By Ekin Balcıoğlu
If you follow the road out of Taos north, the valley begins to shift. Chamisa and sagebrush give way to cottonwoods and curves. You pass through open fields and old fences, then arrive in Arroyo Seco, a village that doesn’t announce itself but simply receives you.
It’s small, but it holds a lot — layers of story, layers of time. It’s a place where artists and ranchers, pilgrims and potters, seekers and stayers have all left their traces in adobe and woodsmoke.
When I landed here, I didn’t yet know I was arriving home. I had come with a dream to open a gallery for clay and textiles. I couldn’t expect how quickly I’d be folded into something larger.
Old Bones: Gallery for Clay and Textiles opened December in the building where Claireworks once stood. My creative partner in clay, Max Massey, and I filled the space with ceramics meant to be touched, used and passed down. Alongside them are hand-embroidered suzanis, traditional Central Asian textiles with intricate floral motifs, Turkish silks and woven pieces carefully gathered by my parents from villages across Anatolia. We’ve set aside a small corner for hammam textiles, peshtemals and robes that carry the scent of bathhouses and slow rituals.
Seco is a village built by hands. Laurel Taylor at Wilde.Ink block prints linen shawls and soft blankets in her studio. Sometimes I pass her in the morning, outside with her dye pots gently steaming in the cold, carefully dipping fabric into rich hues of indigo and rust, colors slowly blooming in the soft morning air.
Just beyond us, Santos y Mas is filled with carved saints and retablos, milagros, antiques, turquoise jewelry and treasures tucked gently among shelves. Patricia Reza’s warmth fills every corner, alongside colorful little postcards painted by her young granddaughter, joyful reminders of creativity passed softly from one generation to the next.
Logan Wannamaker’s work is shaped by the high desert: its earthy tones, spaciousness and quiet sense of balance. He fires with wood, soda and salt, allowing fire and time to leave their trace. His gallery just next door includes three working studios and features his own pieces and work by his apprentices, alongside functional ware and custom dish sets.
Rottenstone Pottery keeps its kilns burning as a landmark for wood-fired ceramics in the Southwest. Scott Rutherford, who has worked in clay here for decades, brings together both Japanese and American folk traditions, firing in massive groundhog and anagama kilns. His gallery features the work of dozens of regional artists and has become a steady anchor for clay in the region.
Across the street, in a building lightly scented with cedar and ink, Jack Leustig’s Fine Art New Mexico houses one of the largest collections of Southwest print art in the country. Known nationally for its museum-grade prints, the gallery is guided by Jack’s thoughtful presence and the meticulous eye of studio manager Liz Mercuri, whose care ensures each piece reflects their shared dedication to quality.
Nearby is Arroyo Seco Mercantile, a cabinet of curiosities brimming with vintage jewelry, rocks and minerals, toys, games, and gifts you didn’t know you were looking for. Each shelf feels thoughtfully curated by owner Jeanie Clinton, filled with charm and a touch of playful mischief.
A few buildings down, Taos Wools is full of color. Joe Barry hand-dyes yarns in small batches, many from churro sheep raised nearby. His daughter helps twist skeins and pack orders. There’s a rhythm to it: family and fiber, looped together.
More and more, Seco is becoming a magnet for artists, especially ceramicists. Between the kilns, studios, shared firings, and steady camaraderie, there’s a quiet sense that something is building here, a hub rooted not in trend but in tradition and deep making.
Seco isn’t curated. It isn’t polished. But it’s deeply lived-in. People come here looking for something: a bowl, a shawl, a moment. But what they find, if they’re paying attention, is a village made of intention. Of beauty shaped slowly. Of work done with care. Art here doesn’t shout. It rests in corners, hangs from pegs, sits warm in your hands.
There’s something about Seco that invites you to listen more closely: to the land, to the stories in the walls, to the shape of your own breath as it softens. And if you’re lucky, Arroyo Seco takes you in.