Mónica Sosaya-Halford
Mónica Sosaya-Halford (b. 1931, Santa Fe, New Mexico), the eighth and last child of Augustine and Victoria Sosaya, grew up in a home built by her father on what is now Sosaya Lane. Her mother's family, the Roybals, descend from the original settlers who arrived in 1598 in New Mexico (then known as "New Spain") with Don Juan de Oñate. Mónica has enjoyed making art since her earliest days at Loretto Academy Santa Fe and Wood Gormley Elementary School, where her painted Easter Bunny was singled out as meriting recognition in the Second Grade. While a student at Santa Fe High School, Mónica studied with Jozef Barkos (1891-1977), one of Santa Fe's noted Los Cinco Pintores. She later studied Interior Design at California College of Art and Crafts (CCAC). While serving in the Navy in Alameda, CA, in the 1950s, Mónica received her first official commission—sketches of ballerinas for a commanding officer's daughter. In the 1980s Mónica learned colcha embroidery from Maria Hesch (1909-1994), a Santa Fe artist renowned for her folk paintings and intricate colcha embroidery designs. In turn, Mónica has gone on to become a beloved teacher to her own students at Santa Fe Community College, the Museum of International Folk Art, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Her colcha embroidery students include Connie Fernández of Taos, Annette Gutiérrez Turk of Albuquerque, and Julia Gómez and Kay Lewis of Santa Fe, among many others. Mónica prefers to work with soft fabrics, such as linens, and finds canvas and even sabanilla more difficult to stitch with a needle. For Mónica, "the softer, the better." Mónica enjoys telling Biblical stories with her needle and yarn and every piece includes telltale details such as San Rafael holding his fish, Saint Michael with his foot squashing a serpent representing the devil, and Santa Mónica with her wine. Mónica's work is in many private and corporate collections and in museums including the Museum of International Folk Art, the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Mónica's work has been selected three times as the poster art for Spanish Market, where she has had Booth #4 every year since 1979. She has been honored with the Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Governor's Award for the Arts, the Spanish Colonial Arts Society's Masters Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in May 2017 she was honored as a Santa Fe Living Treasure. Mónica is a tireless volunteer, active family member, and hostess galore who says, "If you can laugh at yourself you can get along pretty well."
