STORY ART & ANCESTRY
—a FALL OF FREEDOM event. Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda. —Fall of Freedom
On 3 October 2026 Saturday, the Museum of Authenticity will host STORY ART & ANCESTRY. Set against a backdrop of exquisite mid-century prints by women artists that visually convey a sense of the past, STORY ART & ANCESTRY brings the past to life through the spoken word. Please join us for what promises to be a provocative, enlightening, and entertaining afternoon.
noon-6pm: art exhibit: WOMEN PRINTMAKERS: works by Gene Kloss and other exceptional mid-century women artists. The exhibit will be on display through June, 2027.
1-2pm: reading & book signing: The Museum of Authenticity is thrilled to welcome back Santa Fe teacher and acclaimed poet, BARBARA ROCKMAN, with her recently released third book, Night said. (University of New Mexico Press, 2026)
From the endless star-filled skies of her chosen high-desert home to the lakes and farmland of her New England childhood to the imagined villages of her Ukrainian ancestors, award-winning poet Barbara Rockman reaches for belonging. Rockman’s Jewish heritage is woven through her searches for the ineffable . . .. Grief sings here, tempered by grace and gratitude in this powerful collection by a poet at the height of her craft. —University of New Mexico Press
2-3pm: reading & book signing: In 1986, W.W. Norton first published THORDIS NIELA SIMONSEN’S You May Plow Here: The Narrative of Sara Brooks, the first-person account by the granddaughter of an enslaved person who was born in 1911 and raised alongside 17 additional dependents on 53 2/3 acres that her father owned and farmed in Alabama’s Black Belt. Forty years later, at 7:28 on a Friday night, Thordis received an unexpected call from Sara Brooks’ great-grandson. Thordis will share the unlikely story of how he discovered the book, and the content of their conversation.
You May Plow Here is an oral autobiography constructed collage-like by the editor from many hours of taped interviews recorded over a ten-year period. The account flows like water after heavy spring rains—the unleashing of memory of one who’s seen and done a lot. This book fits neatly onto the shelf of what the author Alice Walker calls “womanist prose.” —American Library Association’s Best Sellers
3-4pm: reading & storytelling: LOUISE OLSEN-MARQUEZ inherited her love of story from her mother, who penned short stories, and her Danish grandfather, Boy Olsen, whose memoir is titled Living Under Three Flags. Louise will share her own evocative poem, “The Old Country,” as well as utterly engaging stories about her grandfather, who was conscripted into the German army during WW l, fought on the Russian front, and later fought politically for the return of parts of Denmark lost to the Germans during the war before he emigrated to the US.
My life has not been a dance on roses . . . though painful sickness, wars, economic depressions, and hard-ships have not taken my faith, humor and joy out of life. —Boy Olsen
3 october 2026 saturday, noon-6pm
Museum of Authenticity, 124 east 2nd street, salida CO 81201
FREE and open to the public; contributions welcome
more information: 303.585.1783 or thordis@museumofauthenticity.org
@Fall of Freedom FallOfFreedom.com