Carving the Saints : New Mexico <i> santeros</i> are a varied group of artisans who create colorful religious images<i> .</i>

The complex cultural process whereby present-day New Mexican santos are made and marketed is the subject of an ambitious new show at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum.

Called “Crafting Devotions: Tradition in Contemporary New Mexico Santos,” the exhibit is an anthropological exploration of how artists, tourists and collectors, including museums, are contributing to the popularity of these contemporary religious images, inspired by the devotional objects made by earlier craftsmen in Catholic New Mexico.

According to James Nottage, the Autry’s chief curator, the show, which opens Saturday, “includes visually compelling objects that illustrate the various cultural influences that shape art.” He thinks the show will have wide appeal “to anyone interested in the vitality of contemporary folk art.” The show is being presented in English and Spanish.

As Laurie Beth Kalb, who curated the show, explains, the event that brings together all the forces involved in the modern santos phenomenon is the Spanish Market, held each August and December in Santa Fe, N.M.

The market begins with a preview at which the participating santeros , or saint-makers, compete for the approval of judges from the Spanish Colonial Arts Society, founded in the 1920s by Anglo artists and others to encourage the traditional crafts of New Mexico.

The Spanish Market, like the city’s complementary Indian Market, is a huge tourist attraction, and it also draws serious collectors of contemporary santos . By tradition, the carvers don’t sell their work during the preview. But the preview is not without its commercial aspects, since a prize can cause a carver’s work to surge in value. Museum interest also enhances an artist’s reputation, so much so that some carvers post the business cards given to them by curators at the Spanish Market.

Although modern santeros work in a relatively narrow tradition, they are a remarkably varied group. “Some have grade-school educations, and some have Ph.D.s,” Kalb says. Many, but not all, are devout Catholics. Some do not sell their work, but carve and paint only for churches, friends or family. At one time, all santeros were men, but that too is changing. Highly respected santera Gloria Lopez Cordova started out carving under the name of a male relative. Many women who paint the carvings of their husbands have begun adding their signatures to the works as well.

In Kalb’s view, this heterogeneity accounts for much of the vitality of today’s santos . Contemporary santos -making, she says, “encompasses tradition, diversity and change, and that’s what keeps it flourishing.”

Although many modern santeros also make furniture and non-religious objects, traditional santos take two basic forms: carved wooden sculptures, called bultos, and flat paintings on wood, called retablos.

Artists in what was then northern New Spain began making their own santos in the 18th Century when official church supplies dried up. Those early colonial santos were displayed only on altars in churches or in the homes of the pious. The modern tradition began with the founding of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society. Many of the early works of the santos revival were left unpainted, Kalb points out, because the bright colors associated with traditional santos “were thought to be too gaudy for Anglo tastes.”

Early in the 1970s emerged a generation of santero activists who were interested in exploring the roots of the tradition they were continuing. “They attempted to take back ownership of their tradition,” Kalb says. A major result was that color returned to the santos. Collectors loved it. As she notes, some carvers now do abstract, unpainted pieces that hearken back to the fine-arts influences of the 1920s revival. Ironically, this work tends to be of little interest to today’s collectors.

Kalb, who is the former curator of folk art at the Autry, acknowledges that her role made her an integral part of the process she observed for more than a decade. She would chose choice pieces for the museum at the Spanish Market, such as Victor Goler’s “Our Lady of Mt. Carmel,” which took first prize in 1992. Kalb is now director of the New England Folklife Center in Lowell, Mass.

Goler says that there are a couple of dozen first-rate santeros working in the Santa Fe area today. A resident of Taos, Goler, 31, was raised in a family of art conservators and restorers who specialized in traditional santos. By the time he was in his teens, he says, “I was fixing fingers on saints.”

Goler began carving while still in high school, making saints for his friends and family. “The first pieces I ever carved were replicas of early ones,” he says. Today, he honors tradition by making sure that any religious habits he depicts are accurate, and limiting himself to the time-honored symbols associated with particular saints. But he also finds distinctive ways to re-create moments from the saints’ lives.

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His style is always evolving, Goler says. One change is the gift of time. “I can carve better hands, better lips, better faces, more folds in the costumes,” he says.

For better or worse, tourists are part of the cultural equation in Santa Fe. According to Kalb, visitors to the Autry show will be invited to board an actual bus like the ones that take tourists from the home workshop of one carver to another, “to learn how New Mexico is sold to tourists.”

As a santero, Goler isn’t unduly disturbed by the part tourists play in the process. “I tend to hide out,” he says. He also thinks consumers, including Anglos, have an important role to play in the complex dance that keeps his art alive, helps satisfy his religious faith and puts food on his table. “It takes both groups to make it work,” he says. “The Hispanics feel it’s their tradition, but it has to be shared as well.”

Where and When

What: “Crafting Devotions: Tradition in Contemporary New Mexico Santos.”

Location: Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, in Griffith Park, across from the Los Angeles Zoo.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Monday. Opens Saturday, to Feb. 12.

Admission: $7 general, $5 seniors and students with I.D., $3 for children 2 to 12.

Call: (213) 667-2000.