SITE Santa Fe, February 28 to May 19, 2025 — Dahodiyinii — Sacred Places

From the first paragraph of the curator’s notes, “the past is not merely recalled but felt.”

What does it mean to have the past recalled and felt? Is it as if it were your past? Or is it her past that’s being felt? And we must all feel sad for her and other Navajos? I don’t think that what comes across.

The past is recalled by some photos whose time of capture is unknown. As I look at them I wonder if these photos old, or just some of the people portrayed. Some are young and smiling, are these photos from the past? It seems to be important that there is not enough information. A docent starts to tell me some of the artist’s or her subjects’ history, but she doesn’t seem to know much and is certainly telling the tale with a bias, which may or may not be justified, because she doesn’t know the facts. Helen Nez, shown in photos, had many of her children die from urianinum in the dirt at a relocation camp in New Mexico. Turns out the case of children dying by uranium poisoning was not from relocation but from bad environmental protections at a uranium mine in Arizona, were several of Nez’s family worked. I am outraged. Our land should be safe, sacred or not, if we care that we, our children and others have the liberty to pursue happiness.

And this is what the artist is actually talking about. Land and Sky are sacred. Nature is beautiful. She creates works that look as if they come from the past to say this. For example, the red print with abalone shell buttons.

Mace’s techniques is a direct process of printing, like making a trail, with natural dyes. One ray-0-type (cyanotype) is done with cottonwood bark, a warm tan and walnut dye. There is no intermediary transfer of image, just the application of colors onto paper or canvas.  Then sometimes some things are removed with acid in a technique called chemograph. And yes, there are plenty of natural acids. The resulting images are as interesting as nature. Not glitzy, or bombarding, just worth a look. You get out what you put in.