Tales of Intrigue
What makes this city different? Whether you point to our art, politics, culture, or quality of life, the answer ultimately comes down to one thing: our people. Here we bring you 10 residents who intrigue us most. Scientists and social activists, artists and athletes—they’re creative, controversial, and just plain cool.
Douglas Merriam
Rose B. Simpson
Rising Star
Rose B. Simpson has three words taped over her work space: “Bigger Than That.” There’s no doubt the 25-year-old artist from Santa Clara Pueblo is getting big. Simpson, much of whose work is inspired by her underground graffiti days, sold all but one of her ceramic-and-mixed-media sculptures shown at Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art this past fall. A collaborative piece created with her mom, clay sculptor Roxanne Swentzell, is currently on display in a group show at Phoenix’s Heard Museum, and that large clay worm you might have seen winding around the SITE Santa Fe building last summer, part of its international biennial, was Simpson’s doing (with her aunt and cousin, Nora and Eliza Naranjo-Morse). Plus, the 2007 graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts moonlights as a singer—in the popular band Chocolate Helicopter until 2006, and currently for The Wake Singers.
Yet artistic achievements pale in comparison to Simpson’s largest successes. A few years ago she survived a rare and debilitating form of cancer (now in remission), which she believes was the result of growing up in the shadow of Los Alamos National Laboratory. And, being a Native American woman, she battles racial and gender stereotypes every day. But living with these struggles is what makes Simpson such a powerful artist. “I like to look at issues rather than pretend they don’t exist,” she says. Case in point: Simpson surrounds herself with visceral antiwar reminders, like gas masks and drawings of tanks, and even bought some toy military miniatures to turn into jewelry. And as a reaction against feeling objectified after her stint as a model in high school, she wears a nose ring. “I’m not a victim, and if I’m not a victim, I’m strong enough to manifest a different reality,” she says. “I’m hell-bent on truth, goodness, and evolution.”—Stephanie Pearson
Storybook Diva
You may not be familiar with Felicia Bond’s work, but there’s an excellent chance your kids are fans. Bond’s high-energy book illustrations of mischievous critters— like a pancake-eating pig and a sweater-knitting moose—have helped sell more than 11 million copies of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and six other titles in the If You Give a… series, written by Laura Numeroff. Throw in sales of her other books, including those she’s both written and illustrated, and Bond is clearly one of picture-book publishing’s superstars. She’s worked hard to get there, of course. Each book involves six to nine months of long days in her studio, an airy room in the Eastside adobe home she shares with her impressive art collection (tribal and contemporary pieces, many by local artists like Cathy Aten and Keith Johnston) and six rescued cats. Among them is Charlie, the rambunctious black-and-white feline Bond used as a model for her latest book, 2008’s If You a Give a Cat a Cupcake. She draws hundreds of sketches before starting the final 30 or so watercolor, colored-pencil, and ink illustrations. “It can be exhausting, to be honest, to sustain that energy after I’m into the fifth month,” she says. “So much of it comes from within. You’re putting yourself out there on every page.” But Bond’s passion—for both animals and art—is obvious. While she’s drawing, Bond says, “I feel the little girl; I feel the pig.” Readers of all ages can sense that on every page.—Dianna Delling
Marathon Man
In the southwest side of Santa Fe, three of the best marathoners in the world live together in a two-story adobe with an old bike by the door. The Huffy not-withstanding, there is nothing amateur about Andrew Musuva, 39, Jonathan Ndambuki, 32, or Simon Sawe, 35. All grew up modestly in Kenya—Sawe in the Great Rift Valley, famed for runners who dominate the world stage, and the others in towns east of Nairobi—and all of them currently make their living running, and often winning, a half-dozen marathons around the world each year. Their home is piled high with trophies and plaques. “I take awards, shoes, and movies back to Kenya,” says Musuva, who returns once or twice a year. “That is all.”
These men are the first generation of East African marathoners who have chosen to train in Santa Fe. And, with their help, Jon Woo—a Seattle-based doctor and amateur marathoner who is their landlord—aims to make Santa Fe the running capital of the U.S. “The altitude, the mild climate, and the number of world-class runners is unparalleled,” he says. The three are following in the footsteps of Mbarak Hussein, 44, a Kenyan-born marathoner who came to America as a teenager, was granted citizenship in 2004, and took the title of USA Marathon Champion the following two years in a row. Over the past decade, his house in Albuquerque was ground zero for foreign marathoners who sought guidance or simply high, dry air. This distinction is gradually passing to Woo’s home, now that Hussein has moved to the United Arab Emirates to coach the country’s national team. Woo is even hosting a running camp this August (kenyausa.com). And anyone is welcome. Just ask Ben Fletcher, who “saw an odd sight” in 2004, driving home from running practice at Santa Fe Prep, and followed Ndambuki to the Kenyans’ house for tea: “They’re the most generous guys I’ve ever met.”—Charles Bethea
Dynamic Duo
We can build whatever we want to in our lives,” says Jiro Yamaguchi. “We’re limited only by ourselves.” It’s a theme he and his wife, Lorri Espinosa, live by in every context. Yamaguchi, 41, is a percussionist in the Grammy-winning band Ozomatli, whose Latin/African-fusion dance music carries a message that’s pro-peace and pro-diversity. “When we play, we put that energy out into the world,” he says. Espinosa, 32, is the founder of Tranquility Center, a South Capitol spa that aims to deliver relaxation and self-awareness through body-based therapies. Its sensory-deprivation floatation tank, says Espinosa, “creates the space we need to see that we are not our problems. That we’re here to create.”
The couple met in 2006, when Los Angeles–based Ozomatli came to town for a performance at El Museo Cultural. Espinosa went looking for a ticket the day of the show, and ran into Yamaguchi behind the building. Married in 2008, they now have a six-month-old daughter, Etsuko (“child of delight” in Japanese), and split their time between L.A. and Santa Fe. Yamaguchi has been busy writing and recording tunes for Ozomatli’s new five-song EP, out in March. Espinosa, meanwhile, has big plans for the business she opened in 2007: She’s turning Tranquility into a collective—where a group of therapists can share both the work and the profits. It’s a way, she believes, to help people take control of their own destinies. “I want to be the change that I’m hoping to see in the world,” she says. “And I’m starting with what I’m doing right now.”—DD
Nuclear Force
Talk about a child of the nuclear age: Joe Martz grew up in Los Alamos, the son of a Los Alamos National Laboratory statistician, and interned there in college. After receiving his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley, he joined LANL’s weapons department, spending the next 25 years ascending the chain of command. Today, Martz serves as a senior staff adviser in its nuclear-weapons program. But it isn’t just his Los Alamos lineage that makes him extraordinary; it’s his pro-disarmament stance. For several years, Martz has spoken decidedly and powerfully in favor of dramatically reducing our nuclear arsenal, breaking ranks with others in the program. And his words, echoed by like-minded colleagues, are shaping the global discourse on nukes.
The formation of Martz’s yin-yang identity in the weapons field can be traced to 1983, when, as a high school senior, he attended a LANL conference celebrating the Manhattan Project’s 40th anniversary. Martz was moved by the words of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Hans Bethe, one of the architects of the atomic age, who told students it was up to them to find a way out of this nuclear trap his generation had created. Bethe’s challenge has defined Martz’s career.
His latest philosophy, which has been called “virtual weaponry,” relies on communicating the capability to quickly produce nuclear warheads, making possible the eventual elimination of a stockpile. And it’s taking hold: In the past 18 months, Washington’s leaders, both civilian and military, have begun to transform this country’s nuclear-weapons complex. “There is this idea that you need to be prepared to destroy the planet,” Martz, 43, says over a coffee at Java Joe’s. “I’m uncomfortable with that concept. As the Chinese proverb says: The best cure for a bad idea is a better one.”—Jason Silverman
Zen Master
Before Joan Halifax earned the title of Roshi (meaning “Zen master”), before she became the abbot of Upaya Zen Center, before she was one of the nation’s most dedicated advocates of the compassionate treatment of the dying, she was a young girl growing up in Coral Gables, Florida, stricken by a rare virus that rendered her blind and bedridden. In her blindness, she learned to watch her own mind—laying the groundwork for a lifetime of meditation—then once her sight returned she grew close to her grandmother, spending many nights listening to the elder woman’s stories of caring for her dying neighbors. Together, these experiences became the seeds of Halifax’s life passion and decades-long dedication.
“Grief is an important experience. It humanizes us and awakens our compassion,” she says, sitting crossed-legged in midnight-blue robes. “There is a trend toward managing or avoiding suffering,” she explains, “but that only causes more suffering.” To her, mercy comes from multidisciplinary practice, merging the teachings of the Buddha and the insights of modern medical science into holistic, personalized treatment. This approach is the basis of her work and dates back to the 1970s, when Halifax worked at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, helping to study the effects of LSD on the capacity of the dying to achieve peace and serenity. Her fluency in the languages of both neuroscience and Buddhism led her, in 1983, to collaborate with cognitive neuroscientist Francisco Varela in his efforts to explore how the connections between mind and body shape the experience of dying.
Since founding Upaya, in 1990, she is now proudest of her 14-year-old Being With Dying training program, which the center hosts twice a year for doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. “My desire is in how our doctors are trained,” she says of educating them about contemplative, compassionate care of elderly and terminally ill patients. “An upstream change can make the greatest difference in how a community, an institution, and a family cares for the dying.”—Sean Brander
Class Leader
Michael Peters, the president of St. John’s College’s Santa Fe campus, knows firsthand that people are not motivated by words alone. Soldiers obeying their superiors merely because they are ordered to do so is a cinematic myth, he tells me on a gusty morning in his office. Peters, a retired army colonel, Soviet-military specialist, West Point chief of staff, and executive VP of the nonpartisan thinktank The Council on Foreign Relations, learned on the ground how to manage and motivate what he calls “people organizations.” At his latest post, Peters is steering St. John’s into the 21st century with a cool hand and strategic tactics that are paying off. Since taking charge in 2005, besides updating Meem Library and keeping the campus technologically current for the biannual crop of plugged-in 18-year-olds, he spearheaded the raising of $134 million in a new capital campaign—beating the goal by $9 million—to fund construction of two new buildings on campus, for which workers break ground this May.
Another mission has proved less easy to achieve. Peters has had mixed success in engaging the college more with the City Different. The popular free weekly concert series—Music on the Hill, each June and July on the school’s athletic field since 2007—has longtime locals discovering the college, while public lectures, seminars, and student internships have strengthened ties to the city’s citizens. But it goes both ways: At this year’s January convocation address, Peters urged the students to get involved. “There are such tremendous needs in the local community,” he said. “Imagine what a difference we could make if each of us found some way to serve others.” Colonel, the time may finally be right.—Emily Crawford
Genetics Guru
Stephen Kingsmore searches for the seeds of disease. The president and CEO of the National Center for Genome Resources sifts through mounds of human DNA in hopes of finding slight genetic abnormalities related to serious illnesses—schizophrenia, for instance, or sepsis, a bloodstream infection that is one of the top 10 killers in the United States. Few locals know Santa Fe hosts one of the world’s top genome research centers, but it’s home base for Kingsmore and his colleagues, whose projects—teaming up with the likes of the USDA, Harvard, and Seoul National University—are finding genetic clues that may eventually be turned into disease-resistant crops or tests that identify susceptibility to illness.
Kingsmore, an ardent Christian, guides the center based on a life mission that has come full circle. He grew up with dreams of becoming a missionary surgeon, but after high-profile genetic work at Duke and the University of Florida, money and prestige lured him to become the jet-setting VP of research for the pharmaceutical company Curagen. Then in 2000, while on vacation, he slipped a disk skiing in Vermont. After surgery, he contracted sepsis and spent three months in bed. “I realized I don’t want to be rich; I don’t want to be famous,” he says. “What really got me going was this idea of betterment for humanity.”
In 2004, Kingsmore joined NCGR, a nonprofit founded a decade earlier to develop software to query genetic data. He transformed the center in 2006, when he secured funds to buy a genome analyzer so NCGR could make its own discoveries. The group has since added five more sequencers. And he has resurrected his boyhood dream of saving lives—this time, at the forefront of the genomics revolution. “What we’re really waiting for is 10 to 15 years out, when one of these will allow us to sequence your genome for $1,000,” he says. “At that point medicine will be radically different.”—Joseph Spring
Agent of Change
According to an arsenal of well-regarded studies, there is a correlation among prekindergarten attendance, fourth-grade reading levels, and, ultimately, incarceration rates and workforce productivity. Katherine Freeman, president and CEO of United Way of Santa Fe County, isn’t just a walking encyclopedia of facts like these; she’s putting plans into action. Enter the five-year-old Santa Fe Children’s Project, a multilayered educational program that includes home visits to families of firstborn babies and pre-K programs for kids (and their parents) in high-needs neighborhoods—often helping children get a jump on learning English.
Freeman was inspired to create the program after working in hospital-based mental health. “I’d see people and just wish there had been some way to intervene, because it might have been simple, and now it was impossible,” she says. She realized the answer is at the root: Target kids before problems arise. Currently, 48 are enrolled in the pre-K programs at Agua Fria Elementary School and another 32 at Kaune Elementary. At Agua Fria, about half of next year’s kindergarteners will have participated in the project for at least a year, which Freeman predicts could eventually alter the dynamic of the entire grade. “If you have a high enough percentage of curious kids, it changes how everything goes,” she says. Of the 10-plus years needed to reach that tipping point, she admits, “It takes a long time,” but adds that studies prove such programs pay for themselves in the long run. “This is not a bleeding-heart thing. It’s practical. This is Santa Fe’s workforce.”—Bibi Deitz
King Pen
Kirk Ellis takes a quick break from writing a film adaptation of Carolyn Jessop’s memoir Escape—about a woman fleeing a polygamous marriage—to explain that the question wasn’t if he would move to Santa Fe but when. The 62-year-old screenwriting star, who first gained recognition with a 2001 Emmy nomination for his script for the TV movie Anne Frank: The Whole Story, went on to bring home two Emmys in 2008—both for the hit HBO miniseries John Adams, adapted from David McCullough’s bestselling biography of the same name.
Yet all of this success has come after leaving Los Angeles behind. Ellis and his wife, Sheila, moved here in 1999, after visiting often and beginning to collect Spanish Colonial art—even producing a documentary, Santero, which premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts. Now their adobe home, parts of which are 150 years old, is chock-full of folk art and other creative oddities: Mexican Day of the Dead figures jostle for space with iconoclastic works by the local santero Arthur Lopez, while Afghan war rugs, depicting grenades and tanks, cover his office floor. The Texas-born and -raised writer came on the heels of 20 years in L.A., spent working first as a journalist before nudging his way into screenwriting, honing his skills and apprenticing on low-budget films in the ’80s. The first such project he could watch without cringing, he claims, hit TV screens in 2000—Beach Boys: An American Family.
For John Adams, Ellis wanted to follow McCullough’s lead in taking these early American heroes off their pedestals, to humanize them for viewers. He’s proud the series is being used in schools, where, he says, “it has a lasting impact.” Besides serving on the board of several arts- and culture-related groups, Ellis is a member of the faculty for the annual Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe, May 26 to 31 (866-424-1501, scsfe.com). “One reason we wanted to come here,” he says, “is we saw how easy it would be to give back to the community.” More satisfying, he adds, are dinners with friends. “The level of cultural conversation here surpasses anything I experienced in L.A.”—Rosemary Zibart
