The first crocus has popped a yellow blossom up through the earth and fruit trees are covered with buds. Santa Fe is warming up daily as days grow longer and the sun moves higher in the sky. I’m high on the promise of spring adventures. The season is the ideal time to visit, offering a host of events to tempt the enterprising traveler.
Style Yourself Creative March may sometimes come in like a lion, but around here you take less notice because it’s DIY Santa Fe month! Thanks to Santa Fe Creative Tourism, “Do It Yourself” takes on meaning way beyond home repair projects.
A visit to Santa Fe is the ideal way to heat up your creativity! (Photo Credit: Santa Fe Creative Tourism)
Have an urge to play with clay? Magpie Pottery teaches you to transfer images onto clay and a class at Heidi Loewen Porcelain Gallery means you’ll watch the clay dance on the wheel. Prefer to dance with your feet? African Dance with Elise Gent at the Railyard Performance Center and Monday Night Swing Dance at the Odd Fellows Hall tap you into a creative rhythm. You can craft a photographic book from start to finish, master construction of an art book or make an archivist’s relic from found objects. Painting and drawing classes abound and photo junkies will wax enthusiastically about choices that include encaustic for photographers. Those whose creativity runs to food are not ignored. A pop-up paleo dinner at the Santa Fe Culinary Academy delves into the diet of the ancestors and chef Paddy Rawal of Raaga brings the flavors of India to the Academy through his Native Harvest meal. No matter what ingredients are essential in your recipe for creativity, there’s something for every taste.
There’s no charge for the view at a Santa Fe Culinary Academy pop-up dinner. (Photo Credit: Santa Fe Culinary Academy)Sing A Song Of Spring Music has echoed throughout Santa Fe’s historic adobe downtown for centuries. Our history is tuned to the sounds of flamenco guitar, old time bluegrass, chamber music and everything in between. Spring is no exception to Santa Fe’s repertoire, with renowned mezzo-soprano (and New Mexico native) Susan Graham visiting the Lensic Performing Arts Center with Performance Santa Fe on March 12 and Arlo Guthrie closing out a month of Lensic events on March 31. The Santa Fe Symphony celebrates spring at the Lensic with a March 15 Beethoven Festival and ends its season with Verdi’s Requiem in May. Santa Fe Pro Musica puts music-lovers into an Easter mood with the annual Baroque Holy Week concerts on April 2-4 in the evocative Loretto Chapel, home of the mesmerizing staircase that draws Instagrammers and photo fanatics by the tens of thousands.
Enjoying an evening of glorious music at the Loretto Chapel is the way to capture all the beauty of Santa Fe. (Photo Credit: Loretto Chapel)
Santa Fe’s musical landscape is truly global. Case in point: The March performance of contemporary Hawaiian music by HAPA on March 29 at the Lensic. The Taiko drums set the scene for the annual Japanese Cultural Festival at the Convention Center on March 28. This year’s theme is Cherry Blossoms and it will be just about impossible to resist the flowery kimonos and unusual curios on sale.
Santa Fe’s Great Outdoors Is Calling Temperatures are already hitting the 60s and that means outdoor weather! For those who enjoy ambling under azure skies, Passport to the Arts is an invitation to spring pleasures. From May 8-10, the Canyon Road gallery scene comes alive with Friday night openings where work by 100-plus artists is on display. The Saturday Quick Draw has talent on parade up and down the street as artists work en plein air (working onsite to fully capture the ambiance) and the Live Auction does a brisk business.
The sightseeing is utterly artistic when you have a Passport to the Arts. (Photo Credit: Visit Canyon Road)
If you’re the outdoorsy type who prefers a more brisk experience in nature, the Outside Bike & Brew Festival offers five days of exceptional road and mountain biking with beer chasers at signature Santa Fe beer festivals. There’s no better way to earn a cold pint than burning up calories as you burn up the road on your two-wheeled steed. 2015 is the 30th anniversary of the Santa Fe Century, New Mexico’s longest-running bike event, so strong legs can make the 100-mile ride on May 17 their Bike & Brew capstone.
When the biking’s done, it’s time to have fun at Bike & Brew! (Photo Credit: Outside Bike & Brew festival)Spring Into Action For A Southwestern Adventure Whether you’re taking a contented stroll through the flowered courtyard of the Bishop’s Garden or blazing full-throttle down the mountainside on your bike, Santa Fe has everything you need to capture the spirit of the season—and you still have time to win that five-day Santa Fe Getaway! Roundtrip airfare and car rental, signature Santa Fe hotel stays, dining and spa treatments, ballooning and river rafting… what are you waiting for?
