Madrid (pronounced MA-drid), New Mexico, is another old mining town rescued and recycled by artists. Several people urged me to add Madrid to my bucket list.
The artists’ shops are the face the village presents to the carloads of family tourists, motorcycle groups, holiday shoppers from Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Fewer than 200 people live along the quarter-mile of route 14, the Turquoise Trail, where it traces its way north to Santa Fe. Here the shops, stores, and houses are clustered, as well a boarding house, which is grocery, and video rental. The covered porch of the boarding house is eight feet wide and fifty feet long and serves as the town square. Two large bulletin boards and five shelves of books, constituting the town’s honor-system lending library, further enhance the porch.
Below are some images of Madrid.
Below are two pix of a new artistic enterprise.
The next two postings will study some graveyard art of Madrid as well as a little of what I’ve learned from peeling a single layer from the public veneer—what one woolly Madroid said is the largest unfenced asylum he knows of.
23 Minutes of Bliss on June 29, 2011
A Year on the Road 
Al,
Of the sculptures, my favorite is the ge-taaar player. The face, the hands, the feet, they are all wonderfully imaginative. The cowgirl is a close second.
I take it, “off grid” means there is no electricity. Are you in the market?
I always wondered what constitutes bliss for 23 minutes in MA-drid. Now I know!
Fun pictures, thanks.
Madelen
I believe the original meaning of off the grid was no electricity. But here, it is no plumbing, too. Water is hauled in, gray water is drained to the outside, and out houses are used.
AL
Wonderful art; thanks Al. I hadn’t heard of Madrid before. Wonderful to know there are still art communities existing in out -of-the-road places.
This place retains its hippie base more than other art towns. Gentrification is coming here very slowly. Madrid may never become Carmelized.
AL
Madrid is one of my fondest memories of NM. We spent an afternoon there and that’s where I decided I could open a pie shop and sister-in-law Jane could sell beads on the side. We could call it “Get Fat and Adorn Thyself”. It would fit right in, don’t you think?
MADRID IS WHAT IT IS. NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE MY LAST VISIT. BUT WHEN I VISITED MADRID, I THOUGHT I WOULD SEE SOME FACES FROM YESTERYEAR; NO SUCH LUCK. SOME OF MADRID IS SEEDY NOW, DON’T KNOW ANYBODY THERE. I THOUGHT I WOULD SEE MADRID AS I DID AS A KID IN THE MID 50s. LOTS OF LITTLE SHOPS, IT IS NOW A SLEEPY LITTLE TOWN WHERE LIFE IS TAKEN ONE DAY AT A TIME. WISH I COULD HAVE RETIRED HERE, BUT THE “POWERS TO BE” (MY WIFE) DID NOT LIKE MADRID AT ALL. I MOVED TO CALIFORNIA IN THE LATE 50s, I RETIRED AS A COP IN STOCKTON, CA., FOR 30 YRS., BUT THE MEMORIES OF MADRID STILL LINGER WHEN I WAS A KID THERE, THE BALL PARK, THE HIGH SCHOOL, MY TEACHERS, AND SCHOOOL-MATES. MAYBE SOME DAY THE TOWN WILL RISE FROM THE ASHES, DUE TO THE NEED FOR COAL. WHO KNOWS…..JERRY DIMAS