Hubbard Museum of the American West

Thursday, 30 July 2015
Deer Crossing RV Park — San Patricio, New Mexico
Temps: Hi 84F (29C) / Lo 62F (17C)

We’ve been planning to visit the Hubbard Museum of the American West since arriving here.  But we were waiting to do it on a really hot or rainy day.  We had such days in recent weeks, however, we decided to delay our visit until after my new camera arrived.  That happened on Monday; the museum is closed Tuesday and Wednesday … bringing us to today!

You see, traveling overseas with DSLR equipment is getting to be more of a pain in the you know what than it used to be.  Not only is the weight of the camera and the lenses an issue while wandering around to see the sights, but it’s also a problem on airlines, which are paying closer attention than ever to the weight of carry-on bags.  We almost got into trouble on the way back from New Zealand when the flight out of Auckland had a carry-on restriction of 22 pounds (10 kg).  My equipment far exceeds that!  Crazy, I know ;-)  Mui got us through by hefting the bag like it was empty and the agent believed him without weighing the bag.  Had he asked us to put the bag on the scale, my goose would have been cooked to a crisp!

Anyway, with Mui’s encouragement, I recently started looking at alternatives to my Canon DSLR.  Don’t get me wrong, no camera can match what a DSLR can do, but considering my photos are mostly for publication in the blog, and I do little more than look at them on occasion in my online galleries, we figured I could find a reasonable alternative.  And I think I have.

Anne Stradling — a lifelong collector
Blaze — Trail … Alfred G Haigh (1920)

All this to say that the photos in this post were taken with the FujiFilm X-T10, a recent — like May 2015 recent — entrant into the mirrorless camera market.  Its newness not withstanding, there are already very happy users out there and I am leaning towards being one of them even though my “testing phase” still has a few weeks to go before I have to make a final decision — thanks to B&H’s 30-day return policy.

OK — so let’s move on to our morning at the museum and the pictures I took.

The Hubbard Museum of the American West, affiliated with the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, is a lovely museum in Ruidoso Downs.  I’d link you to the museum’s website, but it is “under construction” and directs visitors to social media sites instead.  So, in the name of the museum I linked to Facebook since I don’t have a Twitter account.  Not much on the FB page that I could find about the history of the museum, so if interested, you can read this article from the Ruidoso News.

[Captions, where they exist, are from signage at the museum.]

Exhibit displaying items central to the beliefs of followers of North American Peyotism,
including the Peyote Field/road, the ceremonial tepee, water drum, and more.

The regular admission for adults is $7/person, but there is a $2 discount for seniors and military.  We went thinking we would spend maybe an hour — even with me testing the new camera’s high ISO operation … the photos in this post were taken with ISOs ranging between 1000 and 1600.  We ended up spending three hours!  We were at the museum when it opened at 9:00a, and for the first hour had the place to ourselves.  When others did show up, they were few and far between, and left after a fairly quick look-see.

A closer look at the Peyote Road.
A description of the typical “Half Moon” or “Little Moon” ceremony of the Native
American Church (Peyotism) is in this signage I photographed at the museum.

The four galleries at the museum are used to display rotating exhibits as well as a permanent one that includes wagons, carriages, and other artifacts — over 10,000 of them — given over to the museum by Anne Stradling after she became ill and was unable to maintain the museum she had founded in Patagonia, Arizona.  Items from her collection include saddles, furniture, kachina dolls, baskets, jewelry, and more.

Ceremonial vessels

Mexican Saddle (Early 1900’s) with many of the features of the traditional vaquero saddle.
Crafted from tooled leather and silver thread decoration with silver ornamentation.

The Conestoga wagon (circa 1850) is often described as the original 18-wheeler.
A relatively heavy wagon, it was used to carry freight — up to 5,000 pounds.

In addition to sizable storage compartments fore and aft, this circa 1870 mountain
coach has a passenger compartment both in the enclosed body and on roof-level
seating.  One ton or more when empty, it was meant to be pulled by at least 4 horses.

Circa 1800 children’s Circular Hearse — the circular reference is to the round
beveled glass.  Typical of a children's hearse, it would have been painted white with
gold striping, and the accessories would have also been white with gold braid and tassels.

Clairmont Jail — by Robert Hudnall

Poblanas — lithograph showing a man and three women from Puebla,
Mexico relaxing and smoking in the doorway of a building.

Left: Miniature Burden Basket — Apache (1950)
Right: Passamaquady Basket (1920)

Left: Fetish Pot — Zuni (1950)
Right: Anasazi Pot (1020)

Left: Quiver — Sioux (1888)
Right: Corn Dancer Headdress — Pueblo (1890)

Chess Set

Left: A closer look at the “Black rook” from the chessboard above.
Center: Burden Basket — Apache (1960)
Right: Kachina doll — Yei-Bei-Chai (Navajo)

The visit to the Hubbard Museum was well worth the admission charge.  Highly recommended if you find yourselves in the area.  I have more photos from the art and artifacts on display in my online gallery if you care to check them out.

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