After 100 years, Albuquerque’s oldest trading post is still thriving
An aura of age enfolds Wright’s Indian Art like a fine Navajo blanket. It rests light but unmistakably on the shoulders of those who enter.
It’s an odd sensation because, on the surface, the store in the Courtyard at 1100 San Mateo Blvd. N.E. appears every bit the sleek, modern, well-organized, buffed and polished purveyor of American Indian pottery, jewelry, paintings and sculpture.
Perhaps it is the art itself — much of it contemporary in design but all of it rooted in ancient traditions and techniques — that accounts for the mantle of history draped here.
The brilliantly colored glass vessels of Isleta Pueblo artist Tony Jojola are cutting-edge 21st century but linked in legacy with the famous black pottery of Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo.
Some of Navajo artist Joe Ben Jr.’s sand paintings are almost abstract in appearance, but Ben’s skill and knowledge can be traced to his father and grandfather, both Navajo medicine men.
