Pablita Velarde, Tse Tsan, Golden Dawn

The panel's honors came after a fight to paint at all. Painting was not thought a fitting role for a Pueblo woman when Velarde, at fourteen, became one of the first girls in Dorothy Dunn's Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School in 1932, and the San Ildefonso easel painter Tonita Peña became her mentor. She later ground minerals and rocks on a metate for the pigments of her earth paintings, and in 1960, working with her father, published Old Father Story Teller, the first book by a Pueblo woman. Her daughter Helen Hardin painted after her.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Pablita Velarde, Tse Tsan, Golden Dawn (1918-2006) Santa Clara Pueblo Pablita Velarde was an internationally acclaimed artist whose paintings largely depicted Pueblo life. She was commissioned by the WPA art's program to paint murals at Bandelier National Monument. Selected as one of New Mexico's "Living Treasures", she received many awards, including the French Palmes Académique, the New Mexico Governor's Award for achievement in the arts, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Eight Northern Pueblos. Official Scenic Historic Marker New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative The New Mexico Historic Women Marker Initiative was founded in 2005 by members of the New Mexico Women's Forum in a statewide effort to recognize women's contributions to New Mexico history on the state's Official Scenic Historic Markers. The Initiative ensures that women's diverse histories will be remembered and told, and will inspire and provide a guide for future generations. The 2006 Legislature funded the project.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• El Santuario de Chimayó — 9.0 mi
  A small adobe shrine on the High Road to Taos, built around 1816 over earth that pilgrims still carry away in hope of healing.
• Fuller Lodge — 13 mi
  The upright-log dining hall of a boys' ranch school, which fed and housed the Manhattan Project after the Army bought the school in 1942.
• Bandelier National Monument — 17 mi
  Rooms carved into soft volcanic tuff in Frijoles Canyon, named for a Swiss scholar who was led there in 1880 by a man from Cochiti Pueblo.
• Palace of the Governors — 21 mi
  The long adobe on the north side of the Santa Fe plaza, called the oldest public building in continuous use in the country, though its own founding date is in dispute.

More markers nearby

• Pueblo of Santa Clara — steps away
• The Bond House — 1.5 mi
• Santa Cruz de la Cañada / Santa Cruz Plaza on the Camino Real — 2.8 mi
• Española Valley — 3.1 mi