THE ART OF TAOS CULTURAL COMPLEXITY, SCENIC VISTAS ARE SURE TO GIVE YOU PAUSE.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

TAOS, N.M. - The convergence of natural beauty and native culture began attracting contemplative souls to this part of northern New Mexico nearly a century ago, and the enchantment never wore off, the influx of wanderers seeking enlightenment never abated.

From a colony of artists in the 1910s to the hippie communes of the 1960s to the frayed-nerve rat-racers who vacation here today, Taos has cast a wide net - and a mesmerizing spell.

Bob Bodenhamer is surely snared in it. A former managing editor at newspapers in Santa Rosa and San Luis Obispo, he happened upon this artsy little village 10 years ago while attending a reunion of former Peace Corps colleagues. ``I was immediately hooked,'' he said.

So when the itch for a career change developed five years ago, Bodenhamer chucked it all to become innkeeper at the Laughing Horse Inn, a calculatedly ramshackle little adobe on the north end of town. The inn was where Spud Johnson printed the Laughing Horse Press in the 1920s. D.H. Lawrence wrote for it and slept in the room that housed the hand-set press. Various characters of the day passed through and flopped here for the night: Georgia O'Keeffe, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas.

``We have a great hippie heritage (the place was a crash pad in the '60s) and a great literary heritage, so I feel right at home here,'' Bodenhamer, 63, said a few months ago over a beer in the kitchen. ``I kind of squandered my youth climbing the ladder.''

Over the years, a lot of cultural vagabonds have landed here and decided that life is simply too short for a manic pace. Maybe it has to do with the unique setting: Taos sits at nearly 7,000 feet in a little valley, with a mesa stretching to the horizon on the west and the majestic Sangre de Cristo Mountains soaring to as high as 13,000 feet on the north and east. The climate here is exhilarating, the skies nothing short of distracting.

And then there is the fascinating culture of the Taos Pueblo people, whose multitiered mud dwellings look much as they did centuries ago. The pueblo is open to visitors, although on an explicitly restricted basis.

Fine art and its creators continue to flourish in Taos. There are five outstanding art museums in the area. If you want to take something home, you'll find 96 art galleries or dealers listed in the yellow pages for Taos and the neighboring communities of Ranchos De Taos and El Prado.

For the more active-minded, Taos Ski Valley occupies a scenic bowl on the slopes of Wheeler Peak just a few miles out of town.

Not surprisingly, there is nothing secret about these attributes. The south end of Taos is a battleground of development, and the contingent headed by Wal-Mart, KFC and the gas station minimart appears to have established an impregnable beachhead.

The older part of town to the north - centered around a plaza that dates to the Spanish era - remains simple and infinitely charming, but the main north-south highway here, New Mexico 68, knifes through the best of it.

Particularly on weekends, the town and its little plaza can get overrun - Taos being an easy day trip from both Santa Fe (67 miles) and Albuquerque (124 miles) to the south. That two-lane road clogs up with roaring Harleys, muscle cars throbbing with hip-hop bass lines, and noisy diesel pickup trucks for which local ranchers seem to have a predilection. An out- of-state visitor might be advised to configure a vacation here around the midweek.

As you climb through the Rio Grande Gorge on the way up from Santa Fe or Albuquerque, you might be drawn into Taos' spell as surely as Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips were.

In a famous bit of local lore, the two men's broken wagon wheel caused Taos' destiny to angle into a detour. Illustrators from New York, they were headed from Denver to Mexico in 1898 to sketch the dramatic landscape. Their rickety little surrey threw a wheel on a mountain road to the north of here, and they set off on foot to Taos to get it fixed.

Phillips never left. Blumenschein began returning frequently (before moving in permanently). And soon they persuaded a number of colleagues to join them for visits. The Taos Society of Artists was formed with six members in 1915, and in time painters were streaming in, resolved to capture on canvas such sights as the Sangre de Cristos crested with snow, storm clouds raging over the mesa, aspen groves resplendent in autumn, and the Pueblo's native people engaged in everything from menial tasks to spiritual quests.

The art bursts from museums all over town, some of which occupy buildings that were once residences of the creators. On a visit last November, these were found to be among the best:

Millicent Rogers Museum: An essential component of art patronage and collection - and the ability to settle in a remote outpost like Taos in the 1940s - is independent means. Rogers, whose grandfather got into oil when the automobile came into wide use, had them, and her astounding collection of Southwest treasures makes a case for this being the finest museum in the area.

On display here is an extensive array of black-on-black pottery made by Maria Martinez at the New Mexico pueblo of San Ildefonso. (The work of Maria's husband, Julian, and their son, Popovi Da, is also exhibited). There is Navajo and Pueblo jewelry of silver and turquoise, and some of the turquoise necklaces are so elaborate they appear capable of bending the wearer double.

Navajo blankets of dizzying patterns date to the late 1800s - aptly called ``eye dazzlers.'' Apache basketry and Zuni and Hopi kachina dolls round out the Southwest display.

The museum collects contemporary American Indian art, too, in an effort to carry on the legacy of Rogers, who suffered from rheumatic fever throughout her life and died in Taos at age 51. The real prizes of the museum, however, are the items that were created years ago for use in everyday Indian life.

E.L. Blumenschein Home & Museum: He was one of the fellows involved in the broken-wheel incident, and his work and other paintings from the early days of the art colony are exhibited in the family's former house, a quirky adobe that was more than 100 years old when they settled here in 1919.

The oil paintings on the walls reveal the subject matter that captivated those early artists: bright-gold aspen groves, mountain streams in winter, mean adobe buildings (Charles Berninghaus); Pueblo men chanting by a kiva fireplace (Joseph Sharp); Taos Pueblo women engaged in the arduous task of shucking corn, their infants and dogs curled up and asleep at their feet (Mary Greene Blumenschein).

Harwood Museum of Art: At the Blumenschein museum, there are hints that the painters of the 1920s and '30s were perhaps more intrigued with life at Taos Pueblo than they were with the glorious natural landscapes of the region. At the Harwood, it's confirmed all the more.

``Cacique,'' painted in 1932 by E. Irving Couse, is an unblinking look at the religious leader of the Taos Pueblo at the time. It's displayed in a gallery devoted to the original members of the Taos Society of Artists.

The Hispanic Traditions Gallery features paintings on wood donated by Mabel Dodge Luhan, another well-heeled devotee of the arts in Taos' golden era.

The Harwood, operated by the University of New Mexico, also places a strong emphasis on the work of contemporary artists, some of whom reside in New Mexico. This is nothing new; after World War II, it provided display opportunities for young Modernists who began drifting into Taos.

Van Vechten-Lineberry Taos Art Museum: Work of the early Taos artists is exhibited in the central gallery, including several landscapes in oil by Joseph Sharp. The paintings of Duane Van Vechten, the museum founder's first wife, are also prominent.

Fechin Institute: The works on display here are worthy of a look - they just seem strangely out of place for the setting.

Nicolai Fechin, who developed his wood-carving gifts in his native Russia, came to Taos in 1927 and set about carving adornments for his adobe home.

Not a stick of his work says Southwest. Rather, pieces reflect a classical style, and this fellow was nothing if not prolific. The museum, devoted entirely to Fechin's work, contains intricately carved chairs, cabinets, doors, doorways, fireplace mantels, pillars, light stands, benches, beds. The detail is so intricate, it'll make your eyes hurt - and your hands ache at the thought of tapping away at chisels for months on end.

In its artistic heyday, Taos was little more than a dusty outpost, and to the credit of its current stewards - at least in the old-town portion - it hasn't attempted to tidy up too much and is still pleasantly scruffy.

Alleys are dirt. Driveways are gravel. Sidewalks are so narrow in places that they'll only accommodate one person at a time. Shrubs and flowers tumble out of planter boxes. Front porches sag. And when the leaves fall in autumn, they're left where they land; there are no fussbudgets blasting them onto someone else's property with a noisy machine.

All of this gives Taos a comfortable, lived-in feel - kind of like an old, paint-splotched smock.

Taos puts an heiress' designs on display

TAOS, N.M. - The fashion and jewelry designs of Millicent Rogers will be the focus of a special exhibit this summer at the Taos art museum that bears her name.

The exhibit, staged in conjunction with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, commemorates the 100th anniversary of Rogers' birth. It will run from June 30 through Oct. 27 at the museum, which is on the north end of town.

Rogers, a hauntingly beautiful oil heiress who fought rheumatic fever throughout her life, died in Taos in 1953 at age 51. Over her last six years, spent in Taos, she collected some 3,000 Southwest art treasures - which form the core of the museum's collection.

She also had a keen fashion sense. The Brooklyn Museum of Art has loaned its considerable store of Rogers garments for the exhibition, titled ``Millicent Rogers: Fashion and Identity.'' Also on display will be ethnic costumes and Rogers' jewelry designs, which are considered the forerunners of ``hippie chic.''

Other anniversary exhibits, to run through June 16, include displays of Navajo textiles and Rio Grande serapes.

--Information: [phone]; www.millicentrogers.org

CAPTION(S):

9 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 4 -- color) Wilson Crawford's ``Running Star'' sculpture stands on the grounds of the Millicent Rogers Museum, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background, top. The museum collection features such native treasures as 19th-century Navajo rugs, left, and Apache basketry, right. Much of Taos' appeal is contained in its Spanish-era plaza, above.

(5) In addition to its lineup of museums, Taos is also chockablock with galleries where visitors can purchase locally made works.

(6) Indians of the Taos Pueblo fascinated artists who gravitated to the area. Some of the work hangs at the Harwood Museum of Art.

(7) An exhibit at the Millicent Rogers Museum features Navajo belts and jewelry-making tools.

(8) A Rio Grande serape dating to 1800 hangs on a wall in the Millicent Rogers Museum. Standing nearby is a century-old Spanish-style loom.

(9) Elaborate turquoise necklaces are among the items on display at the Millicent Rogers Museum.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

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Taos puts on heiress' fashions on display

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