It wasn’t too long after we first came to New Mexico that we noticed our lives were falling apart. While it was a gradual process, it was far from subtle. Sit down and—bam!—the front rail of the Windsor chair becomes a projectile. Meanwhile, entire inlaid surfaces begin to resemble 500-piece jigsaw puzzles. Welcome to the world of how-low-can-you-go humidity. Never mind the bloody nose and the permanently chapped lips and hands; the furniture brought from elsewhere seems to be in immediate need of collagen replacement therapy.

Time to consider that new adage “think globally but act locally.” Fortunately, New Mexican furniture, like the dwellings it inhabits, has a unique style, so regional as to be almost unknown outside our borders, but so influential that it contributed to one of the most important furniture styles of 20th-century America. Our children can fling themselves down on the Taos daybed while they search for their favorite program on the television located in a cupboard based upon a New Mexican trastero. It is a good bet that they do so with little knowledge that part of the heritage of these common pieces of New Mexican furniture goes back to 16th-century Spain.

And while you can get “Mission style” furniture, to say nothing of lamps, window coverings, and floor mats, no one says much about the “Missions” from whence the name comes. America’s earliest missions were just down the road from us, 17th and 18th-century structures once repositories for a precious few items brought overland from thousands of miles away, as well as works of art and furniture made locally by the priest and his charges. Items such as benches, cupboards, chairs, and vesting tables were scarce and valuable possessions, listed in wills and inventories and cherished for generations. Old chests from three centuries ago made by people whose lives are so very remote from our lives today may seem like things that qualify for the status of “relic,” but they are far from being irrelevant.

 

It is these few ancient objects, coveted by collectors and guarded by museums, which can help us elevate our homes and furnishings from “everyday U.S.A.” to a level where craft and art can be intertwined with our everyday lives in New Mexico. Better yet, they will survive our permanent drought.

The earliest furniture in New Mexico was hauled over the Camino Real or made by the handful of carpenters that accompanied the first wave of settlers and soldiers. Huge six board chests, with delicate relief carving featuring heraldic plants and animals, are examples of this rare woodworking. They are works that can easily fetch over $100,000 at auction, which clearly means they aren’t destined for life as a cocktail table in your living room.

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