HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC AFFECTED MUSEUMS? EXAMPLES FROM THE BLACKWATER DRAW MUSEUM AT EASTERN NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY

By Samantha Bokamp
“The Blackwater Draw Museum (BWDM) was among the many museums in the country whose daily operations were disrupted during the pandemic.”

ART CANNOT BE CAGED: DETAINED MIGRANT YOUTH CREATE AN EXHIBIT

By Kayla Myers
“’Uncaged Art Tornillo Children’s Detention Center’ is fundamentally about Central American children who came to our nation seeking security and safety and found themselves incarcerated within the walls of a sterile detention center built in the Chihuahuan Desert.”

THE FOOL’S JOURNEY

By Bethany Tabor
“It’s impossible to travel through Albuquerque without encountering at least one beautiful, larger-than-life mural on the side of a building or wall.”

MANITO

By Leeanna Teresa Martinez y Torres
“Manito: Examining and Deconstructing New Mexico’s Tri-Cultural Myth; ‘Patterns of Migration’

Mama’s easy, un-flinching and quick-to-respond reply to this unfamiliar term, word, name, was curious to me. Manito.”

THE SANTA FE TRAIL

By Thomas Chávez
“For much of its history New Mexico was an island in the wilderness, a unique European settlement among Native cultures in the middle of the continent distant from the so-called frontier lines of the United States and Mexico.”

LÁGRIMAS: POEMS OF JOY AND SADNESS

By Nasario García
“I was fascinated by rural life in the desert where the landscape, the sky, the animals, the birds, and the people brought both happiness and sorrow to my heart, but at the same time each one inveigled my imagination.”

INTO THE BEAUTIFUL NORTH

By Ann Bentley
“What do you think of when you hear ‘book club’? Middle aged women discussing the latest literary fiction or, maybe chick lit, novel, while drinking wine of course. Or maybe you think of retirees, discussing the latest John Grisham or C.J. Box novel. You probably don’t think of inmates discussing the plot line of any novel; much less bring up the plot device of ‘the hand of God’ also known as ‘Deus ex machina.'”

HEMINGWAY

By Michael Privett
“For me, the Hemingway work that stuck was The Old Man and The Sea. I was stunned at its raw emotion, specifically Hemingway’s ability to depict a man fiercely at war with the natural world. I struggled with the symbolism; was the fish really a fish, or a metaphor? Did the boy represent the hubris of youth and the Old Man, God?”

WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS: TIMELESS WISDOM

By Brandon Johnson
“Washington understood the dangers of locating too much political power in too few hands for too long, and in the end refused the temptations of an endless presidency. He opted to make way for someone new.”