This trip, take home more than souvenirs
By Ellen Miller-Goins
If you’ve taken to heart the cliche that “travel is broadening,” if you long to return home with more than tacky postcards and forgettable souvenirs, if you’re looking for opportunities to learn a new skill or improve an existing one, Northern New Mexico offers a bounty of opportunities to give your travel experience real roots.
Taos has long been a magnet for talent, and visitors have so many options for expanding their minds and creative spirits. Taos’ website lists myriad workshops for painting, photography, cooking and baking, papermaking, fiber arts, pottery, stone carving, dance, yoga, meditation, folk and herbal medicine, and more.
taos.org/explore/arts-culture/workshops
Taos Art School is a college-accredited institution that has been offering classes for over 30 years in Northern New Mexico. Participants come from all over the world for a week or more to study pottery, weaving, painting, drawing, photography and equine art. Students also learn about local history and culture in a campus-free setting. Discounts offered to locals.
taosartschool.org | 575-758-0350
Taos Ceramics Center offers a variety of eight-week classes, from hand-building and sculpture to wheel throwing, for adults and children all summer long. For those traveling for a short spell, Taos Ceramics Center can also accommodate pre-arranged private and small group lessons for those who would like to experience a ceramics class and create a keepsake from their visit to Taos.
taosceramics.com | 575-758-2580
Society of the Muse of the Southwest (SOMOS) holds writing workshops and readings all summer. Their Taos Summer Writers’ Conference (July 25– 27) offers three days of workshops in memoir, poetry, prose fiction and nonfiction, playwriting, and publishing. Keynote speaker Nick Flynn (writer, playwright, poet) has published 12 books and five collections of poetry, His memoir, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,” was made into a film starring Robert DeNiro and has been translated into 15 languages. The annual Taos Storytelling Festival takes place every October.
somostaos.org | 575-758-0081
Earthships, invented by Taos architect Michael Reynolds, are off-grid homes built from recycled materials like earth-rammed tires, cans, and bottles. See what the architecture is about in a self-guided, guided or private tour at the Visitor Center, 2 Earthship Way, Tres Piedras (1.5 miles northwest of the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge). You can also gain the skills needed to build your own through intensive four-week building sessions, online programs and more.
earthship.org | 575-613-4409
SMU-in-Taos Cultural Institute offers in-depth courses for adults on a wide-range of topics: jewelry making, fly fishing, cooking, literature, history, painting and politics. The challenge will be selecting which two one-day classes to take during the event held July 17–20.
smu.edu/alumni/events/taos-cultural-institute | 214-768-8267
Ghost Ranch, an education and retreat center 12 miles north of Abiquiu and the former home of famed artist Georgia O’Keeffe, offers workshops on a broad array of subjects: religion, art, folk arts, drama, music, health and wellness, and more. Visitor are also welcome to explore the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology and the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum of Anthropology, in addition to the Ghost Ranch Library.