JOAN E. ALESSI
Descansos: The Sacred Landscapes of New Mexico El Sacro Paisaje de Nuevo Mexico

While just one glance at these vibrant images will compel most casual book browsers to engage this work in greater depth, the accompanying essay provides an informative, well-written narrative that explains the origin and folkloric tradition of roadside memorials. These religious markers, we learn from Dr. Sylvia Grider’s incisive essay, are not in themselves unique to the southwestern United States. Rather, they are a universal phenomenon with a long and curious history. The term descanso (literally translated as “resting place”) however, may have indeed originated among the Spanish-speaking vecinos of New Mexico.

“My interest in photographing descansos is rooted in their cultural and religious significance. However, I found an increasing curiosity in the descanso as an artform. The expression of the art takes its form in a diverse display of carvings, paintings, sculpture, iron-work, floral design, and full mixed media displays. This provided intricate and rich subjects from which to choose. The descansos contained in this book are a reflection of both the emotion and dedication of the devotees, as they mourn the passing and celebrate the life of the beloved.”

Joan Alessi was born in New York City in 1954. As a naturalist, she has traveled worldwide photographing landscapes, architecture, and many other topics. In the mid 1980’s she was a staff photographer at Longwood Gardens, and has won acclaim at the annual Chadds Ford Art Show, and the Chester County Art Association in Pennsylvania. She relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1997, and has done photographic projects for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the Museum of Indian Arts and Crafts, and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.

Dr. Sylvia Ann Grider recently retired after nearly 30 years at Texas A&M University. A folklorist and cultural historian, she taught courses in cultural anthropology, Texas cultural history, material culture, and professional ethics. After the fatal collapse of the student-built Aggie Bonfire in 1999, she became Director of the Bonfire Memorabilia Project, an initiative to collect, preserve, and archive the artifacts from the spontaneous shrine which developed at the bonfire site in memory of the twelve students who were killed in the collapse. That work led to her current research into the phenomenon of roadside crosses, or descansos, as they are known in New Mexico.