Drive five minutes south of our MEA Rising Circle Ranch campus and you’ll find yourself entering Galisteo, a small, 400-year-old village that seems to hum with creative frequency. It’s the kind of place that feels like it’s holding its breath—where light shifts in golden slow motion, and the land seems to listen back.
In New Mexico Magazine’s recent story, “Galisteo’s Creative Glow,” the writer captures the essence of this community: a gathering of painters, sculptors, writers, and dreamers who found refuge and resonance here. This village of about 250 residents isn’t just picturesque—it’s purpose-built for presence. The quiet isn’t empty; it’s full of clay dust, coyote calls, and the low, steady pulse of artistic labor. I’ve done some of my best recent writing in my home in Galisteo, for the past four years.
The New York Times’ T Magazine went further, calling New Mexico “the place where outlaw artists live,” and Galisteo sits at the heart of that lineage. Here, artists like Lucy Lippard, Harmony Hammond, and Woody Gwyn have long made work that reflects a dialogue with land and solitude. The Times wrote that New Mexico offers “space — both literal and metaphysical — to think differently.” Galisteo embodies that truth: creativity here isn’t a performance, it’s a conversation with the horizon.
That conversation comes alive every fall during the Galisteo Studio Tour, taking place this year this weekend, October 11–12. It’s a beloved annual ritual now in its 35th year. Visitors wander the winding dirt roads, stepping into 20+ open studios where metal meets fire, pigment meets paper, and clay meets human hands. The tour isn’t just about art—it’s about access: being invited into the spaces where creativity is made, shared, and celebrated.
And if you’ve ever dreamed of not just visiting Galisteo but living in its rhythm, you might find inspiration in 6 Magdalen, Galisteo, NM — my historic double-adobe home on over six acres along Galisteo Creek. With its beautifully restored main house and a separate studio casita, it offers a life shaped by stillness, light, and possibility. Step outside the thick adobe walls and you’ll hear the same silence that’s fueled generations of artists—a quiet that says, create here.
What’s special about Galisteo isn’t just its beauty; it’s its collective humility. Nobody’s trying to impress anyone at the regular community potlucks. People move here to listen, to make, and to be remade. The adobe walls, the cottonwood canopies, the sound of wind sweeping through the basin—all of it reminds you that creativity isn’t something we own. It’s something we live inside of.
So, if you’re in the area, come walk or drive the Galisteo Studio Tour this weekend. Let the art, the land, and the light show you why this small village has inspired some of the most soulful makers in America. And if you feel something stir deep within you, maybe it’s not just admiration—it’s recognition. Galisteo doesn’t just invite you to visit. It invites you to belong.
P.S. My Midlife Chrysalis podcast episode with Arthur Brooks went live on Wednesday. It’s perfect for anyone considering a career pivot or trying to understand what gets better with age in our professional life.
Chip