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For 40 years, Tucumcari's Blue Swallow Motel was managed by Lillian Redman arrived in New Mexico by way of covered wagon in 1916, worked as a Fred Harvey Girl in her youth, and received the Blue Swallow as an engagement present in 1958. In a conversation before her death in 1999, she recalled when the highway was paved with cinders because of its proximity to the railroad and expounded upon her belief that we are all travelers in some way. Even into her nineties, she offered a clean room, hardwood floor, and black and white television to road weary travelers for eleven bucks and change. Today, Dale and Hilda Bakke own the Blue Swallow Motel, and they’re working to update the old court with new telecommunication, color television sets, and (regrettably) somewhat higher prices. The floors are now carpeted and the walls are freshly painted, but the overall attitude remains the same. Sure, as Hilda remarks, some folks may quibble over the enhancements: “you should have left the old black and white TVs, you should have left the old stuff.” Of course, she adds: “we could have left the old creaky mattresses, too.”

When in Albuquerque, spend some time with Mohamed Natha, the owner, and Phyllis Evans, artist-in-residence. Touring the Aztec, you find a cross-cultural mélange of broken pottery, old coins, and disparate figurines – all ordered in a manner too artistic to be random, to creative to be mass-produced. Not quite an impromptu monument, not quite a love story, this motel is a collaborative exhibition of a mature friendship between two old souls who are determined to create art wherever they find it. Phyllis turns out to be a retired Michigan State university professor of social work who moved to the Aztec temporarily until she could find an apartment, and never quite left. Since then, she has gathered inspiration from her time in southern Italy to transform the motel into a renaissance experience.

All text copyright Andrew Wood. Photos copyright Jenny Wood and Andy Wood.