Julia Minamata juliaminamata.com
Nestled in the Sandias off the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway, Tinkertown resides in the sweet, old country heart of pure Americana. Carved wooden puppets and figurines great and small occupy the winding, 22-room space by the thousands. Ross Ward, the craftsman behind this small army of dolls, spent 40 years whittling them into life. Fiddlers, pipe smokers, angels, devils and circus performers can be found among them, along with walls constructed from more than 50,000 glass bottles, a 35-foot antique wooden sailboat that survived a 10-year voyage around the world, and a curious and creative amalgamation of old-timey memorabilia. (Christie Chisholm)