IMAGINE BEING THE SECRETARY of the Department of Cultural Affairs in, let’s say, Ohio. You can’t, because they don’t have one.
In New Mexico, it’s a whole different matter.
If Michigan makes cars and California fills the world with the latest apps, our keystone industry is our culture – whether its tourists coming to trace our history, buyers snapping up the work of our artists, or gourmands paying a hundred bucks a pound for Chimayo chile powder. Our unique folkways, foodways, art and languages are at the core of our economy and identity.
Everyone from the governor on down realizes what a big deal the job of running the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs is, and they have empowered Debra Garcia y Griego to do it. She manages a robust department that straddles that intangible line between culture and commerce. Her mission is to help New Mexicans to preserve who we are and to share it with the world.
What is a typical day in your life? What happens to you when you show up at work?
On any given day, I visit with one of the division directors from around the state, to find out what’s going on. Most of them bring me little tidbits that they know are going to excite me and make me happy. Tony Fiorino, who’s the director down at Natural History, shared with me the other day a really sweet letter that he got from a very young museum goer that was excited because he believes he’s found a connection between Bigfoot and a dinosaur and he wanted to share his research with Tony.
We are over 500 employees, stretched across the state from Mesilla all the way up to Alcalde. We’ve got a million square feet of space, more than a thousand acres, so generally during the day, I check in with several of them.
What was it like growing up here?
My grandparents moved from the Las Vegas area to Santa Fe in the ‘50s. My grandfather owned Hickox House Grocers. My other grandfather had been the planning director for the city of Albuquerque and then moved to Santa Fe and
worked for the DOT. My grandmother was an elementary school music teacher in the public schools. My mother was a public school teacher and principal and my father worked in higher education. I was lucky to grow up in that, and I was lucky to have a couple of amazing teachers along the way. Anita Darmitzel, my sixth grade teacher, who, with my grandmother, was the music teacher at school, did an operetta and used it as a way to explore history, to explore literature.
That first teacher that shows you what’s possible…
It never goes away. I’d also been really fortunate at Santa Fe Community College, where I got to help in the darkroom, which at that time it was Siegfried Halus and James Hart, who were the big photography teachers there. I was a terrible photographer but I was an excellent darkroom monitor.
So you showed early promise as an administrator?
I think it’s that connection of facilitation. Yeah, as I think about it, I had never really thought of this before until talking to you.
Then I went to UNM. I had a couple of wonderful professors who were really encouraging me to continue on to do graduate work in art history. But I realized that I did not want to continue to pursue art history because my work with the UNM Department of Theater and Dance, the Southwest Irish Theater Festival, with the Flamenco Festival and other events, had really taught me that I was excited by what happened when arts were active in a community.
When arts are live and tangible, there’s an exciting spark that happens when somebody has an encounter with it. They’re not saying, I am going to go elevate myself with this art experience. No, the art becomes part of the experience of life. It’s not gilded with veneer, it’s not something precious – that’s what keeps people away from the arts. How do I dress? How do I behave? Am I clapping at the right time? When you peel through all of that and you put art out in community in a more direct way, there’s this incredible spark that happens. That’s what I wanted to do.
I started applying for grad schools and got into several, but I knew right away that the Art Institute of Chicago was the one I wanted to attend. It was great. I graduated with my master’s degree. But then I just woke up in Chicago one morning and thought – only people who have lived in the Southwest will understand this – I thought, I need dirt on my feet.
I needed dirt.
The green grass was great, but I needed to get back home. I started applying for jobs. In my mind, the Santa Fe Opera was where I wanted to work, but a planner job posted for the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission, overseeing grant programs and the public art program. I took the job, figuring I’ll get back into Santa Fe, I’ll make some connections, and then I’ll go work for the Opera.
I was there for 18 years, and I’ve never worked for the Santa Fe Opera.
But managing that public art program for ten years brought me so much joy. I loved projects where you would get architects and artists working together really early on. I loved watching this dynamic where both parties were really dubious of each other in the beginning; the straight-laced bureaucratic engineer and the wild and crazy can’t-be-tamed artist. It would take several meetings, but eventually they would figure it out.
Now, I’ve been a public employee for almost 30 years, and nothing drives me crazier than when thinking about a hire, someone says he ran a business. He’ll do great in government.
No, government requires a particular set of skills and expertise.
Where are those skills?
Certainly diplomacy. Navigating complex systems, and actually enjoying that process. I find there’s a really important relational aspect to being successful in a government position. Relationships with colleagues and coworkers, with the community and the public, with appointed boards and commissions, with elected officials.
Do you think women are better at that?
Yeah, I do.
Now, let me just be clear. I have worked for a lot of incredible leaders in government, be they elected or appointed officials, who are men, but I do think women are a little bit better at the more relational aspects of it.
I think at the end of the day, women are incredibly tenacious. They know what they want to get done. They’re clear on it. They’re very committed to it, and they’re just better at sticking to their guns and getting it done.
Do you think that they are less ego-driven and more task-driven?
I think women are better at defining the boundaries that they are willing to cross or not. And within those boundaries, there’s great flexibility. But I think we also have a lot of great clarity about what we will and won’t compromise on to get there.
But, hey, I love men too. I have two sons.
What’s something you are working on right now that you love?
I love that in the next 18 months, we will buy a brand-new bookmobile and a brand new van for our Wonders on Wheels exhibit. New Mexico is one of the few states that still has rural bookmobiles. They fit two to three thousand volumes and they go to sections of the state that don’t have library services, and they take books and internet services to those communities. I love that.
So you are a lover of books.
I am a voracious reader. I love books and I love fiction and nonfiction equally, though I lean towards nonfiction. What’s interesting is, I didn’t really achieve on-grade reading competency until probably fifth grade. I had a lot of trouble learning how to read. I’m grateful that my parents were educated as educators to understand that I just needed more help and that it didn’t become a big issue.
I love the experience of reading a book and that transcendency, going to a different place. I think there are very strong parallels with a theater performance, an opera performance, a dance performance, or going to a museum or an immersive environment like Meow Wolf.
I have developed this view that culture, in the broadest definition, the ways we eat, the ways we celebrate, the ways we mourn, that’s how individuals and communities develop resiliency. Think about a time in your life when you have been struggling. Like the pandemic. What did we turn to? We turned to music. We turned to television. Performance. We turned to all these things. A lot of people started baking. A lot of people started crafting. It’s how we are resilient through troubled times. When I look at the history of our state, this is not an easy place from the get-go. This has never been an easy place to survive and thrive. I think that is part of the reason that we have this deep, deep tie in New Mexico to all things culture, be it art, be it food, be it place.
That deep connection comes from the difficulty of this place?
It’s a difficult environment, with these successive waves of conquest and collision. I think the fact that this department exists as the largest and broadest state cultural agency, as the largest state-run museum system, that its roots go back to pre-statehood, it makes sense, because culture is so fundamental in this state, to everything we do, past, present, and future. This investment just somehow makes sense.
You’re home. You ventured out in Chicago, but here you are, home again.
It feels like it’s in my blood. This community has given me everything. What I love about working for government is the things you can accomplish. There are a lot of really tough days. There are a lot of days when you get dragged through the mud. But when you have those successes, they’re unlike anything you could have in any other sector.
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More at https://Governor.state.nm.us/our-leadership/department-of-cultural-affairs
