MARAVILLA

Alces Community Works has long believed that the Mountain West is not a collection of isolated communities but a living region connected by landscape, history, and creative practice. That belief is now taking root in the high desert of northern New Mexico. Alces is consulting with Maravilla —a retreat center in Taos whose invitation to reconnect with wonder draws seekers, artists, and thinkers to one of the most creatively charged landscapes in the American West — on the development of their artist residency program. Alces is helping to shape a model that is place-responsive, community-grounded, and rooted in the kind of participatory values that guide all of Alces' work. The collaboration reflects Alces' commitment to building infrastructure for artists across the region, not just within Wyoming's borders.

As part of the Maravilla partnership, Alces is also curating a rotating exhibition program featuring Taos-area artists whose practices are in deep conversation with the landscape, histories, and cultures of the Southwest — amplifying voices rooted in this place and creating a living gallery that changes with the seasons and the stories it holds. Wonder, after all, is not passive — it is what happens when art and land meet, when a community's creative life is made visible to those who come seeking something they cannot quite name. And on the land itself, Alces is creating an original sculpture — a permanent artistic presence that joins the desert terrain as both offering and landmark. Together these three threads — residency, exhibition, and permanent public art — embody what Alces does wherever it works: center artists, honor place, and build something that lasts.