Quirky and (sometimes) functional: 'Broom Room'

Jul. 8—details

—Broom Room

—El Zaguán, Historic Santa Fe Foundation, 545 Canyon Road, Suite 2

—Through July 29

—505-983-2567, historicsantafe.org

There's something ironic about a dustpan broom — a singular tool composed of a metal dustpan with a series of small black broom heads affixed to its scooping edge. You can't use it to gather dust, but you can use it for sweeping. Artist Julia Tait Dickenson probably wouldn't be hurt if you'd rather hang it on your wall as a quirky object of art, but if you chose to use it as a sweeper, she'd be pleased too.

"My intention is function, and I'm excited by function," says Dickenson, who wholesales and retails her unconventional brooms and brushes locally as Thin Air Goods at Leslie Flynt on Canyon Road, Hush-Hush Art Gallery on Galisteo Street, and Eight Million Gods in Truchas, New Mexico. "When you can make something that's functional more interesting and beautiful, that's a success. The full-sized brooms are meant to be used, just like any old broom."

Broom Room, an exhibition of Dickenson's handmade goods, is on view at El Zaguán through July 29.

Dickenson, an artist and social worker, once had a studio on Canyon Road, which she dubbed Thin Air Studio. She's back on Canyon Road after a 25-year absence from Santa Fe. This time, her studio is at El Zaguán, the historic property maintained by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

The HSFF rents apartments on site to artists. Dickenson's studio is the living room of a two-bedroom unit that she reserves for family and friends visiting from out of town. Dickenson, 60, lives off site with her husband. And every broom and brush in the exhibit is the subject of some creative pairing. There are broom heads attached to billiard balls, which serve as handles; a broom made from the broken section of a woodblock, once used for printing; a broom with a handle made from part of the throat of an antique African stringed instrument; and brushes attached to doorknobs, glass baubles, cue sticks, and the handles of other tools.

She points to one, leaning against the wall, broom head up, with a stout, well-worn wooden handle.

"That's an axe," she says. "And it's been used. Someone else's hands have been on this thing, and I love that feeling."

Dickenson calls her lifelong fascination with brooms "strange" but always felt a compulsion to make them. Trained as a ceramist in college, she became a jewelry maker, which was the focus of her work when she first lived in Santa Fe from the mid-1980s to 1995 and while living in Vermont afterwards. Broom-making was an inclination she never acted on until she came upon a Zoom workshop early in the pandemic.

"Once I learned how they're put together and made, I just started taking it somewhere else."

Dickenson uses reclaimed objects for all of her handles and often uses handles from other long-handled tools, such as shovels, rakes, and mops, for her large brooms.

"I find them mostly at yard sales in the free pile," she says. "Doorknobs are some of my favorite things. I use any kind of plumbing things I can find. I go to Resourceful Santa Fe every Tuesday. ... They have crazy things that have been donated. I'm always looking for different fibers I can use for cording."

Dickenson uses a type of sorghum called broomcorn, as well as Tampico fiber, for her broom heads, both of which she imports from Mexico and are traditional fibers used in the making of brooms. Often, the fibers are dyed in any one of an array of rich tones, such as aubergine, indigo, and coral, and corded with a range of colored fibers, unlike the traditional metal coiling that's commonly used to affix the broom head to the dowel.

And sometimes, Dickenson's husband, T Davis, who's a woodworker, carves intricate geometric designs into the handles.

There's an aspect of working with salvaged, everyday tools and incorporating them into a work of art that elevates their original, modest purpose, transforming them into objects of aesthetic inquiry. That's true of Dickenson's Thin Air Goods, which are, at times, reminiscent of steampunk. In a way, Dickenson honors reclaimed objects' former purpose as implements of function but denies them too. You can't cut down a tree with an axe-handled broom or use a broom-studded rolling pin to flatten dough. But they're just the right size for sweeping the ashes in a kiva fireplace, especially the axe broom.

"The show is an opportunity to get even weirder," she says. "So, some of them aren't as functional."

Pull Quote

By way of example, she points to a cylindrical wooden form, conforming to the average size and shape of the human head, with a long black broom head sticking straight up from its crown. The mold, once used by a hat maker, is solid wood and too heavy for any practical use as a sweeper.

"My husband says that I see brooms in everything."

In addition to brooms and brushes, Broom Room features a selection of Dickenson's Paja˛ki-inspired mobiles. Pająki are chandeliers made from simple materials such as beads, hollow straw, lace, and string and decorated with paper flowers, pom-poms, and other colorful items. Dickenson puts her own spin on the tradition, incorporating atypical items, like a timepiece that dangles from the bottom of one suspended Pająki, and a pile of cut-out eye illustrations made by Hush-Hush owner and artist Scott Lyon, which she intends to use in future Pająkis, after adorning the cut-outs with brooms for eyelashes.

"I can't decide if they're whimsical or meaningful, but they're fun for me to make, so I keep making them. Making is my happy place."

If she isn't working on brushes, brooms, and mobiles, she's likely knitting or crocheting.

"It doesn't matter what I'm doing," she says. "I just have to make stuff."