Not long after Maggie and I moved to Santa Fe, Maria Markus welcomed us to the neighborhood. She brought us a bird house carved out from a gourd in her garden. We quickly became good friends with her and her husband Kurt, who also happened to be one of the world’s greatest photographers.
I remember a certain dinner at the Markus’s; the five of us, with our daughter still in diapers, and how good the food was on a warm and happy night laced with wine, laughter, gossip and revelation. On the walls were extraordinary black and white pictures – Bruce Weber’s annual Christmas gifts.
Kurt did not like to display his own photographs at home, but his work was close by, in museum-quality metal storage containers, meticulously indexed and cross-referenced. They were safe there – Kurt felt a palpable comfort from their presence and that of his silent partner: his dark room. He showed me the place, explaining every part of the process. It was a church, a factory floor, a space of immense beauty and infinite isolation.
During dinner, Kurt talked about the land and home they had left in Montana. In his spare, declarative voice, he said the light in Santa Fe was like nothing else in the world except Venice. It was perfect; it needed no post work, no Photoshop, no manipulation. I marveled at the profundity of what he said, how one of the best photographers alive, someone who’d photographed in all parts of the globe, came home to Santa Fe for the light.
After dinner, we brought the dishes to the kitchen, and Kurt commandeered the dish station. I was to join in, that was clear. I confess that I dislike doing dishes – I have been known to substitute the job with almost any other household task, anything. But there was nowhere to hide, and when Kurt began, I knew to keep my secret to myself. I was handed the dish towel – he did not look at look at me. I watched his total focus on one dish, one piece of silverware at a time; I realized it was a gift to be invited to do the dishes with Kurt.
Whatever you were doing with Dad, his son Weston later told me, you had better have your shit wired tight. Even if it meant a 24-step process in cleaning dishes. With each wine glass Kurt held up to the light for inspection, you were invited into the way he saw the world.
When I was done drying, he reviewed my work and gave back anything that was not satisfying. Corners, as in photographs he said, should not fall off. He then placed the dishes in the precise place in the cupboard that they had been before.
I’ve never forgotten the lesson from this West Point graduate, this modest, gracious esthete, of just how a perfectly clean dish should look, and what it means to care for something. We all have a job to do, and no matter what’s going on, we need to do it well.
I’m writing this editorial in mid-October, so when you read it, we may be going through a monumental election period. We can’t change the outcome, but in our own individual lives, in our community, what can we do?
Throughout history, often at the ragged edges of empires, there have been places of sanctuary – city/states that were far enough from the centers of power that they could do their own thing without being bothered, because it was too difficult to inflict the big dark will of a far-away government. These cities evolved their own life and became refuges of knowledge, learning, artistry and freedom. Santa Fe has functioned this way for centuries. This city is the karmic recipient of the collisions of many cultures and people, and we’ve survived it all.
Our model of survival is one of resilience, of people who keep doing their work and persisting in their uniqueness. No matter what happens in America, the people you read about in the pages of this issue will continue to persist with what they do. This is how a community survives its most difficult days.
Our magazine is also seeing some profound changes. Jodi Vevoda, our Publisher, will be moving on after this issue. This magazine and community owe a big debt to her. I’ve been in publishing for many years and known some of the best people; she is the best at what she does that I’ve ever met. Jodi defined what was possible in terms of support for this magazine and used her charm, hard work and sheer talent to bring together what we needed to make it happen. There would have been no Santa Fe Magazine without her.
It was not easy to find someone to step into Jodi’s work, but with her help, we’ve been lucky to bring onboard Mika Van Winkle. I could go on about Mika, who has had an extraordinary career, but that would fill these pages. You can read about some of the work she’s done in our piece about the Canyon Road Summer Walk. She’s extraordinary, and I know you all will soon see what we’ve seen in her. You’re going be as impressed and enthusiastic as we are.
Now, it’s time to take a deep breath, close my eyes for a moment, and then get back to doing the dishes. We’ve all got work to do.
P.S., It’s our third anniversary!
—OWEN LIPSTEIN
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Photo Tony Floyd
