How did you find this place?
Ray: When we saw the site we fell in love with it. Annette is the principal artist, and she’s always wanted a gallery, so we wanted to create someplace magical. Where people can come in and forget everything that’s in the outside world and have a magical event they can always remember. We’ve had couples come in here saying, this is where I got my first kiss. This is where my husband proposed to me.
Annette: It’s where people can remember who they are, why they’re alive, what the meaning of their life is. And so our hope is when they come in and they view the art, or they walk the gardens, or they have a glass of wine, and listen to the music that they take that breath and remember that life can be filled with ease and grace, and that is what Ahmyo means.
Ray: People come in and say, Okay, I’ll go look. And then they come out an hour and a half later and go, I didn’t know you had gardens back here.
What’s it like being on Canyon Road?
Annette: Canyon Road is very magical in itself. It has such history and sometimes people will come in and they’ll say, at one time this was a midwifery. Someone else came in and said, Yes, my mom had a pizza place here. So much reinvents itself on Canyon Road.
Ray: We felt there was a need, right here, for a place because we used to walk up here all the time and you’d make it about halfway up Canyon, and you’d be parched. So you come up now, and it’s in the middle, it’s sunny.
Annette: Canyon Road is really two kinds of neighborhoods. You have all the galleries and you get to know them as people. Who they are and why they’re here. Then you also have the people who live here and they walk their dogs every day. We know all the dogs’ names.
Ray: We have treats in the front, treats in the back. We give them dog bowls full of water.
SUBSCRIBE TO SANTA FE MAGAZINE HERE!
Photo SFM
