HISTORY

High Road Artisans began as an organization in 1998, with the first High Road Art Tour, held in September, featuring artists from the High Road communities between Chimayo and Vadito. Since then, the Tour has been held the last two weekends every September, and the number of artists participating has more than doubled, from about 30 to more than 75. High Road Artisans became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2001. The High Road MarketPlace, which opened in 2000 and became a project of High Road Artisans in 2003, operates year-round, seven days a week, as a cooperative gallery where nearly 100 artists sell their work.

Artist Jesse Romero
with his woodcarving of
Doña Sebastiana
(©2004 Liz Gold)

The High Road Art Tour and the High Road MarketPlace both began as economic development projects initiated and funded through La Jicarita Enterprise Community, a federal program targeting economically challenged regions. Each program operates to shape a renaissance of an historical concept, that there is a relationship between art, work, and life. High Road Artisans' programs provide these isolated artists with access to markets, training, practice, and mentoring in developing marketable works of art.

The small Northern New Mexico villages along the High Road to Taos sustain a unique culture, steeped in self-sufficiency, dedicated to maintaining a rural ambience, and committed to regional fidelity.

High Road Artisans celebrates the diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the early Hispanic settlers, the indigenous Indian population, and European-American "newcomers."

"High Road Artisans
gave me the
opportunity I
needed to show
my work to the
public.

The response has
been wonderful.

The High Road MarketPlace
believed in me
and helped me
learn how to
market and
display my work."

—Liz Gold