Greetings from Artesia, folk art on the roadside in
southeastern NM town of Artesia, November 2008,
photo © 2008-2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
folks in artesia
so friendly they’ll fall over
to lend you a hand
Postscript: Artesia, NM, a town named for the Artesian wells found at the turn of the 20th century, is, oddly enough, an oil and gas town today. Driving in from the north, you’re greeted by the sight of a huge blackened oil refinery, its tall stacks discharging clouds of steam. The air has a headache-inducing odor of natural gas, and if you ask locals how they manage to live with it, they’re likely to say, “Oh that? That’s the smell of money.”
But there is also a part of Artesia that looks and feels like 1950 small-town America. Brick department stores whose signs remind you of driving to Fedways downtown with your mom (before Fedways became Dillards), and a sense that time stopped.
One of my dearest friends is from Artesia, and I can tell you that there’s a lot of goodness in this place. Generosity is produced here.
-related to posts PRACTICE: Roadside Attractions – 15min, WRITING TOPIC — ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS, and haiku 2 (one-a-day).
What a great stop. I love it when people put their creativity on the roadside.
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Fun photo, ybonesy. It read your link, too, about how Artesia got her name. Looks like a cool little town. Also seems to honor its artists: has the Artesia Historical Museum and Art Center art and historical exhibits, with local artists contributing many of these exhibits. Local artists have also contributed to Heritage Walkway, colorful murals in downtown Artesia which provide a mini-view of Artesia’s history.
I love visiting small towns. And I’m always amazed at the rich history of small-town America. And there is often a delicate balance between keeping small towns alive and the ways they have open to them to create jobs and money. I saw that a lot in some of the small towns in Montana, too (Libby comes to mind from the recent news). Where the clean air, earth, and water gave way to the town’s ability to make a living.
This is true in Minnesota’s history, too. I was so amazed when we visited the open pit mine near Hibbing. And then to see how the mine owners had picked up the whole town of Hibbing and moved it in order to keep the mine expanding. This was many years ago but you can still see the abandoned street signs, foundations, roads. Yet Hibbing is a wonderful town with a rich history. And the people there are fabulous.
Other small towns in MN tend to be more agriculture related (unless they are along the rivers where they might make money from tourim). But I heard on NPR news this week how controversial some of Obama’s policies have become for the farmers here. If they make over a certain amount of money a year, no more subsidies. I don’t know enough about it to weigh in one way or the other, just noting that somehow the little guys and gals have to survive. I think his policies are designed to help with that; the controversy rises in — what’s the cut-off point. Some farmers were for, some against.
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As do I, Bo. This was a treat to see.
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I like stuff like this finding it interesting as well as the people who create it… and why. We had a photo shoot at a place where this man’s junk as his treasure was made into grassroots art. It is named as a ‘roadside attraction’ even though it is off the road a bit outside the city yet inside the city limits. We had an hour and half tour of his home and place full of artful sculptures and stuff. We were totally fascinated.
I like the photo… smile…
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Anna, there’s an old motel on Central Ave in Albuquerque, Route 66, where bottles and little plastic toys and all sorts of throwaway stuff has been affixed to the exterior such that the place sparkles with color and charm. It’s in the Roadside Attractions website for Albuquerque. It’s a labor of love, and it makes me smile whenever I drive by it.
QM, I didn’t know Hibbings was a mining area. Isn’t that also where Bob Dylan is from?
Much of southern NM has either oil/gas for industry (southeast) or mining (southwest, where Mimbres Man is from). I think I’d have a hard time living in any of those small towns, moreso the oil/gas. I mean, the smell alone would give me a headache. But it keeps a lot of people employed.
I bet the small towns along the rivers in MN are charming. But tourism is a tough industry, too. I wonder what industry is truly good for everyone involved—no exploitation of people or resources. Surely there are some out there.
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yb, yes, Dylan was from the Iron Range and Hibbing. I think he might have been born in Duluth, Minnesota (one of my favorite places in the world to visit, right by Lake Superior (See, Superior, The Great Mother (LINK), but then his family moved to Hibbing when he was still pretty young.
I had never been to Hibbing until Liz and I went up when Natalie was filming Tangled Up In Bob. Liz has always been a HUGE Dylan fan so it was a real treat for her. We took the Dylan tour and saw his childhood home. I think we went back the next year and took the tour again. That’s the last time I was there. There is a great bookstore there, Howard Street Booksellers. Liz and I met the owners who used to live in the Twin Cities but moved back to Hibbing not long ago. Wonderful people. A great town with an amazing history.
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Oh, it’s Hibbing not Hibbings. I wonder what took his family there. Do you know?
I remember when you went to see Natalie there. Not many small towns—working class towns versus tourist ones, I mean—have enough of a base to support an independent bookstore. Cool that Hibbing has one.
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All I remembered was that it was economics that led them from Duluth to Hibbing. I did find this short student history paper on Dylan where someone had done the research:
Bob Dylan: An Impact On American Society in the 1960’s (LINK)
Robert Allen Zimmerman, later known as Bob Dylan, was born on May 24, 1941 to Abraham Zimmerman and Beatty Stone Zimmerman. He was born in Duluth, Minnesota; however, at the age of seven, he and his family were forced to move to Hibbing, Minnesota. Abraham worked as a department supervisor at the local Standard Oil in Duluth, but after World War II, there was a low demand for Standard Oil products and the family decided to move to Hibbing. Iron ore had been discovered in Hibbing, which caused an economic boom. Abraham got a job at Micka Electric, while Beatty worked at Feldman’s Department Store.
I also read that his dad had polio. And his mother was originally from Hibbing. Maybe the illness combined with economics led to the move. I read that his mother’s grandparents, Benjamin and Lybba Edelstein, were Lithuanian Jews who arrived in America in 1902. I know when we did the Hibbing tour, they talked a lot about the tight-knit Jewish community that existed in Hibbing at that time. It’s in Natalie’s film as well. It was pretty cool to go by his old synagogue, now a private residence, and where Micka Electric was, and the Lybba Theater, and imagine what Hibbing must have been like at that time.
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Interesting, QM. He’s almost exactly 20 years than me. Wow, he’ll be 70 in just a couple of years!
Did you happen to see the mining area near the town? I wonder if it’s left big scars, the way the mining in Questa outside of Taos has.
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[…] to posts: WRITING TOPIC: ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS, greetings from artesia haiku, Roswell, NM — Aliens Welcome Here, and for a more modern visit to the caves check out Postcards […]
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