Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM

Familia de Burque

I moved to Burque back in 2004 and quickly fell in love with it. One of the things I love is it's history. The flow of people and cultures through New Mexico over the centuries is truly amazing. I was lucky enough to come across a treasure trove of glass negatives that were taken by an Albuquerque portrait studio back in the 1900s - 1920s a few years ago. I picked up a few hundred of them over the course of several months and began to do web research (aka "obsessed over them") trying to figure out the studio that took them and identify and locate some of the people that are in them. Trips to the Albuquerque Museum, Special Collections Library, and the SW Center for Research soon followed. I now believe they were taken by Cobb Studios - a studio that at the time these images were taken was owned and operated by a woman - Eddie Ross Cobb. Eddie was the daughter of Edmund Ross - a Territorial Governor of NM. I have also located and spoken to a few descendants of people in my images.
Over this course of this crazy obsession I also started taking these images and mixing them with my own photography. The resulting series is now on display at The Wooden Cow Gallery and Art Space - check it out this month!

Also at the Cow I have copies of all of the scans of the negatives in my collection. I am hoping to find some more connections this way - a sampling of the last names of the people that populate these images - Padilla, Sandoval, Sigala, Seligman, Austin, Sherman, Dolan, Walker, Sena, Gonzalez, Lucero, Griego, Candelaria, Chavez and Sanchez. These will there the entire month of July - please stop by the next time you're in the NE Heights - or come to the opening this Friday!

Comment by Juan on July 1, 2009 at 11:35am: Nice!

Comment by Barelas Babe on July 1, 2009 at 11:47am: Interesting post, Raine! I, too, love the pieces of history that one can find here.

Have you been in touch with Ed Ross, the retired Episcopal priest of the Cathedral of St. John? He is the grandson of E.G. Ross - he's kind, gentle, and down to earth and I'll bet he'd be happy to chat with you if he's in town.

There's a great photo in the Barelas Community Center of Governor Ross in front of his family home in Barelas. It could be that some of these photos have a Barelas connection - you might want to contact the folks at the National Hispanic Culture Center to see if the names you have line up with any of the material they have on local families.

I'm looking forward to checking these images!

Comment by Barelas Babe on July 1, 2009 at 1:27pm: Balsted typos! Checking OUT these images...

Comment by Chroma Studios on July 1, 2009 at 1:52pm: What a cool story! I was wondering about the photos I framed for you! I guess I could've asked you in person! Thanks for the interesting post! BTW, is the Wooden Cow going to be open for Artscrawl this month? I'm going to try to make it over sometime this month for sure!

Comment by The Wooden Cow Gallery and Art Space on July 1, 2009 at 2:51pm: Thanks ya'll! I am really hoping to find some more people who are related to some of my "glass negative people" through having this show! I will definitely check out NHCC - I keep meaning to - but never get over there!

Comment by Raine K. on July 1, 2009 at 2:52pm: Ummm, yeah - that above comment was actually me - but as "The Cow" - sorry!

Comment by Mary Tafoya on July 1, 2009 at 5:46pm: What an awesome idea, Raine.

Comment by BoogieMama on July 2, 2009 at 8:33am: These are wonderful! What a find!

And three cheers for the amazing historical and cultural experts we have here in Albuquerque, who are so patient and kind about answering questions. I've been in their face a lot too, lately. What time is the opening?

Comment by Raine K. on July 2, 2009 at 9:43am: The opening is 5pm - 8pm - and just finished printing all the negative images last night - three thick binders full!!!!

Comment by Chris K. on July 2, 2009 at 1:06pm: The binders are really cool, they have interesting bits of information Raine has put together as well as the images.

I love you and your art Raine. You always make me and the kids so proud.