The Lines & Circles Families Project

Many of you have asked for more information about the Lines & Circles Families project and the January exhibition, so here it is!

THE LINES AND CIRCLES FAMILY PROJECT: A CELEBRATION OF SANTA FE, 2008-2010
Project/Artistic Director: Valerie Martínez, Poet Laureate
A project of the City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Program/Santa Fe Arts Commission

Opening Reception: Friday, January 15, 2010, 5:30 p.m., free and open to the public. Presentation by Families and Food, Saturday, January 16, free and open to the public.

This project has brought together three generations of eleven Santa Fe families, each to envision and then create a unique family work of art. The works reflect the family name, family history, or simply the intergenerational collaboration that happens during the project. Each work will be accompanied by an original poem authored by each family, by the Poet Laureate with the family, or by the Poet Laureate on the family’s behalf. The finished pieces will constitute an exhibit entitled Lines & Circles: A Celebration of Santa Fe Families to be presented to the city on Friday, January 15, 2010. Over the course of the project, families have also generated family histories, migration maps, lists of family traditions, heirlooms, recipes, old and contemporary photos, and other information that will be featured in a book about the project to be published by Sunstone Press, also in January 2010.

The goal of the Lines and Circles project is to nurture and celebrate the Santa Fe community, encourage positive relationships within and between families, nurture meaningful community dialogue, and generate a body of art and poetry that commemorates city life.

The Lines and Circles families include the Akers Hunt Covelli Family, the Carmona Family, the Goler Baca Family, the Ingram Family, the Jones Brown Family, the Martínez Ridgley Family, the Quintana Gallegos Family, the Ortiz Dinkel Hasted Family, the Salazar Family, the Shapiro Bachman Family, and the Strongheart Family.

About the project, by Poet Laureate Valerie Martínez:

"The families in the Lines and Circles Project are a testament not only to the history of Santa Fe but the promise of days to come. The future, of course, rests upon the beautiful, complex, rich and contentious past of this place, the capital city of New Mexico. All places worth living in, I believe, are complicated. So are their people. While many tout the landscape of Santa Fe as the city’s richest asset, the truth is that the people of Santa Fe, those that are here to stay, are its gold. They know its past and present and they cut, carve, and burnish its future. Their family lines extend into the past (of this place and others) and the circles they trace, day to day in this city, fashion the shimmering design that is the lifeblood of our community... The project has affected all involved. The families will tell you that in addition to creating and preserving an important family work that will stay with them for generations, they have come together, even more meaningfully, as families. We/they also have met, worked with, and become friends with families they didn’t know, across the “invisible lines” that sometimes tend to separate us, as city residents. Together, we have also journeyed into the past, revisiting our own stories, learning the stories of others, telling the collective story of Santa Fe.”

Lines and Circles is supported by the City of Santa Fe, the Lannan Foundation, the Santa Fe Literary Education Endowment at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, the First National Bank of Santa Fe, and Littleglobe, Inc.