Northern New Mexico

He studied biology at St. Andrews University and has since worked extensively in ecology, conservation, and outdoor education.

He currently works alongside Noah Mertz at We Grow Eco, a Northern New Mexico nonprofit that uses art, science, and hands-on education to explore our relationships with waste, consumption, and the environment.

A central part of Chauncey's practice focuses on textile waste management, transforming discarded clothing and fibers into handmade paper, books, and other functional and artistic materials.

Through paper making, creative reuse, and community-based workshops, His work examines how discarded materials can become tools for learning, storytelling and collective action.

And you also have higher elevation in these areas as well.

I mean, a lot of the peaks in Southwest Colorado, Southern Utah, even Northern New Mexico get up to 11, 12, 13,000 feet.

So that helps as well.

Yeah,

So Rachel, where else should we go for more Dia de los Muertos activities?

So northern New Mexico in particular has a beautiful history of documenting home altars.

And so during Dia de los Muertos, folks really go all out on these home altars.

But these home altars aren't about Latino identity.

Right.

And so it's like, that's why I feel like everybody as a rite of passage is being an American needs to come see this area in Northern New Mexico, because it's, it's just, it can't be described until you see it with your own eyes.

And it's not something they talk about in mainstream media at all.

Like

And it was very good.

Um, there's a thing about being out there because, um, there's a lot of like what my family says is like, you know, Northern New Mexico is there, the people out there, they're pretty crazy.

And I was like, are they? And I was just like, yeah.

Cause like, there's a lot of weird things that happen out there.

in a very beautiful way, but it was also so old world west when I was growing up, but kind of a little, you know, big little town.

And to get to experience all the resort communities in Colorado and come here, it's a very interesting question because I tell people all the time, I feel like Santa Fe and northern New Mexico are Colorado from the 70s and 80s.

We've got little ski towns like Angel Fire up by Taos that hasn't been developed or discovered.

It's got an airport.

The village is actually in the ski area, and it has so much potential for growth.

It's going to just totally explode.

I see that growth potential really happening over the next 10, 20 years, both in Santa Fe and kind of northern New Mexico.

If you would ask a local that question that's a native that's lived here all their life, yes, they would say it has changed dramatically.

Yeah.

For instance, the black bear ranges in the high country of New Mexico, northern New Mexico, are far greater and bigger, more expansive than they are for the black bears in southeastern Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas.

just because the vegetation is different, the tree species are different, the forest density is different.

There's a deciduous mixed forest in, you know, southeastern Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas versus, you know, a forest in the high country of New Mexico, northern New Mexico is very, it has a lot of, you know, very coniferous and it's just a much less dense forest.

And so that one particular black bear is going to range far greater.

In other words, your chances of encountering one individual are less than they would be in a tighter space where a range is small.

I never saw a black bear.

One of the things I was talking about earlier is this.