By Mark Feigenbutz/Photos by Tim Kassiotis I don’t rub too many elbows. Not lately, at least. For the past couple years, my elbows have been as rub-free as a one-legged cricket. But in light of my recent trip to the New Mexico State Legislature, I think I should invest in some elbow callous-generating activities. The Legislature building is an important building in that it looks important (and that you must capitalize it in writing). If you’re easily thrown by marble or wood grain, you might miss the subtler, more human elements of the subtler, more human humans who inhabit it. Now, I’m sure the argument could be made that it is, in fact, “important,” but you’d be wrong because this is my article. Despite what the sunglasses-inside-the-building, Men’s Wearhouse suited d-bag would have loved for you and I to be fooled into believing, he was certainly not as important as Joe, the proud café lounge manager, or Crystal, the diplomatic mail room supervisor, or Dennis, the corner market bread sample hander-outer across the street. I rubbed my first elbow with Joe Mora, the café lounge manager. My first impression of Joe was that he seemed like a down-to-the-salt-of-the-earth, good dude. He’s the kind of guy that you wouldn’t mind leaving your 8 year-old son with in a pinch. (I may even daughter-approve him.) He was also proud of his job – a rare phenomena that I, with a furrowed brow and index-finger-and-thumb supported chin, appreciate. When I asked Joe what exactly he did, he immediately clarified that, “We’re here from 5 ‘til 3.” His crew behind him seemed to appreciate their inclusion in the interview. Why do they get there that early? Because “everything is made from scratch,” from “the red chile, green chile,”...

By Arianna Sullivan/Photos by Amanda Tyler   “This,” says Marquita Sena, “is my favorite seal of the whole building.” We are standing at the edge of the balcony that stretches all around the circumference of the inside of Santa Fe’s Capitol building, The Roundhouse. The seal that Marquita refers to sits all the way down on the first floor, centered by the circular building “In the center we have both the American Bald Eagle and the Mexican Harpie,” begins Marquita, explaining her fondness for this particular seal, “and they are encircled by the Zia symbol—which represents the four points of a compass, the four periods of the day, the seasons of the year, the four stages of life.”  She tells us, with the same pride in her voice as when she had explained that all of the marble in the building is from New Mexico, that the seal is set in the floor with Turquoise—New Mexico’s state stone. “It is this representation of both the Native American and the American that the building does so well,” explains Marquita. Marquita’s eyes light up as she tells us how her husband used to take her flying over the roundhouse before she ever worked there. “From above we could see the shape that the building was designed to make—the shape of the Zia.” Marquita is not the only tour-guide for the Roundhouse who has a sense of personal pride for the building. The tour guides, who are seated around a long rectangular table chatting and enjoying each other’s company when we first approach them, become serious and full of praise when we ask them about their jobs. All around the table the women echo each other with variations of, “we love this building.” Several of the women are...