In 1979, Frank Romero and his then-wife Nancy Romero bought land in Arroyo Seco, Taos, joining other California artists who spent part of the year there. They built an adobe house and were generously assisted by the Taos Pueblo community, which sparked Romero’s deep interest in Southwestern culture. Romero was drawn to Indigenous and Hispanic craft traditions, which mirrored the mainstream land art movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s with the added layer of Romero’s cultural connection to the land. “While adobe homes traditionally have an additional light-colored clay used in place of plaster to exterior and interior walls, a form of weatherproofing, Romero instead developed his own process, applying a mixture of earth and acrylic varnish.” This experience inspired his 1990s Adobe Series, where he displayed various soils in adobe molds as wall reliefs (paraphrased from Barrientos Martínez).

“The Adobe Series exemplifies an important period in his practice where his work becomes intertwined with craft traditions native to regions and towns throughout the Southwest of the USA and Northern Mexico. Having built his own adobe home with the help of members of Taos Pueblo, Frank Romero would apply the lessons taught to him by his neighbors to create a series of rarely exhibited earthworks that bridges land and gallery.” - Rafael Barrientos Martínez