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Margaret Nelson Hooton died Sunday, October 9, 2005 at her home. She was survived by her husband, Robert Hooton; two sons, Christopher Hooton and Timothy Hooton; grandsons, Zachary and Keenan Hooton, all of Albuquerque; and a sister, Betty of St. Louis, MO. Margaret "Peggy" Nelson was born in Ann Arbor, MI on Saint Patrick's Day of 1922 to Dr. and Mrs. Erwin Nelson. She spent much of her childhood on her grandfather's farm in Missouri, and returned there often as a young woman. She graduated from the Isadora Newman School in New Orleans in 1940, where her father taught at Tulane University. She served in the WAACs during WWII at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. As a young adult, she studied at the New Orleans school of Art, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the New School for Social Research, and the Art Students league in NYC. In 1950, she met and married Bob Hooton and the two came west to NM where they attended graduate school at UNM, opened Workshop Originals in the Patio Market in Old Town, in which they sold their own fine handmade jewelry. The store evolved into a Gallery for other local artists, as well as a mecca for collectors of folk arts from around the world. She made many lasting contributions to the New Mexico arts communities playing a key role in the establishment of the Albuquerque Museum and the founding of the New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair. During her career she was a painter, silversmith, photographer, ceramist and creator of her own wonderful series of fabric "people" which are well remembered by those who knew her best. She would never allow anyone to call her an artist, this being too exalted a term in her thinking. She believed this to be something for history to judge, but few who knew her in life could describe her without using that very word. In 1998, she was presented, along with her husband Bob, with the Magnifico Honors award for lifetime achievement in the arts. She loved the outdoors, enjoyed fishing and camping with her family and gathering wild mushrooms. She was a founding member of the New Mexico Mycological Society, but her family will best remember the fishing trips to Colorado. She will live for a long time in the memories of the many whose lives she touched. There will be a celebration of her life on Sunday, October 30, 2005. Sunrise Funeral Options 7601 Wyoming Blvd NE Albuquerque, NM 87109 (505) 821-0010
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