Creatives on the coasts will claim through omission that nothing culturally significant happens in the Mountain Time Zone. Of course they're right (don't question it)--save for one critical oversight. Once upon a time, in a pocket of America Brooklynites confuse for Mexico, Game of Thrones novelist George R.R. Martin played the hero in an extraordinary Santa Fe success story called Meow Wolf.
Formed in 2008 as an indigenous Broken Social Scene-sized collective of "dumpster-diving punk artists" curating wild underground exhibitions off the city's beaten path, Meow Wolf has revolutionized the art world in the decade since and accumulated enough capital to become a billion-dollar arts and entertainment company.
How they pulled it off is chronicled in the forthcoming documentary, Meow Wolf: Origin Story--out Nov. 29. In a subculture that practically inspired the term "starving artist," the group of twenty-somethings had been on the verge of financial collapse before a Hail Mary appeal to longtime Santa Fe resident George R.R. Martin struck gold.
Playing off a prior working relationship at an old local theater the author bought and renovated in 2013, Meow Wolf co-founder and CEO Vince Kadlubek convinced Martin to pledge $2.7 million dollars toward a permanent creative space for the group. The last-minute stimulus saved Meow Wolf from disbanding and propelled them to convert an abandoned bowling alley into a mind-blowing mega-exhibit called the House of Eternal Return.
The 35,000 square foot "multidimensional mystery house" with passages and portals galore has stood tall as New Mexico's top attraction since its unveiling in March 2016. Ticket sales from the installation's roughly 550,000 annual visitors quickly set Meow Wolf on a course for expansion in the region. The company will open new art complexes in Las Vegas and Denver over the next two years and add several hundred new creatives to its payroll.
And it all was a polite "pass" away from never materializing. Said Kadlubek: "If George had turned that deal down, there is absolutely no way the House of Eternal Return is created and absolutely no way we continue on as a group."
I spoke with George R.R. Martin about his contribution to Meow Wolf and his ongoing relationship with the company and the city of Santa Fe at large.
Espinoza: Meow Wolf had to go back to you for more money to renovate the bowling alley after your initial investment. Was there a point where you thought issuing all that money to them might've been a mistake?
George R.R. Martin: Well, there were certainly points where I was nervous about it. I mean, when they first presented me with the plan, they had, I believe, a $200,000 dollar estimate before the renovations needed to the building, once the building was purchased. And I knew just looking at that, that that was way, way, way low: A few years before I'd purchased and renovated a movie theater in town, the Jean Cocteau, and I saw how much that cost and how the estimates always seemed to be low; it always cost more... so I warned them about that and we drastically raised the estimates to a much more realistic level. But, even that, once we got into it, once again, as with any construction, it took longer and it cost more; and the contractor kept coming back saying, 'It'll need to be more... It'll need to be more.' We kept pushing back the opening date; and yeah, everybody was getting a little bit nervous about that--I don't think I was the only one. But, of course, at that point, I was already more than a little bit pregnant (laughs)--I'd been putting a lot of money in already, so it did seem sensible to back out. But I did say, 'We gotta get this thing open, guys': We can't just push back a month, and then another month, and then another two months. So, we finally did set a firm date and somehow managed to get it done and open. God, when we saw the crowds showing up [and] the lines stretching out [around] the parking lot and down the block, that was an immense relief to everyone; because this was such a new thing, I don't think anyone really knew if this was gonna work.
Espinoza: What do you remember thinking and feeling during your first excursion through the completed House of Eternal Return?
Martin: We had a big premiere that was invitation-only a couple days before it opened to the public: that was the first time I went through the whole thing--and of course I thought it was amazing. Now, I wasn't seeing it through fresh eyes because it had been under construction for a long time and I'd seen it numerous times, at least once a month or so, during the period of construction to see how they were coming along and seeing it achieve reality. But having it actually finally done and seeing all the amazing stuff they put in there was really exciting; and I hoped that people would like it.
But I've been in this kind-of entertainment business a long time, with my books and television shows, and I knew enough to know that you never know. You do the work, whether it's writing a book or opening up an amazing, innovative art place like Meow Wolf; you do the work as best you can and you hope that someone will like it; and sometimes you have a hit, and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you have a book that doesn't sell or an attraction that people don't go to, so--you never know; you have to cross your fingers. But thankfully Meow Wolf has been an enormous success, and that's been very gratifying to me, and of course to everybody involved.
Espinoza: You truly seem to love where you live. You revitalized an old theater and saved Meow Wolf from going under. With your fame and fortune, are you always keeping an eye out for things in Santa Fe to help uplift?
Martin: I wouldn't say I'm always keeping an eye out, I have books to write and television shows to produce and a lot of other things, but certainly when opportunities come to me, I will sometimes treat 'em seriously, respond to it. You know, I've had ups and downs in my career, but of the last few decades I've been very lucky and I believe that you should give something back to the communities that you're part of. The great Robert A. Heinlein, whose book Have Spacesuit--Will Travel was the first science-fiction book I ever read, Heinlein once said, quite famously, that you could not ever give back to the people who helped you when you were starting out, so that you have to give forward when you are in a position to do so; and to help the people who've come after you, and to help your community--and that's what I try to do. I am now in a position to do that, so I try to do what I can to pay forward to the communities that I'm a part of; which, Santa Fe is one of those communities. It's my hometown; I wasn't born there, but I've lived there since '79, and I expect I will live there for the rest of my life--I love Santa Fe. My other community is a more kind of mobile one, this world of science fiction and fantasy; the kind of subculture that gathers around the conventions and the science fiction magazines and all of that stuff, and I try to give back to that community too.
Espinoza: What's your involvement with Meow Wolf at present? Do you have a role of any kind in their forthcoming expansion into Las Vegas and Denver?
Martin: Well, they're doing a lot of other exciting things all around the country, and I'm a little bit part of that [to] the extent that I'm an investor. But I'm only one of a number of investors: It's not like Santa Fe, where I was a major guy; there've been other people [who've] come in now that are even more heavily invested than I am--and more may come forward. So I'm part of it, but only a small part of it; there are many other people, and Meow Wolf, of course, themselves, I mean, at the time they did The House of Eternal Return I think they had like 100 people working on it. I think now they have like 300 people working for them, and probably more to come as the Las Vegas and Denver sites go forward. I'm also very involved with Meow Wolf films, which is one of the things they're doing... they're doing some really interesting things in film, and I hope to be part of that as well... I have some interesting projects there that they're helping me with.
Espinoza: What's the message that your investment in Meow Wolf and their resulting success sends to communities all over the world?
Martin: I'm not sure I really had any message to send, [but] this was something amazing and I wanted to give it a chance to see whether Santa Fe and New Mexico and the world was ready for it and that [they] could do it--and that's what I did. I think art is worth investing in--maybe that's a message? And science-fiction and fantasy, these things can be not only labors of love, but can be good things that'll return your investment: You don't have to just buy stocks in companies; you can invest in something in your local community and see it grow and thrive and change the city you live in, and Meow Wolf has done all of that--so I'm very proud of them. I really have very little credit to take: it's all Vince and Shawn and Nick and their whole crew of people--the people you meet in the documentary--who've done wondrous things.
