Name of Person: Consuelo Martinez

Local, traditional, and contemporary art. Located in El Coyote.

Consuelo Martinez, proprietor of the gallery and a traditional weaver, is the daughter of the well known weaver Santana Salazar. Her gallery features weavings and other forms of contemporary art associated with the Hispano mountain culture. Hispano mountain culture developed and evolved over four centuries in New Mexico's mountain environment and by contact with American Indians that modified the patterns of lifeways of Hispano agri-pastoralist. Consuelo and her forebears practiced the weaving craft from ancestors who raised sheep, carded, spun, dyed and wove on the upright loom called the telar in Spanish. The practice has been done since the late 19th century among people who settled in El Coyote that migrated from Abiquiu, 16 miles to the east, and whose skill in turn was diffused from weavers in Santa Cruz de la Cañada, 33 miles to the east and backward into the obscurities of history among American Indians, the Spanish, and the Arabs of centuries past. Weaving works include traditional Rio Grande Style weavings featuring horizontal banding, some Saltillo style diamond, rag weaves, and contemporary weaves featuring the silhouette of the mountain called Cerro Pedernal that Santana became famous for. Consuelo’s Gallery is part of an artist tour known as the Pedernal Arts Tour and her establishment is affiliated with the Cerro Pedernal Heritage Association.