taosplaza.com

TAO is Taos Artist's Organization, a membership organization to develop a strong visual arts community in the historic Taos, New Mexico village.

Each year in Taos, TAO organizes the Taos Artists' Open Studio Tour. This beauty filled video (9min 48sec) is about the 2009 show and a great tribute to all these artists.

The Taos Art Colony is an art colony which began in 1898 with the visit of Bert G. Phillips and Ernest L. Blumenschein to Taos, New Mexico.

An article with drawings by Blumenschein about a ceremony at Taos Pueblo appeared in the July 10, 1898, issue of Harper's Weekly. Within a few years other artists joined them in Taos: Joseph Henry Sharp, W. Herbert Dunton, E. Irving Couse and Oscar E. Berninghaus. These six artists were the charter members of the Taos Society of Artists.

Many artists were drawn to Taos due to the presence of Mabel Dodge Luhan, an heiress who had run a prominent art salon in Florence, Italy, and Manhattan, New York, before settling in Taos, where she married a Pueblo man and built a house. For decades, she invited artists, writers, and other creative people to stay with her in Taos. Many stayed and Taos grew as an art colony.

Taos is an artistic center and has many art galleries and museums including the home that Luhan built.