KATA BENNETT

I am an artist and an entrepreneur. I grew up in Plaza Vieja, Old Town, Albuquerque, New Mexico. My father was a visionary. In the 1930s, he and a handful of other artists bought property in Old Town and improved it by cleaning up a urine soaked, unusable bandstand and replacing it, clearing the area of broken beer and whiskey bottles, locating the cannons that were once there and putting them back, paving the walkways with brick, planting trees and grass and so on. 

They did this on their own without any financial help from the banks who were focused on the center of town from First Street and West down Central Avenue. Wealthy people who were determined to profit from building Albuquerque, refused to support anyone involved with Old Town. 

Two of the noteworthy people who helped my father were Carmen Espinosa, a gifted historic researcher and writer on Colcha embroidery, tin work, Indian stories and Spanish filagree silver etc. and Irene Fisher, an editor and writer who started The Old Town Gazette, to share the progress and goings on at the Plaza. Erna Fergusson, Lloyd Goff, Peg and Bob Hooton were well known names of people involved with helping my parents. I grew up in the midst of these fascinating, inspired, people. I loved all of them dearly. They were and still are an inspiration to me. From witnessing their dedication, and growing up in Old Town, I developed a deep love for this land and all of her peoples.

In 2008 I bought and opened a coffee shop and gallery here on the Santa Cruz Plaza, Galeria Santa Cruz. We had wonderful events; a genealogy meeting every Wednesday evening with Tom Martinez who had a computer full of all the birth records from around here, all the church records here and up into southern Colorado, the poet Joan Logghe had a book signing and poetry reading, Nicholas Herrera and his daughter, Elena had an art opening and sale, local carver, Ross Lucero had a gallery opening and sale, we hada Day of the Dead celebration with a flash mob in the plaza.. We talked about its origin, our dead and painted everyone’s faces as skulls. There were many other memorable occasions.

I was an owner of several natural food manufacturing businesses. In the mid 70’s I started Southwest Soy Foods. I manufactured tofu and soy products in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was one of the second generation of tofu makers in the USA, the first generation being the Chinese. We USA tofumakers started the Soy Foods Organization which is now international and has hundreds of members.

I sold Southwest Soy Foods and started Col. Sanchez Foods in the 80’s. We manufactured two types of vegetarian tamales and a blue corn chicken tamale as well as burritos and other Northern New Mexico specialties that were sold across the country, Japan and Canada . I took that business to Los Angeles and positioned my products in a selection of major health food stores across the USA. 

I started Corn Mother Blue Corn Chips. I was the first person to have blue corn chips in a printed bag and brought to the national market. I made decorative tins and sold them in Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales as well as Price Club and many health food chains. I won a National Advertising award for my packaging design.

I am well versed with product development, placement, labeling, advertising and wholesale sales. I use my knowledge from starting and maintaining these companies in the many aspects in my plaza development today. 

I have bought and renovated several houses including two in Santa Fe, an old adobe off Alameda and St. Francis and a late Victorian bungalow on Santa Fe Avenue, near the State Capital.

In 2007 I saw a beautiful old adobe slightly off the plaza here in Santa Cruz. I walked through it once and immediately decided to buy it.

Then the Galeria came next. It was an old run down mercantile/ice cream shop, which was a top to bottom restoration. I maintained as much of the original woodwork and building as possible, which cost more than if I’d demolished the place and rebuilt. I am now restoring, on my own, four other properties around the Santa Cruz Plaza.

Currently, I am operating six successful vacation rentals out of the old mercantile/Galeria and The Pinks. These have helped to finance the restorations. They currently gross at least $5000 a month, and bring tourism money to local businesses here.