The Valley is thrilled to present Tierra, Lumbre y Leña, a solo exhibition of new works by Joanna Keane Lopez that explore the sacred significance of earth, fire, and wood in New Mexico’s vernacular architecture. 

The works in Tierra, Lumbre y Leña draw from a rare and largely unseen collection of photographs, slides, and documents held by the Earthbuilders Guild. The archive, created by the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, is an account of the various uses of adobe across the state of New Mexico from the 1970s to the 1990s. Keane Lopez spent months studying and organizing this archive, uncovering intimate scenes of adoberos (adobe makers) and enjarradoras (mud plasterers) engaged in traditional and novel building practices. 

In this body of work, Keane Lopez sought to unite material processes of photography, drawing, print and adobe mud plastering with communal historical inquiry. Working with Magnolia Editions, a print studio in Oakland, California, Keane Lopez printed delicate colored pencil drawings and digital collages of the archival photographs and slides with UV-cured acrylic ink onto hand-cast adobe panels framed in maple. The resulting artworks form a tender visual interpretation, spaces where past and present converge. Keane Lopez transforms the archival images into tactile earthen objects that recall traditional alíz (a clay slip paint) through their innovative printing processes. 

In Tierra, Lumbre y Leña, Keane Lopez focuses on selected historical photographs from the archive that depict hornos (mud ovens) and fogones (adobe fireplaces) from Indo-Hispano villages of New Mexico, particularly La Cienega, Chamisal and Velarde. In the images, the fogones often act as sacred spaces within the home; they are altars and spaces for prayer. The hornos are located outside the home and are built for traditional foodways, they are intrinsic in Indigenous and Indo-Hispano communities alike throughout New Mexico. These hearths and ovens are more than architectural features; they are vessels of memory, craft legacies, connection with land, sites of prayer, and repositories of cultural continuity. ✣

✣ A special thank you to the Earth Builders Guild, a New Mexico based non-profit organization that promotes, preserves, and expands the building methods of adobe, rammed earth, and compressed earth block construction. ✣

The Valley 203 Ledoux Street Taos, New Mexico