent as much time as I could, being on the land and walking and hiking at a very slow pace, so that I could perceive the land,” she said. “Then, with the specificity of the rocks, the fossils, the cactuses, the flora … to allow that to metabolize through my body, and my eyes and my hands, and have that come out in the work, that’s the alchemy of making place-based objects and sculptures. Because inevitably, this would look very different, or at least a little different, if it were made somewhere else.”

Rusek said she began working with aluminum blinds 15 years ago.

“But that body of work has changed in the last couple of years to scale up into much larger forms, mostly for public consumption, which I really love, because I believe in the dignity of public art,” she said. “It’s something we crave as humans, to have our senses be activated in ways that are both perceptible and somewhat imperceptible.”

Rusek’s creation of emergent organic forms from inorganic materials extends the sculptural ideas of artists like Ruth Asawa (1926–2013) and Tara Donovan (b. 1969). But unlike them, Rusek is committed to upcycling waste materials and creating works that integrate harmoniously into a natural environment.

Her “Fungal Emergence” sculptures respond to the weather and to visitors’ interactions.

“This sculpture moves. It’s flexible. There’s this fluidity that will react to the landscape, and I think that’s a way to be in communication with the place,” she said. “It’s not just for me. I’m making this for the turkeys and snakes — and the visitors to Art City, of course ... It makes you see the landscape in a way you might not otherwise, because the work is there. It’s like looking inward and looking outward (at the same time), and I’m always trying to do that through the work.”

During her residency at Art City, Rusek has been living and working in a classic Airstream trailer, taking breaks to enjoy the hot tub and other amenities, or to hike in the surrounding desert, sometimes socializing with other artists and guests.

“Art City right now is a very meditative, quiet refuge,” she said. “It’s a place where you can find a mix of solitude and beautiful humans in equal parts.”

Rusek intends to complete “Desert Fungal Emergence” by the first week of June.

In the meantime, anyone interested in experiencing Art City, either as a short-term visitor or as part of the residency program, can find more information at artcity-inc.com.

Day passes to the park, which also has a number of dog-friendly walking trails, cost $11.11. Overnight stays start at $40 for camping in your own tent or van. There are also more luxe options, including cabins and trailers equipped with electricity, Wi-Fi and comfy beds, which are listed on the website and may be booked through Airbnb.

Tucumcari's Art City combines glamping with monumental sculptures