Horse Tail Trails

Horse Tail Trails started in 2008.  The mission has always been to offer a community resource, a place where people could come to learn about Northern New Mexico, both its history and current happenings.  There’s so much going on in the state, but it can be hard to find out about any of it.  Hence the articles and event list were born, offering people a one-stop website for planning their weekend or learning about their neighborhood.

If you’re a reader of Horse Tail Trails, you probably already know this.  What you may not know is that, all this time, we’ve been a two woman show: consisting of webmaster Sonya Gonzales and writer Gina Trujillo.  That’s right, this entire website and everything that you’ve seen on our Facebook and Twitter, has been done by just the two of us.  No big company, no office beyond our home.  We hunted down events going on and listed them in the calendar database, we looked for local businesses and talent to feature in our articles, and were always on the lookout for new things going on.  It was impossible to pass by a bulletin board without stopping to read everything, and possibly take pictures of it with our cell phones so we could input it later.  It’s been fun, but it’s definitely time-consuming as well.

Booths at art festivals all strive to stand out and be memorable.  This one had its own unique way of catching my attention.  The pieces were definitely different from anything else around, with colorful canvases of mixed-media images.  Collages of magazine clippings and old photos mixed in with feathers and beads, splashes of paint, and lots of eyes staring at me.  I’d come to the booth of Monista Arts, the works of artist Monica Duran.  The pieces told their own stories, but there was yet another one to be told about their purpose.

Born and raised in New Mexico, Monica Duran has been creating art for more than fifteen years.  She holds a degree in architecture and interior design in applied science.  It’s only within the past three years or so that she started working on her signature pieces, using them as an outlet for her worry and pain.  For the past eight years, Duran has been battling against a barrage of illnesses and cancers.  “I was inspired by the pain I have been going through for all these years,” Duran says.  “I found putting images together and telling my story helped me to express how I felt and continue to feel.”  On every piece she sells, she puts all of the money into her cancer fund to help further the research and pay for her own treatments.

The Historic Taos Inn prides itself as being a legend among New Mexico lodgings.  Making its home in the very heart of Taos, it was called “One of America’s Greatest Inns” by National Geographic Traveler.  It’s on both the National and New Mexico Registers of Historic Places as well.

The Historic Taos Inn started out life as a cluster of adobe houses, built sometime in the 1800’s.  These houses were centered around a plaza where the community well was located.  It was in the 1890's that Dr. Thomas Paul Martin – known as Doc Martin - moved to Taos, where he became the first and only physician in the county.  He traveled far and wide to get to people in need, no simple task in that day and age.