Taos Day 2 -The Couse/Sharp Historic Site

I am so happy that on Day 2, we took the time to join a tour of the Couse-Sharp Historic Site. The generosity of Virginia and, the late, Ernie Leavitt welcomes artists and tourists to the home and amazing gardens that E.I. Couse and Virginia Walker Couse created. I spent years walking past the beautiful gate and never seeing behind. Just call for appointment and tour. volunteers study hard to give you lots of information.

To explore the studios of E. I. Couse and J. H. Sharp, founding members of the Taos Society of Artists is a delight. These two painters helped create the culture of Taos, as we know it today. The historic Site includes not only the home and studio of E.I. Couse, and the garden designed by his wife, Virginia, but we enjoyed the workshops of his son, Kibbey, and the two studios of his neighbor and fellow artist, Joseph Henry Sharp. The Site also reflects the contributions of a long history of previous owners.

When the Couses purchased the site in 1909, it had grown to seven rooms. The artist immediately added a large studio to the existing structure and his wife began to carve a garden into the barren hillside. Again I am amazed at the fortitude and creativity of the women who made homes for their families in the early Taos. 

Son, Kibbey, an inventor, returned to Taos to care for his widowed father in 1929. He converted the family garage into a machine shop and added another building to the south, where he planned to manufacture his invention, the Couse Mobile Machine Shop. With his father's death in 1936, his plans changed and he built his factory in New Jersey. No significant changes were made to the Site or its contents after that time. We so enjoyed the workshop. Both Cynthia’s Dad and my Dad had workshops and the smell of oil and grease brings back pleasant memories.

Just standing in the artists' studios felt other-worldly to me. To see how the artists kept reshaping their environments was so interesting. I loved seeing the objects that they included in the paintings.  J.H. Sharp purchased an old adobe house on the adjacent property in 1908.  He acquired the Luna chapel from the Diocese in Santa Fe, in 1909, and converted it into a studio.  He later purchased land to the south of his house on which he built a larger studio, in 1915.  See more at http://couse-sharp.org 

We hit the jackpot because the Summer, 2016 exhibition in the Luna Chapel was Visionaries in Clay Pueblo Pottery, Past and Present. We were primed from seeing the ceramics at Millicent Rogers Museum the previous day. “Visionaries in Clay features Native artists whose bold work helps to define our understanding of Native identity and cultural expression.”  The exhibition coupled Couse's historic pottery with the work of contemporary Native artists in northern New Mexico.  I have been so enamored of the work of Rose B. Simpson since I saw it at the DAM about five years ago. I was thrilled she was included with group of contemporary artists.

See a video about the exhibit http://couse-sharp.org/news

Then on our way out, we were so glad to meet Virginia Couse Leavitt, granddaughter of E.I . and Virginia Walker Couse. We got to thank her for her generosity and hard work.