Mountain Time: the Organ Mountains and White Sands

In January, Silas and I took a mini-break down to Las Cruces. We stayed at the Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces. It might look like a generic airport hotel from the outside, but once inside there is a stunning courtyard oasis and pool perched on a hill overlooking the city and mountains beyond.

We wandered the farmer’s market and went for a beautiful hike in the Organ Mountains on our first day. Snow clung to the shady side of the mountains, tucked under tree branches, but the trails were clear for the most part.

The next day we headed towards Alamagordo, to White Sands, which had become a national park since our last visit.

In the heart of the Tularosa Basin, the world’s largest gypsum dune field covers 275 square miles, forming shapes dependent on winds and not tides. Soaptree yuccas line the road, in places growing an elongated stem to reach above the gypsum as it drifts. It is a sea of sand, next to the White Sands Missile Range, about seventy miles from the Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945. Signs led us into the park, noting the possibility of temporary closures for US military testing, and reminding us that the missile range is still active.

At the trailhead, signs warned us in English and Spanish to Stay Alive, Bring lots of water, Wear sunscreen, Pack layers. Which is basic desert logic. And there was more, an adjacent sign said, Know before you go, Alkali Flat Trail, This trail is not flat!, Do not touch any strange objects, sometimes military planes drop dangerous objects on our dunes, and Do not rely on GPS to find your way, sometimes military tests disrupt satellite signals for hours. There was no pretending that we weren’t hiking right next to an active missile range, no matter how beautiful it is.

At the base of most dunes, the sand changes. The interdune landscape. Harder underfoot, it holds in more moisture than the sand at the crest, and a handful of plants take advantage, Torrey’s jointfir, Ephedra torreyana, a small shrub shooting its roots down 6 feet into the gypsum, chamisa, and clusters of grass all trying to hold on in spite of the shifting sands.

Here, in the Alkali Flat, researchers have found the largest known field of Pleistocene ice age trackways. Dire wolf, ancient bison, saber-tooth cat, giant ground sloth, and mammoth all walked here and left impressions behind from 19,000-40,000 years ago. Ghost tracks occur just below the surface, only rarely appearing when a salt hollow forms above them. They can be detected with ground-penetrating radar and magnetic surveys. Raised prints left in mud were filled in with a stronger mineral, dolomite, that lasted long after the softer materials eroded away. And a third kind, ancient prints left in mud and filled in with sand can still be found. On the western playa, human footprints were found in a trench. Ancient grass seeds, Ruppia cirrhosa, were among in the sediment layers above and below. With radiocarbon dating, researchers recently learned they were from 22,806 and 21,130 years ago, far earlier than the previous estimates of humans in North America from 13,500-16,000 years ago. (for more info see nps.gov )

all photographs by me, Becca Grady, 2023

Studio Visit: Flowers and Art with Abigail McNamara of Bagel's Florals

Abigail (Bagel for short) McNamara is an artist and florist based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I found her through her flower work on instagram, and was excited to see some of the artwork on her website. In addition to making beautiful floral arrangements that she sells through her bouquet subscription service Bagel’s Florals, she also draws, paints, and makes installation work. McNamara grew up in Montana and was raised by two gardeners. Knowing this, I wasn’t surprised to learn that during the summer months she also grows some of the flowers she uses in her arrangements in her garden, in addition to sourcing locally (like Mini Falls Farm) whenever possible. We connected at the end of January for a photo session and studio visit in her Albuquerque studio, where she showed me how she creates her amazing floral arrangements. We talked about running small creative businesses and the challenges of carving out free creative time.

Becca Grady: Could you introduce yourself and what you do?

Abigail McNamara: My name is Abigail, or Bagel for short. I am primarily an artist and craftsperson. That just bleeds into everything I do, whether it’s working with flowers, or playing with paint or string, or playing in the garden. Everything that I do is very process oriented and I like doing things with my hands. So, I would say I’m an artist most generally and then there are a lot of specific things that I do, but they are all kind of working towards the same end. They all chill me out and they’re all centered around seeing beauty and nature and processes.

BG: How did you get started working with flowers?

AM: Looking back, it’s much easier for me to see how I ended up with flowers. I went to college for art. I was trying to make art to make money, while also having a day job, and my day jobs took me all over the place. I started out vegetable farming. I worked for a couple of small businesses. While I was working for this bakery, I heard about an opportunity to play with flowers: during the Valentine’s Day rush at this really big florist in San Francisco. So, I worked the Valentine’s rush, which meant showing up to work at 2 am, working till 7 in the morning, and then going home. It was the weirdest schedule, but I was instantly enamored with being around so many flowers. Then, one of my co-workers at the bakery told me about an apprenticeship at a small urban farm in San Francisco that grew flowers. And so, I became an apprentice there and I would go once a week and harvest flowers and learn about growing techniques and we would also design bouquets for market. And so, looking back, I feel like it happened very organically, like flowers found me. they really are a nice place between my interest in plants and processes, and my interest in art. After I moved to Albuquerque, I interned for an event florist called Floriography. I was getting to be around flowers a lot but was starting to want to express my creative voice with them. And so, I started Bagel’s Florals as a subscription program. Really, I created it just to give myself an opportunity to play with flowers every week and to go with the seasons and to find my creative process with flowers, but soon I found myself running a business.

BG: When did you start Bagel’s Florals?

AM: It was sometime in the summer of 2017. I don’t know exactly when it started. There was the time when I had the domain name, but I didn’t even have a business. It just very slowly happened. I never intended it to be my sole income or a business. I didn’t write a mission statement. I just scrapped it together and then was like ‘I guess I’m making money from this now’.

BG: And so, it’s grown into being your business. That’s awesome.

AM: It is. It has served me really well and I feel like the community here in Albuquerque has been really supportive of it and excited by what I’ve been doing with flowers. It’s just been a really good environment for it to grow. So, I’ve just let it grow.

BG: Do you have a favorite flower? Or multiple favorite flowers?

AM: That’s like the hardest question ever.

BG: It can be a list.

AM: I feel like it changes with the seasons and also when I meet something new or start using something often. I would say poppies are one of my favorites, although they are really hard to work with in design because they have a very short vase life. But that’s part of what makes them so special, that ethereal quality. Also, sweet peas, which my mom always grew when I was growing up. She always used “sweet pea” as a pet name for us, so I just love sweet peas. And they smell so amazing.

BG: I love that!

AM: I’ve been growing them for a couple of years now too. It’s hard not to list a million but those are two of my favorites. After those, I’d choose classics like roses and ranunculus.

BG: What was the ranunculus that you used in the bouquet you just made?

AM: That’s a Charlotte Ranunculus. And there’s also this variety called Butterfly Ranunculus that are really cool. I have this whole other category of favorite flowers which are the textures or the “fillers”. The ones that aren’t star flowers or what you would call in floral design “focal flowers”. They’re the weird textures that support the eye-catching ones. There’s this flowering acacia tree that has these little yellow puffballs. I love that stuff. I love textures. My weirdo flowers.

BG: Have you ever done any large floral installations? I was thinking about that when I was looking at some of your art installation work on your website.

AM: No, not yet. It is very similar in a lot of ways, especially the emotional process of making an installation. How you are trying to understand what something is going to be before you make it. It’s like you’re trying to remember a dream or something and you’re thinking of it in your head, but you can’t really identify it and yet you have to prepare to make it. There’s always that period of time when I get very stressed and worried that everything is going to fail. Then there is tons of work actually creating it, but you have to save that, well especially for florals, to complete all in one day. So, I feel like doing art installations has prepared me for doing floral installation.

BG: That’s so interesting. I know that we can have many different creative practices that are seperate and unrelated, but occasionally there can be some unexpected crossover and I’m always interested in where that happens.

AM: Yeah. I also never used color until I started working with flowers. All of my artwork before flowers was mostly white. I had started going into blues and monochromatic stuff. There was a lot of white and black and a little bit of brown, all neutrals. I didn’t think that color was something that I could do, and I didn’t feel comfortable with it, and once I started working with flowers, I started falling in love with color. There are colors that I never liked that I now love because of flowers. It’s cool to see how all the artwork I’ve been making since flowers is super colorful. So yeah, flowers definitely made me more playful with color. There’s a lot of overlap for sure.

BG: Could you talk a little bit about your art practice? Like where do you look for inspiration? You make art, a mix of works on paper, fiber, and installations. Between the works on paper and the more sculptural installations, they all seem to use drawing as a method. Drawing/painting on paper and drawing in space with linen thread and beeswax. Is that something that you think about?

AM: My degree was in drawing, but by the time I was doing my thesis, I was much more interested in sculpture and installation. But my work was still very informed by drawing, whether that was imagery, or line work, or light and shadow, or really focusing on form. I think that’s why I wasn’t doing a lot of color because I was so interested in texture. That’s how I got started and since then I’ve moved through lots of different media. I’m drawn to processes that are very repetitive and detail oriented where I can do one thing for hours and hours and hours and hours to make a larger piece. That’s taken me in all different directions.

BG: Did you find that how you make art changed when you got to New Mexico? For example, did the light or new shapes influence you?

AM: I feel like how I make art is always changing. It did change when I got to New Mexico. I think because of how I was spending my time and how I was directing my energy. I was getting into flowers at the time and was also really into baking, and I just wasn’t making as much art in my studio. I feel like since I got here, I have been wrestling with that a little bit, like whether or not I feel that I’m making enough. At this point, I’m just trying to take all that pressure off and to not be concerned with how much I’m producing, or to what end, and to just spend time doing it because I love it. I’ve been able to change in that way because, before I moved here, I was thinking that making money from my artwork was the end goal. Slowly I realized how much money I would have to charge for my art to make the money that I need to live. I realized that I didn’t know if that was ever going to happen for me and if it was, I would have to be a part of this echelon of the art world that I don’t really want to be a part of. it forced me to realize why I do art, which is primarily for fun. So that’s what I’m trying to do now.

BG: Do you think of these smaller pieces in the studio as potentially working together towards a larger work?

AM: Maybe. I feel like I’m in such a funny place right now, even to talk about my art, because since starting the business I’ve been struggling to find time for both. Because of that I’ve just let go of any kind of expectation of an end result like certain works leading up to a show, or a bigger version, or whatever. So, no I don’t really think of these works as necessarily becoming something bigger although they could if that’s where they take me. Right now, I’m just trying to take a backseat, in terms of controlling what anything is going to be, just letting myself and the work figure it out together.

BG: I had to do the same thing with my art and business. I also worked full time for a long time before I was able to just do the jewelry business. I kept thinking I was going to have slightly more time to balance the two, but the business sort of took up all of my free brain space. So, I had to put my art practice on the back burner.

AM: Yes, and it’s probably very similar for you, that your business is also a creative outlet. I get to be very creative with flowers and even in the garden. I’m tending to this thing and watching it become something more, it’s very analogous to my art practice. So, I think in some ways I don’t need the art as much, but I also want to get back to it so badly. I want to be an artist for my whole life, so I’m going to be doing that dance forever to a certain degree or another. I try not to get too hung up on how long it’s been or how little I’ve been in the studio, because in the larger scheme of things I’m going to be an artist for my whole life so it’s okay if I’m not having three shows a year or x, y, and z. As long as I just stay curious about that part of myself.

BG: Yeah, that’s actually how I started painting. Because I was like ‘I need to make art, but I don’t have a show planned’. I wasn’t going to plan some big installation when I didn’t have the space for it. So I decided I needed to make something that was certain size.. And then I can put it away and paint over it, or whatever. I would say to myself, ‘ok this is what I’m doing for the afternoon because that is the amount of time that I have’. It eventually turned into a large body of work. But to get started, I just had to say ok, I have this much time to play and that’s it.

AM: Yes, play. That’s such a good word because that is what it feels like to make art, and especially, to paint. There’s something about painting that feels extra playful. Maybe mixing the colors and like…

BG: Getting messy?

AM: Yeah, like taking yourself back to being a kid.

BG: Are there places that you look for inspiration? For art or for flowers?

AM: I love sitting in the window seat on an airplane. That’s one of the most inspirational places for me. A lot of my art reflects systems or patterns on micro and macro levels so when I get to physically zoom out and be up in the airplane, that’s one of my favorite things. I take a ton of pictures from the window seat. I don’t really like flying in general, but I really like getting that view of the world. And it’s both sides of that coin, getting that world view and then noticing really tiny details. So, a lot of times that’s in nature. I walk my dog every day and I’m very attuned to what’s growing in my neighborhood and what time of year it is and what the texture of the seed pod looks like. Maybe that sounds kind of cliché but it’s true. Nature is really the main place that I find inspiration and always has been.

BG: I was also wondering, since you run a small business, what have been the biggest challenges for you? And is there anything you would like to tell someone else who is starting a business or yourself two years ago?

AM: So many things. To someone starting a business or to myself two years ago I would say – pay yourself. Figure out a way to pay yourself from the beginning because it will make it a lot easier to continue paying yourself throughout the process. That’s something that I’m just figuring out how to do. And honestly, it wouldn’t hurt to do things “right” from the beginning.

BG: What does “right” mean? Like a business plan?

AM: I don’t think a business plan is 100% necessary. But I would recommend opening a business bank account at the beginning – not getting your business finances entangled with your personal finances. It’s just easier if you figure that out in the beginning. Then you are not putting yourself in a position where you are chugging along and trying to do the next important thing, but you have to stop and worry about all these licenses and records and undoing your mistakes. But I definitely didn’t want to hear that. And as much as I don’t think anyone really wants to hear that, it would have made things a little easier if I had started out doing everything by-the-book. As far as a mission statement and stuff goes, your vision can change and develop as you go. But it’s so valuable to go into it knowing some business basics, like knowing the rules so you can break them. I was a DIY kid, and I very much still believe in that philosophy, but sometimes if you just follow the rules it can make things easier.

And to your other question about biggest challenges, I guess it’s not that different from everyone’s life. It’s just like balancing the different roles that you have in your world and being mindful of how you’re using your energy. Which I think is true for someone who has an office job, or someone who works at a restaurant, or someone who is a business owner. that’s just kind of a constant thing in life. I don’t think that there is ever one right answer or one right way to do it. For me, personally, I think it’s always changing. So, it’s just about staying in touch with that and staying curious. Like ‘ok, what do I want to do more of, or what do I want to do less of?’ or ‘how does that affect my art practice or my business?’. So yeah, I think balancing everything is the hardest part of running a small business, but I think that may be true about anyone’s job.  

BG: Where can folks find your flowers? Do you have any pop ups coming up? 

AM: You can always order Bagel's Florals for delivery through the online shop: bagelsflorals.com. This week, for Valentine's Day, we'll be popping up all over Albuquerque – at And Stuff Collective on Thursday the 13th, and then on Friday (Valentine's Day) at Little Bear Coffee, Heidi's Jam Factory, and Paradise Club Vintage. At the moment, I don't sell anywhere locally besides via the online store. In the summer, I pop-up more frequently as there is a lot of locally grown product available to me, and I'm pretty easy to find during the holidays as well.

All photos by me, Becca Grady, 2020.

Plant Diaries: Winter at Mini Falls Farm

I’ve hit that point in winter where while I don’t mind seeing those beautiful snow topped mountains in the distance, I really want just want to be looking at some greens, some new growth, the hint of spring to come.

At the end of January, I drove to Chimayo to meet Mykel and Lindsey, who run a flower farm there called Mini Falls Farm. Down 84/285 to NM-503 to Juan Medina Road to NM-76, then make a few quick turns down a single lane dirt road and there is Mini Falls Farm. There is no sign, but the hoops of the garden tunnels filled with cold weather wintering plants that peek out behind the house let me know I was in the right place.

I found Mini Falls Farm in the place where I find a lot of things these days, on Instagram. You should probably go find them there too. I’d never been to a flower farm before, let alone in New Mexico, so I was excited when we connected and found a time for a visit.

I grabbed my camera bag, and we walked around back, and through a fence that keep their lovely dogs out of the flower fields. Mykel lead us over to see the acequia, an irrigation system used in New Mexico. The farm was last used in the sixties, Mykel told me. When they first got here five years ago, they had to clear all the elm trees that had sprung up across the fields like weeds. You can still see them around the property. There were so many of them it was too much to haul them away. Since then, they’ve been using them for wood for the fire, and to build a fence out front. The stumps and roots line the edge of the property. Lindsey said that they read somewhere that they are good bug habitats and will help the flowers, so they decided to keep them. It took two years to get to the point where they were able to start growing flowers. “We had to clear the whole field and get all the roots out. That was a lot of work.”

The snow from a previous storm had mostly melted leaving mud and small pockets of white in all the shady spots. The day was warm and sunny, so Lindsey and Mykel opened up the tunnels. The temperature drops a lot at night, so all of the plants they’ve got started, get covered up as soon as the warmth from the sun starts to fade.

There were a couple of early bloomers in the tunnels that day, but it will be end of February before the anemones are ready, and April for the ranunculus, daffodils, sweet peas, and more. Winter is a quieter time at the farm, and they are planning and organizing their season, and getting seeds in. Soon they’ll start seeds for the spring fields.

I can’t wait to go back and see the farm when the flowers are in bloom!

If you’re looking for flowers this spring or want to learn more about the farm, head to Mini Falls Farm on Instagram, where they share all the up to date news about flowers at the farm.

All photos by me, Becca Grady, 2020.