Taos Getting Pricey for Struggling Artists

Two decades ago, Susan Ammann quit her lucrative job as a Wall Street investment banker to spin a potter’s wheel in this eclectic artists’ town.

The majestic mountains, piercing sunlight and rugged landscape gave her confidence that she could survive as an artist. After all, it had inspired painter Georgia O’Keeffe, photographer Ansel Adams and writers D.H. Lawrence and Willa Cather.

Ammann had spent most of her Wall Street cash on traveling, but that didn’t matter in Taos, a town of hippies and artists struggling to make ends meet.

Now it appears Taos has fallen victim to its own charms, beguiling the rich and famous, such as actress Julia Roberts, at the expense of longtime residents whose works may never captivate the gallery crowd.

As the town celebrates a century as an art colony, Mayor Frederick Peralta says the rising cost of land and housing could threaten Taos’ future as a home for struggling artists.

“Now, people don’t have to struggle. They just buy their way in,” Ammann said. “It’s still an art community, but it’s changing.”

In Taos County, per capita income barely reached $15,000 and average household income was estimated at less than $25,000 in 1995, the most recent year for which figures are available. Today, the median cost of a home is $162,000.

“It’s harder for young struggling artists to survive here,” said Tom Decker, director of the Taos Institute of Arts.

While the county commission tries to ensure that affordable housing is included in development plans, the city of Taos has set aside $2.5 million in bond money to buy land where 124 homes will be built and sold below market value.

The price will be around $89,000. Buyers will have to show they earn less than $39,000 annually, the mayor said. As the owners pay their mortgages, the town will reinvest the money in more housing.

Artist Ed Sandoval, whose oil paintings fetch up to $10,000, says some of his artist pals take second jobs to make ends meet. Others, in search of a cheaper place, have headed to small southern Colorado towns that are geographically and culturally reminiscent of the old Taos.

For Sandoval, the “inspiring colors” of the enormous white clouds and glowing sunsets in Taos make the high cost worthwhile.

That inspiration is what captivated the artists who first stumbled upon Taos a century ago. “There’s something intangible about it,” said Skip Miller, co-director of the Kit Carson Historic Museums. “The artists saw and felt the same things.”

Snowcapped mountains stand in sharp contrast to the Rio Grande gorge, 600 feet deep. Creeks trickle through the rustic landscape where cattle roam. And there’s an almost blinding sunlight. With an elevation of 7,000 feet, the thin air forms a deep blue sky with little humidity to soften the sun’s rays.

As long as the area retains its beauty, many say, the artists will remain.

“I don’t see Taos as ever not being an art colony [although] it may be other things as well,” said Betsy Carey, executive director of the 650-member Taos Art Assn.

In 1898, Taos was a poor trading town of a few thousand Native Americans and Hispanics, with dirt streets, mud houses and acres of wheat and barley, when Ernest Blumenschein came in search of a blacksmith.

He and fellow artist Bert Phillips were heading to Mexico on a quest to sketch the Wild West before it disappeared. The two were rolling across rugged trails through northern New Mexico when their wagon lost a wheel. Blumenschein lost a coin toss and lugged the broken part into Taos.

“He absolutely fell in love,” Miller said.

Blumenschein stayed for three months, then headed to New York. He returned several times before persuading his wife to permanently settle in 1919. Phillips immediately made it his permanent home.

Credit for making Taos an art colony also goes to American artist Joseph Henry Sharp, who visited in 1893 and spread word of its beauty. More artists arrived, and in 1915 a group of six formed the Taos Society of Artists. The Santa Fe railroad began buying their paintings to promote tourism. Southwestern landscapes and pictures of Indians in traditional dress began to appear in stations across America.

The area grew in popularity, and artists would gather daily to share ideas and inspirations. “They created a whole new world. It was almost a utopia,” Miller said.

New York heiress Mabel Dodge Luhan settled in Taos in 1918 and provided a catalyst for the burgeoning art community. As grande dame of her own intellectual salon, she invited dozens of famous painters, writers and activists to her home.

She lured Lawrence by sending Indian jewelry to his wife, Frieda, and promising that Taos was the haven he sought.

O’Keeffe, a pioneer of Southwestern modernism, lived and worked in the tiny northern New Mexico town of Abiquiu from 1949 until a few years before her death in 1986.

Taos is now a town of about 6,200 in a county of about 25,600. It has about 90 art galleries.

In the vein of the old salons, artists continue to gather regularly to discuss, critique and inspire each other.

“Walking down the street, any way you go,” Carey said, “the creative energy is happening.”