High Road Art Tour

At 946 State Road 76 in Chimayó, Centinela Traditional Arts sells one-of-a-kind Chimayó and Rio Grande textiles by Irvin, Lisa, and Emily Trujillo. The shop is open all year. Its address and telephone number also appear at the foot of every page of the website of High Road Artisans, the volunteer-run association that puts the shop on a numbered map once a year. On the last two full weekends of September, that map leads to dozens of other studios, galleries, community centers, and food stands along the High Road to Taos Scenic Byway, in Rio Arriba and Taos counties. The 2026 tour, the 29th, ran September 19 and 20 and September 26 and 27. New Mexico Magazine counted more than 40 stops between Nambé, Chimayó, Truchas, Peñasco, and Sipapu.

The association describes the route as a winding road through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Santa Fe and Taos. It passes old Land Grant villages, with views of snow-capped peaks and alpine meadows. A 2018 Taos News guide called it a back-country route and noted that the “low road” runs through the valleys along the Río Grande. In 2016 New Mexico Magazine gave the High Road as 68 well-signed miles. It advised taking two days: north on the first and back on the second.

Thirty-seven numbered stops

The 2026 brochure numbered its sites from south to north. In Nambé there were pastel landscapes at Garcia Loehr Fine Art and a jeweler’s studio at Sadie Ray Design. Peña Studios offered demonstrations and prints. At the Nambe Trading Post, a Western Film Costumes Museum stood alongside Jennifer J. Smith jewelry, Cathy Smith beadwork, and ledger drawings. Chimayó added handcrafted tinwork by a Spanish Market artist to the Trujillo weavings.

Truchas held the thickest cluster. Eric Luplow’s eL Gallery shows “Sur-Folk” watercolors, described as “a collision between surrealism and folk art.” Firehouse Studio offers classical, European-style figurative painting. Annalisa Ariatti paints watercolors of the townscapes and landscapes of Italy, her native country. Eight Million Gods sells folk art from New Mexico and around the world. At the Truchas Services Center there were quilts, weavings, and pottery by local artists. The Community for Creative Work at Truchas Peaks Place showed Hispanic and Native American collections and student art from the IAIA. Outside it stood the Manko food cart, which the association said serves “Native American fusion” dishes.

North of Truchas, Ojo Sarco had traditional Chimayó weavings at Jennette’s Weavings. Whettnall Studio showed oil paintings with whimsical furniture and candelabras, at a place the association’s post called “well off of the highway.” SilverWear Jewelry & Fine Craft sells hand-forged flatware among its silver. At the Ojo Sarco Community Center, Santa Clara pottery shared space with crafts and drawings, and there was WiFi.

Chamisal was where the association sent visitors to eat. It called the next two stops its “non-art” sites. The Happy Lemon is a family start-up pouring fresh-muddled, county-fair style lemonade. Poppy Ridge Bakery makes wood-fired sourdough, pastries, and soup from organic, fresh-milled flour, and sells the flour as well. Jicarita Harvest in Peñasco serves New Mexico food.

Peñasco itself held several stops within a short stretch of NM 75. The community center packed 13 booths into one room: quilts, colcha, tinctures, rag rugs, crochet, tinsmithing, and gourds. The cover of the 2026 brochure showed Alice D. Gonzales there with micaceous clay pots. Gloria Maestas and friends ran Art for the Heart, with colcha, mica clay, and “hundreds of items under $25.” Garcia Spanish Colonial Art is the studio of a husband-and-wife team of master carvers who make furniture, bultos, and retablos. At the Peñasco Theatre, the Youth Art Show hung work by children aged 6 to 18 on a different ecological theme each year, and visitors voted for their favorites.

Beyond Peñasco the stops thin out. In Rodarte, Orlando and Diane Cordova carve ponderosa pine and cedar with chainsaws and set out light snacks, cold water, and soda. In Llano, Leroy Fresquez welds found objects into sculpture. J. Ortega’s carvings are at 193 Upper Llano Road, which the association’s own post described as “kind of a ways away from town, but the drive is lovely.” In Vadito the 2026 route ended at three stops. Una Familia is a farm store selling honey and candles. Iusi Clay Studio is a home pottery studio and showroom. Morel Studio, site 37, shows landscapes of New Mexico and the Rocky Mountain West.

Many studios stay open through the year and some open only for the tour. The association asks visitors to call or email an artist before coming on any other day.

Adobe churches and two pueblos

The association keeps a Church Tour page for the route. It describes churches “built in the classic Southwestern style of adobe walls and buttresses, with artwork carved and painted by local craftsmen,” and adds that “each church has its own story and legends.” Its photographs include:

• the Santuario at Chimayó
• St. Anthony’s Church at Córdova, labeled 1832
• the Old Truchas Mission of Holy Rosary
• San José de la Gracía at Las Trampas
• the Church of San Lorenzo at Picuris
• Sagrado Corazón near Peñasco, labeled 1920
• San Francisco de Asís at Ranchos de Taos

A separate page points visitors to Picuris Pueblo and Nambé Pueblo. Writing in the Taos News in 2026, Haven Lindsey described how a studio stop might lead to “a walk through an old village, a glimpse inside a historic church or a turn in the road that opens suddenly to mountain vistas.”

The painter at Vadito

Chris Morel is a painter and musician who has lived along the High Road for nearly 33 years, by that 2026 account. He grew up on the East Coast. Asked how he goes looking for scenes, he said: “My biggest decision is whether to turn left or right, up to higher elevation with more pines or down to lower elevation to high desert. There is an incredible variety of subject matter.”

He prefers fall and winter for painting. In winter there are long shadows and a low sun, and a single footprint or tire track across fresh snow changes the values of the surface. “Sometimes someone will say that they love the way I paint the light,” he said, “but they can’t always articulate why.” The tour gives him the chance to explain the shadows and angles behind it. Between the two 2026 weekends he taught a painting workshop for 13 to 15 students. “I like my peace and solitude more than I ever knew I needed,” he said. Of the tour he said: “You get to know the people in these small towns. It’s personal.”

His address has not moved. The 2017 brochure lists Chris Morel, oil landscape paintings, at 5330 Highway 518, Vadito, the same address as site 37 in 2026.

Jane Cook and Severo Arellano, 1998

The tour began in 1998 with money from a federal economic-development project run through La Jicarita Enterprise Community. The association’s current site says the group was “formulated” that year. An older About page says High Road Artisans “began with the first studio in 1998.” The 2017 brochure printed a photograph captioned “Tour founder Jane Cook with artisan Severo Arellano, 1998.” In 2001 the group incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving Chimayó, Córdova, Truchas, Ojo Sarco, Las Trampas, Chamisal, Peñasco, Vadito, Placitas, and nearby communities.

By 2016, the 19th year, the board president was Sally Delap-John, a plein-air painter in Truchas. The painter Judith Hert had brought her in after seeing one of her outdoor paintings. “When I saw what artists were doing in Truchas, operating studios and galleries in their homes, I thought this would be perfect for me,” Delap-John told ArtBeat Magazine. She said the tour then reached “from just beyond Vadito, in the north, to Chimayo, in the south.”

That year the tour added a Farm Connection. Tooley’s Trees and Zia Queenbees in Truchas opened to visitors. Michael Panas, Dave and Lise Shepard, and Gene Vigil sold produce, and David Sandoval sold produce and gladiolas. In Peñasco, Mesa Ruiz, Ron Monsour, and Charlotte Madueno sold produce and natural remedies. “The timing of our annual art tour is the harvest in our mountainous area,” Delap-John said. “It seemed like a great connection to make.” Blair Brown organized a new student art competition the same year. In 2017 the youth show hung “original works depicting healthy River Ecologies” at the Forest Service’s Peñasco station.

New Mexico Magazine’s 2016 account recorded the route at ground level. Leigh Gusterson’s Llano studio could be found by the late-forties pickup in the front yard, the kind of truck that often turns up in her landscapes. Joe Ortega carved retablos and crucifijos in a corrugated-tin-roof studio at the end of bumpy, unpaved Upper Llano Road. At Truchas, Bill Loyd made wind bells from old steel pressure tanks. Bill Franke of Hand Artes Gallery summed up the crowds: “We get lots of lookers, and some very serious buyers, too—it’s a great mix.”

The 2017 tour marked its 20th year. Its brochure called it “a living historical and cultural event celebrating the lives and work of traditional regional artists.” In 2018 the tour listed 37 stops. By 2026 it had added members and a new studio, and the board was led by Kim Pollis, whose work hung at the Peñasco Community Center during that year’s tour. “There’s been a core of artists who’ve been involved with the tour for years,” Delap-John said in 2016, “but newcomers open studios in the area all the time.”