For many Puebloans, it may be hard to believe, but the 21st century edifice that landed square in the middle of an aging and ignored Santa Fe Avenue more than a half century ago has matured, turning into what is inarguably the arts and cultural jewel of southern Colorado.

In a state where the cultural focus is most often fixed on Denver and the metro area, Pueblo’s Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center has distinguished itself for its imaginative approach to everything from top level art exhibits to a nurturing center for a kaleidoscope of dance, creativity and artistic curiosity.

Opened in 1972 and clustered in a concrete meadow featuring an interstate highway, a long past its prime city arterial and an aging neighborhood, the center has matured bothquietly and gracefully, going from ingenue to cultural north star. Today, it runs under the guidance of CEO and Pueblo native Andy Sanchez.

While Sanchez now occupies the center’s proverbial corner office, he has been connected to the Sangre de Cristo for most of his life. “I was younger than ten-years-old,” he recalled, “when my mother gave me permission to be part of an adult drawing class.” In one way or another, save his time away from the city to earn a graduate degree at CU-Boulder, he has been tethered to his hometown and the center.

In Pueblo, Sanchez has been involved with the city as both a businessman and booster. Prior to his appointment as CEO, a position he held first as interim, he sat on its board of trustees for six years. He said with a degree of pride in his voice that he was announced as its chief executive “on Cinco de Mayo 2023.”

Like an ocean liner, the center has course corrected numerous times over the years, adapting to both economic conditions and community wants and needs. But, he says, it has remained true to its core principles. These principle, Sanchez says, remain “to create artistic, educational and cultural experiences for everyone and we have been delivering for 52 years.”

The Center’s latest effort to share its gifts with Pueblo is the showing of documentarian Ken Burns’ “Leonardo da Vinci,” on Thursday, August 22nd. The showing is in conjunction with Rocky Mountain PBS. It will also show simultane- ously in Grand Junction.

The documentary will highlight the life of an amazing genius of a man, born out of wedlock who went on to create some of the Renaissance’s greatest works or art as well as showcase so many of the fantastic and futuristic ideas he had about science and technology. The four-hour film will debut nationally on September 18-19 on PBS.

The da Vinci film, said Sanchez, is only a single facet of the southern Colorado jewel’s contribution to regional arts and culture. “Over the years,” he said, the center has grown mightily “through the tenacity and planning of our stakeholders.”

In June 2022 the center hosted “Da Vinci: Machines and Robotics,” an exhibition that featured more than 60 recreations of the Renaissance master’s drawings and robotics. Over the period of his life, da Vinci put to paper ideas of armored cars, submarines, machine guns and parachutes.

“Our emphasis was on STEM,” said Sanchez. Through STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—he suggested, “we were able to reflect on da Vinci’s impact and artistry in time.”

Though the selection of Santa Fe Avenue as its home may once have been thought odd, Sanchez said it has worked out well. “When people come here, the majority of them are from around the state.”

Getting off the nearby I-25 First Street exit, it’s easy to find the center. “People can come here and see just what is here; the arts, the artisans, everything that Pueblo is all about. It’s a no-brainer.”

For locals, especially the city’s students, the Sangre de Cristo is a magnet for the arts. “We have a great partnership with the schools,” Sanchez said. But beyond Pueblo, Sanchez said there is also a concerted effort to share the center by reaching out to surrounding counties to come into the city to see what is showing.

The Sangre de Cristo is currently showing the ‘Portrait of Nature: Myriads of the Gods’ exhibit. The showing runs through January 11th. In addition it also has a permanent Helen Thatcher White Gallery, the Buell Children’s Museum and schools of art and dance. The Thatcher White Gallery holds the country’slargest Gene Kloss collection.

Kloss, who died in 1996, is world renowned for her art depicting cultures of the Southwest, with a special emphasis on Native American and early Hispanic communities.

For more information on the Sange de Cristo Arts and Conference Center including booking space for special events, call 719.295.7200. The center is located at 210 N. Santa Fe Avenue.

Every day this time of year when he wakes up, Pueblo chile farmer Rocky Musso prepares himself for southern Colorado’s fabled mid-summer heat. He doesn’t like it. He loves it! But not for himself, he loves it for the crop that pays the bills and stretches for acres all across the Mesa, a stretch of county real estate south and east of Pueblo’s center city.

“We welcome the heat,” said Musso, a Pueblo native and link to generations of the county’s chile farmers, immigrant planters that go back more than a century, maybe longer, on the mesa.

The heat that has settled over the area is exactly what nourishes his and his neighbor’s chile crop, a number of other crops, too. But chile is the focus. The nighttime cool downs are also the perfect complement.

Right now, no one is complaining about July temperatures, including one ‘surface of the sun’ 106-degree scorcher that tied a 53-year record. The heat, you see, holds the key to a bumper crop or near bumper crop that may be in the offing.

“As long as we have plenty of water,” Musso said, “we can sustain the plants.” Right now, barring a deluge or rain or what he carefully calls “the ‘H’ word,” the crop, he predicts, will be in great shape. Hail is the dreaded word heever-so-carefully maneuvers around. In years past, hail has crushed the crop and erased months of time and labor. Right now, it’s ‘finger-crossing’ time across the mesa.

Not far from Musso’s spread another chile farmer is feeling cautiously optimistic. An irascible, opinionated, tough as shoe leather Carla Mauro is also a legacy grower. So far, she likes the look of things. “Crop is doing well,” she says while taking a phone call that keeps her from doing what she should be doing. Early picking, she adds, has already begun on a few ofher neighbor’s farms. But first, I ask the question to make sure I’ve got it right: ‘How do you spell chile?’ I ask because there are actually multiple spellings of the word. “I just call it chile,” she said. “I get tired of that whole ****. You might just want to Google it,” punctuating her words with a friendly laugh. I take her advice and Google it.

‘Chili’, according to Merriam Webster, is the most common form of the word and used for both the pepper and the food derived from it, including red and green chili. The dictionary also says ‘chilli’ is more often found in British English or as a plural form of the word. ‘Chile’ is more often used in the southwest where the majority of it is grown. It is also the Spanish form of the word.

Mauro and Musso along with a handful of other Pueblo chile farmers are enjoying what may be a bumper crop of the fruit—yes, it is a fruit! —that’s put Pueblo on the map. Of course, Pueblo’s known for other things, too. But it’s chile— Pueblo chile—that’s a whole other matter.

Chile aficionados swear that the various varieties grown in Pueblo County and much of the Arkansas Valley are the best. So good, they say, that the other crop grown in New Mexico— Hatch, if you must know— isn’t even close.

Mauro and Musso have everything in place for the rush they know is coming. “I have set up all my roasters,” Mauro said. The aroma from the roast, chile lovers swear, can be almost heavenly. “The first roast smells great,” Mauro agrees. “The last one smells even better.”

The two Pueblo chile growers agree that the crop should be in great shape for the city’s annual “Chile & Frijoles Festival” set for September 22-24th. It will be the city’s 30th celebration of the event. Last year, more than 150,000 locals and visitors descended on Pueblo’s historic Union Avenue for food, music and celebration of the region’s crown jewel.

Of course, if you can’t make the hour and forty-minute drive from Denver to Pueblo for the festival, Mauro and Musso can help out with your ‘chile fix.’ “We sell all over the country,” Mauro said. “If they’re not able to make it (for the festival), I’ll ship it.” Same with Musso who, thanks to technology, has shipped his product to nearly every state but also now all over the world.

“Twenty-five percent of what we grow is sent out of town and out of state,” the grandson of immigrant farmers says. Technology has now made it possible to freeze-dry his chile and allow it to go “everywhere you can imagine.” In fact, he ships it every year to one customer in Japan who, like clockwork, orders each Fall.

“A couple of friends went on vacation in Japan,” he said. They took some chile and introduced it to some of their Japanese friends. “They ended up liking it,” and the rest is history.

Of course, both Mauro and Musso have parlayed their chile into far more than just the spicy crop. Both run stores that have evolved from their early origins. “It’s more a full grocery store, not a farm stand,” Mauro said. They have introduced chile into everything from hot dogs to cheese dip to zucchini and banana bread. “Everything you can imagine.”

Musso said the same. His family has run a similar operation on the mesa for decades and he’s lost count of the things his chile’s infused in, rattling off a litany and sounding like Forrest Gump’s partner in their envisioned shrimp company. “It’s anything you can imagine.”

But Musso, like chile lovers—but especially chile growers—is as invested in his crop for business as he is as a daily source of flavor. “I eat a lot of chile. It’s a part of my daily diet,” he swears. “It’s hard to go without it and Pueblo chile? It’s the perfect spice. It goes with everything.”

Mauro’s Farm and Bakery is located at 836 36th Lane. It can be reached at 719.948.3381. Musso Farms is located at 35779 Hillside Road. Its phone is 719.948.3581.