{"id":27692,"date":"2024-05-12T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/father-daughter-artists-and-the-doel-reed-center-in-taos\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:08:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:08:43","slug":"father-daughter-artists-and-the-doel-reed-center-in-taos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/father-daughter-artists-and-the-doel-reed-center-in-taos\/","title":{"rendered":"Father & daughter artists and the Doel Reed Center in Taos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Doel
Doel Reed, Cordova, 1960, aquatint and etching on paper, 11 by 19 \u00bd inches. Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, Oklahoma (Used with permission)<\/span>Phil Shockley<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A father-daughter artistic team from Oklahoma settled in Taos, New Mexico, on acreage that is now the Doel Reed Center. Oklahoma State University owns the center and OSU students, donors, and art aficionados have come to love the pale pink adobe homes and wooden ramada shade shelters on Artist\u2019s Ridge.<\/p>\n

Formally trained at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Doel Reed excelled as a printmaker having survived a mustard gas assault in World War I that blinded him for several weeks and left him with permanent lung damage. In 1924 he took a faculty position in art at Oklahoma A&M College in Stillwater, an institution that would become Oklahoma State University. Reed taught drawing, painting, printmaking and art appreciation. His early work reflects 1930s American regionalism during the Depression Era, and he became a member of the exclusive group of Prairie Print Makers before becoming a full member of the National Academy of Design.<\/p>\n

Beginning in the 1940s Reed made the summer trek from Stillwater to Taos, entranced by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at sunrise and sunset and by the wealth of both Native American and Hispanic culture. Upon retirement, he moved to Taos in 1959 after having his work displayed in over 350 juried and international exhibitions including five shows in New York City. He won over 100 awards especially for his aquatints which are similar to a watercolor painting only produced as prints. At Talpa close to Taos and near a Penitente Morada and traditional Hispanic cemetery or campo santos, Reed bought an acre on a steep hillside with two run-down adobe houses and a goat shed that would become his printmaking studio.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait
Portrait of Martha Reed, no date, oil on canvas, 41\u00bd by 28 inches. Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, Oklahoma.(Used with permission)<\/span>Phil Shockley<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt is not my nature to copy nature as I find it,\u201d Reed explained, \u201cbut rather to record facts and moods which excite the imagination and stimulate the creative process.\u201d Mark Andrew White of the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe explains, \u201cPainter and printmaker Doel Reed spent much of his later career depicting the landscape and distinctive adobe architecture of northern New Mexico.\u201d White adds, \u201cHis paintings and aquatints of the crumbling adobes of small Hispanic villages offer intriguing insights into the changing landscape of northern New Mexico in the postwar \u2013 World War II period\u201d with \u201ctime and loss\u201d as \u201ccentral thematic concerns for Reed throughout his career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Reed\u2019s prints both black and white and multicolored seem dark and moody and not effused with the golden sunshine of New Mexico. Scholars have argued that his artistic style might represent somber tones related to his temporary blindness on the killing fields of the Argonne Forest in France in World War I. But if Doel Reed\u2019s art reflects nostalgia and abandoned Hispanic homes, his daughter Martha\u2019s work vibrantly captured the upbeat mood of the colorful 1950s with its two-tone automobiles, refrigerators, and furniture fabrics of bright green, red, and purple.<\/p>\n

Martha started her own business, Martha of Taos, and catered to wealthy women who purchased her broomstick skirts and hand-sewn velveteen blouses with sterling silver buttons to be worn with Navajo turquoise squash blossom necklaces, concho belts, bracelets, rings and earrings. Her shop stood next to the historic Taos Inn. Native women from Taos Pueblo were her seamstresses, and two of Martha\u2019s skirts were worn at social events in the White House. She created and sold \u201can original Southwestern art tradition which has elevated American (clothing) design\u201d praised a New Mexican architect. In the postwar years as Taos and Santa Fe artists sought to document a changing Hispanic heritage, tourism boomed across the Southwest with families arriving in air-conditioned cars eager to see Mesa Verde National Park, Taos Pueblo and the twisty, curvy streets of historic Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

\"A
A photograph of Doel Reed in his print studio which was a former goat shed on the property he bought south of Taos on Artist Ridge. Photo from the Doel Reed Center, Oklahoma State University (Used with permission)<\/span>Phil Shockley<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If the father Doel Reed was reflective and introspective, his outgoing daughter Martha loved to socialize. She became locally famous for her 5 p.m. \u201csoirees with hooch\u201d or happy hour drinking parties watching Southwestern sunsets from the portale of her house. Though she had several affairs, including one with writer Frank Waters, Martha did not marry because she claimed she could never find a man as good as her father.<\/p>\n

As his daughter flirted and flourished, Reed himself turned more inward. \u201cReligious symbolism and imagery became an important part of Doel Reed\u2019s artistic output in the second half of his career,\u201d notes Professor of Art History at OSU Rebecca Brienen. She adds, \u201cImages of overt religious content do not form a majority of Reed\u2019s works, but they include many of his most powerful and important representations of the New Mexico landscape.\u201d Brienen edited Sun Patterns, Dark Canyon: The Paintings and Aquatints of Doel Reed (1894-1985) published by the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

Last summer I had the opportunity to tour the Doel Reed Center and to teach there as a visiting scholar. Of all the buildings on site, Reed\u2019s print shop remains intact. Professor Brienen writes, \u201cI still remember my initial encounter with Reed\u2019s studio \u2013 it was a little dusty but nonetheless nearly untouched, with papers and Reed\u2019s eyeglasses still laid out on his desk, as if the artist would soon return.\u201d Jane Reed, Doel\u2019s wife, had been a seamstress and her father a tailor. She passed on those gifts to Martha who managed her clothing business for 38 years with her fitted Pyrenees blouses, \u201cshirts in jewel-like tones,\u201d and Old Mexico style cotton dresses. With her business concerns and lively soirees, keeping up adobe houses and maintaining her father\u2019s estate was not a priority.<\/p>\n

After Doel Reed passed away, the original adobe homes suffered benign neglect. When Martha proposed to OSU that she would give them the property as part of a life estate, at first university administrators did not know if they could own and manage out of state property. But faculty, staff, and donors rose to the occasion including financial support of Martha, impoverished in her later years, and care for her 27 cats.<\/p>\n

\"One
One of two fully restored adobe houses at Oklahoma State University\u2019s Doel Reed Center near Taos, New Mexico. Careful restoration of the homes included cleaning up after Martha Reed\u2019s 27 cats. (Author photo)<\/span>Phil Shockley<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was much to do \u2013 stabilize the property, see to Martha\u2019s health, and begin major fundraising efforts. Now the Doel Reed Center is an unparalleled success for OSU with students arriving from mid-May through July. Leisure Learning classes are held in July and September.<\/p>\n

Doel Reed believed, \u201cThe feeling of endless space on the Great Plains, the high mountains, the unlimited sky and clouds have been a great source of inspiration for the development of my own style, which might not have materialized elsewhere.\u201d Oklahoma students come to the Doel Reed Center to experience that same expansiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a kind of magical feeling, a creative nature, and it transforms Oklahoma students because of the incredible light, the beauty of the environment, and the quality of the air,\u201d states Carol Moder, Ann & Burns Hargis Professor & Director of the Doel Reed Center. At their center in New Mexico OSU promotes experiential learning with small classes. Students develop close relationships with faculty and each other thanks to one-on-one interactions. \u201cFriendships may last a lifetime,\u201d Moder tells me, smiling. \u201cYou can\u2019t bottle that!\u201d<\/p>\n

OSU faculty and students carry on two traditions \u2013 the sober landscape perspective of the artist Doel Reed \u2013 and Martha\u2019s fun-filled chatty evenings with food, drink, and compa\u00f1eros eager to travel, tell tales, and seek cultural experiences. Professor Moder laughs again and says, \u201cEverybody in town had a Martha story.\u201d I believe her. Now because of generous scholarships, OSU faculty and students in sociology, design, history, art, and English will have unique opportunities and in time will tell their own stories about the Southwest and the Land of Enchantment.<\/p>\n

Andrew Gulliford is an award-winning author and editor and a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. He can be reached at gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reed, Cordova, 1960, aquatint and etching on paper, 11 by 19 \u00bd inches. Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, Oklahoma (Used with permission)Phil Shockley A father-daughter artistic team from Oklahoma settled in Taos, New Mexico, on acreage that is now the Doel Reed Center. Oklahoma State University owns the center and OSU students, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,624],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-lifestyle-and-leisure"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80164,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27692\/revisions\/80164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27692"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}