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An Oral History Of The Counterculture

Courtesy of Museum of New Mexico Press
Prayer flags at Lama.

In the 1960's and 1970's, young people from both coasts, borne on a passionate wave of new ideas, traveled to the Southwest and settled into a landscape and mix of cultures that they found enticing and inspiring.  Their migration was part of what's now known as the "counterculture," and it's the subject of a new book from Museum of New Mexico Press and a new exhibit at the New Mexico History Museum.

Curator Meredith Davidson collaborated with historian Jack Loeffler on Voices Of Counterculture in the Southwest.  Both the book and exhibit, she says, are based on the reminiscences of 45 individuals, many of whom were part of the Lama Foundation and other alternative living experiments in Northern New Mexico.

Five large collaborative drawings by members of the Lama Foundation, which were used as illustrations for Be Here Now, the 1971 bestseller by spiritual teacher Ram Dass, are on display in the exhibit.  In this longer version of the interview, Meredith discusses the drawings.   

meredith_davidson_interview_long_version_final.mp3

Spencer Beckwith reports on the arts for KUNM. For ten years, until March of 2014, Spencer was the producer and host of KUNM's "Performance New Mexico," a weekday morning arts program that included interviews with musicians, writers and performers. Spencer is a graduate of the acting program at the Juilliard School, and, before moving to New Mexico in 2002, was for many years a professional actor based in New York City.