White House is harder to see now because of the additional vegetation. This is the only site in Canyon de Chelly that is accessible without a guide and is by far the most visited ruin in the canyon. A hiking trail leads to the site from a parking lot on the rim above. A pedestrian bridge over the wash can be seen, as can the hiking trail. Tour trucks and jeeps park at the ruin-end of the bridge, although they ford the wash rather than crossing the bridge. Even outside the wash, plant growth is lusher today, in part because the site is not being grazed as intensively as it was in 1929. Photograph by Adriel Heisey, 2008.
White House Ruin is composed of two parts: a larger room block on the canyon floor that rose to four stories high in the back, and another set of rooms built in a rock shelter immediately above. The upper rooms could have been reached from the fourth-story roof of the lower structure. The bulging, stained walls of the rock face above the rock shelter have made the site a favorite photographic subject. Timothy O’Sullivan photographed the site in the mid-1870s, and it has been well photographed ever since, including by Ansel Adams. Photograph by Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1929.
WHERE: Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
WHEN: Opens October 25, 2015 and runs through May 2017.
Oblique Views: Archaeology, Photography, and Time
During 2007 and 2008, flying at alarmingly low altitudes and slow speeds, Adriel Heisey leaned out the door of his light plane, and holding his camera with both hands, re-photographed some of the Southwest’s most significant archaeological sites that Charles Lindbergh and his new bride Anne photographed in 1929. In this exhibition, the Lindberghs’ grainy black-and-white shots are a record of how the sites appeared before later excavations, development, or time altered them. Their images are an excellent yardstick for evaluating changes on many levels over the last eighty years, especially when viewed side-by-side with Heisey’s recent photographs.
While still not large, Santa Fe has grown remarkably since 1929. Houses cover the areas that were once farmed, and flat roofs around the Plaza dominate the scene. The Palace of the Governors (now backed by the New Mexico History Museum), the New Mexico Museum of Art, the cathedral, and other beloved buildings are still in use. The Roundhouse has replaced the old capitol building, which was remodeled and converted to administrative use. The river still flows through Santa Fe, at least seasonally, but it is less visible among the sea of buildings that engulf it. A few solar panels show environmental investment by individuals. Photograph by Adriel Heisey, 2015.
Even in 1929, Santa Fe was an art center, the state capital, and a historic community. It was still a town rather than a city, however, and agricultural fields can be seen not far from the Plaza (approximately at the center of the photo), the heart of the social and economic life of the town. The old capitol building can be seen surrounded by trees in the upper center. Trees also mark the Santa Fe River, which forms a wandering diagonal from lower left to upper right. North is to the right in this photograph. Photograph by Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1929.
As exhibition curator Maxine McBrinn describes it in the book which accompanies the exhibition, “An oblique view is taken from the side, a perspective that, especially when taken early or late in the day when shadows are long, emphasizes small differences in elevation and can make visible otherwise unseen roads, houses, or other site features.”
