Many writers and artists have been influenced by New Mexico’s history and culture. Among those who have drawn on the state’s rich cultural heritage in their work are natives Rudolfo A. Anaya, Simon Ortiz, and Leslie Marmon Silko. Other writers who have focused on New Mexico include Paul Horgan, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Erna Fergusson, Ross Calvin, Mary Austin, Edward Abbey, and N. Scott Momaday. English novelist D.H. Lawrence lived in Taos in the early 1920s, and his ashes are buried there.

Painters have been especially intrigued with the unique landscape of New Mexico, which offers a variety of scenery found in few other areas of the United States. New Mexico’s cities have attracted artists from many parts of the country and the world. Taos was the first to have an important art community, which included painter Georgia O’Keeffe and her photographer husband, Alfred Stieglitz, but it is now rivaled by Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Spanish folk art has been preserved largely by the Penitentes, a religious group within the Roman Catholic Church. In rural areas medieval Spanish music, art, folklore, and social customs also have been preserved.

Local Indians also produce a great deal of artwork, notably beautiful high-quality pottery. Each village has its own design to identify the work of its people. Maria Martinez, from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, along with her husband Julian, revitalized Pueblo pottery in the early 20th century with works of art that gained international attention. Navajo blankets are famous throughout the world. Many Indians make buttons, beads, pins, rings, necklaces, earrings, and belts, mainly for sale to the growing number of tourists. The United States Indian Arts and Crafts Board has attempted to preserve the authenticity of Indian jewelry by establishing standards in handworked silver. The Santa Fe Indian Market, held each August, is an important event for producers and collectors of Native American artwork; about 1,200 artists from some 100 tribes attend annually. Individual pueblos preserve traditional dances by performing at numerous fiestas, the most important being the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial, which draws thousands of visitors to Gallup every summer.

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New Mexico is also well known for its historical architecture. Indian pueblo buildings were modified by Spanish settlers when they built Santa Fe, and many of these original structures have been restored. The statehouse, most public buildings, and many private ones have been constructed in the modified Spanish mission style. New structures to be built in the historical districts of Santa Fe and in some other communities are subject to construction requirements and restrictions, and modifications to existing buildings are strictly regulated.

Cultural institutions

Of international renown is the Santa Fe Opera (1957), which performs in an outdoor theatre in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the capital city. In most counties there are museums stressing history, Native American arts, or subjects of local interest. The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, part of the Museum of New Mexico, helps preserve archaeological artifacts, mementos, and folk arts. The state archives also contain important relics. Also in Albuquerque is the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, which houses artifacts from all over the world. The Wheelwright Museum of Navajo Art, the Museum of International Folk Art, and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum are in Santa Fe. The Kit Carson Home and Museum in Taos is a history and art museum featuring Indian and Spanish art and 19th-century Western furniture. The International UFO Museum and Research Center is in Roswell, the supposed site of an extraterrestrial-spacecraft crash in 1947, and its library contains thousands of books on subjects relating to unidentified flying objects.

Sports and recreation

At the centre of spectator sports in New Mexico is the rivalry between the University of New Mexico of the Mountain West Conference and New Mexico State of the Western Athletic Conference. Although State traditionally has fared less well in football than New Mexico, both schools have strong men’s basketball programs, and New Mexico’s University Arena, better known as “the Pit,” has one of the college game’s most exciting atmospheres; indeed, in 1999 Sports Illustrated named it one of the top 20 U.S. sport venues of the 20th century. Minor league baseball has a long if intermittent history in Albuquerque, dating from 1915 and most memorably including the Dukes’ stint as the top farm club of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1972 to 2000.

New Mexico’s topography is conducive to many recreational opportunities, of which skiing, snowboarding, biking, hiking, and horseback riding are favourites. White-water rafting is popular on the Rio Grande, and during the winter the state’s ski runs attract enthusiasts from far and wide. Hunting is common in the fall, when there is a greater variety of game birds and animals.

Early history

New Mexico’s first inhabitants were various groups of Native Americans who farmed and hunted on the land for at least 10,000 years before European explorers appeared. The more peaceful agriculturists included the Pueblo Indians, whose ruins remain throughout the state. They had well-developed irrigation systems by the time the more aggressive and nomadic Navajo and Apache arrived from the north, probably in the 15th century.