In Search of My Home by Frank Blazquez

New Mexico is a dark parking lot on Montgomery Boulevard NE at midnight, where three teenagers stripped off my clothes, pressed pistols against my skull, and told me they would kill me if I did not cooperate. New Mexico is where I touched an oxycodone pill for the first time. I developed a relationship with a chemical companion, a friend who was always there when I needed her. New Mexico is where I entered rehab and met a sober coach named Nate. Nate thought my name was Vince, the name of the other brown man in the program. I experienced withdrawal there on sweat-drenched bedsheets, having fever dreams of Pulte Homes–style Potemkin villages draped in Berber carpet.

Family Relics, 2018; © Frank Blazquez

Three studio photographic portraits in ornamental frames hang on a yellowed stucco wall. Two are of young men wearing tuxedos with ruffled shirts and oversized bowties. The middle picture is a smiling young woman with a cloud of dark hair.

New Mexico is where friends have died by gunfire. Diego Garcia-Urban was like my little brother. He was murdered in broad daylight at a Love’s Travel Stop in February 2023. New Mexico in two words is “hard pain.” Yet this is why I capture portraits across Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Roswell, Chaparral, Artesia, and Grants. New Mexicans are resilient and inspiring survivors constantly in the throes of tragedy. When I achieved sobriety, I made a promise to narrate my story about the complex mechanisms of life and death in New Mexico.

A golden-yellow structure with blocky towers to each side is silhouetted against an ink-black sky. Each tower has a single window, and a cross is at the top of the left one. A second-story balcony stretches between the towers over a double door.

Santa Fe, 2019; © Frank Blazquez

I selected these photographs to reflect the personalities and iconographies of New Mexico that loop repetitively in my mind. My photographs are not ideological. Instead, these images detail my idea of the relationship between recuperation, which offers the hope needed to remain faithful to my craft, and home, a structure underpinned by compassion, patience, and warmth.

Two religious figurines are backlit by a lamp on a sidetable between an overstuffed couch and recliner. The octagonal coffee table between them is covered with a square lace doily. The room falls into shadow beyond the lamplight.

The Gutierrez-Padilla Living Room, 2018; © Frank Blazquez

Excerpt from  Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, (Cooper Hewitt |  The MIT Press, 2025) published in companion with  Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial  (New York, Nov. 2024-Aug. 2025)

A shirtless, bald man with tattoos across his medium-toned back is angled away from us, almost in profile facing our left. Blue light highlights the front of his left arm and that cheek. A jumbled space, like a garage, is out of focus beyond the man.

Forgiveness, 2020; © Frank Blazquez

A square of white cloth is printed with black curly letters reading “Miss you” over a sad clown lying stomach down and arms crossed under his chin. A handwritten note added at the top right begins, “Happy Valentine’s Day I love you so much baby!”

Prison Paño for Flaca, 2021; © Frank Blazquez

A young man with medium-toned skin and curly black hair looks down so his eyelashes nearly brush his smooth cheeks. He is shown almost in profile facing our left in a darkened room. He wears a baby-blue sports jersey and sits on a couch.

Diego, 2022; © Frank Blazquez

A curving mantle holds four framed pictures and four angel figurines. A studio picture of a family of five hangs above beneath a wooden cross.

Santa Fe Relatives, 2020; © Frank Blazquez

In a car, a young woman with medium-toned skin looks at us with large, dark eyes. A short fringe of bangs frames her round face and the rest falls behind her shoulders. She has two lip piercings and a tattoo reading “Gerardo” across her chest.

Lorena, 2020; © Frank Blazquez

A doll’s face is painted with clown-like white eyebrows and white around full, red lips and red tip of the nose. Her eyes are dark voids, lost in shadow. The doll wears a black and white plaid top and hoop earrings that reach the shoulders.

Northern New Mexico Clown Doll, 2020; © Frank Blazquez

A dining table with high-backed wooden chairs is set with clear glass candlesticks and wine glasses holding white cloth napkins. A scene in copper relief hangs on the white paneled wall across from us. A couch edges into view from the lower right.

A Trailer Home in Chaparral, New Mexico, 2022; © Frank Blazquez

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