Anita Rodriguez

Anita Rodriguez was born in 1941, when Taos Trading Co. was her father’s drugstore. Alfredo Rodriguez (known as “Skeezix”) knew the aphrodisiac qualities of chocolate, because about a year after he made Anita’s mother, Grace Graham King from Texas, a chocolate soda – they married. Her father came from a founding family.

 

In 1987 Anita revived a traditional adobe finishing art called “enjarrando”, practiced by Pueblo and Hispanic women, and became internationally known for her work in sustainable earth building. She has been featured in 6 books, many major magazines and her techniques have become part of the mainstream alternative building movement.

 

At 47 she retired her contractor’s license and became a professional painter, gained wide recognition and continues to paint prolifically at the age of 80. In 2017 she published her first book, COYOTA IN THE KITCHEN, which won 5 awards, and continues to write for several publications, including TEMPO in the Taos News. Rodriguez is deeply read in New Mexican history, and her knowledge us enriched by a lifetime of immersion.

 

Always an activist, Rodriguez has never ceased to advocate for the equal distribution of the fruits of progress among our different cultural communities and simultaneous cultural preservation.