Among friends, Marcia Muth and Jody Ellis are known as pioneer women.

They like that idea. But they both insist that if they are pioneers, it is because that is what they were meant to be, what has come naturally to them.

“All this time, we’ve just been ourselves ,” said Muth, 86.

They met at a party nearly 40 years ago and fell in love — an inevitable, natural occurrence, they say. Since then, they’ve been an unstoppable pair. They founded one of New Mexico’s first literary magazines and later the Sunstone Press, an independent publishing company still publishing books today.

“We were interested in promoting the literature and history of this area,” Ellis said. “There is so much here to put into print. It’s so full of history and good feeling.”

Ellis, 80, helped found the Santa Fe Community Orchestra, learning the cello, which she still plays, when she was 59. She was a nurse, served in the Air Force and also owned a candy shop in town. Now Ellis is a music teacher.

“I leave every lesson inspired and filled with love,” her student, Mar Geanux, wrote in a letter that nominated Ellis. “I leave with joy. Jody is a full expression of pure joy. When Jody is teaching music, she is teaching life.”

Muth, a librarian and poet in her early years, is writing her fifth book, which features her art and commentaries on it. She also has taught herself how to paint, starting with pictures of factories and gradually moving on to people.

“I used to say I couldn’t do it, but Jody would say, ‘Oh yes you can,’ so eventually I learned,” she said.

Both have quiet voices and small, frail statures, but their belongings speak loudly. In the garden, there is a gaggle of plastic flamingos and other birds. Muth also has a large collection of hubcaps and toy cars. Ellis has reams of sheet music in her studio and numerous signed photos of musicians, which hang on the wall near Muth’s surreal, simple, bright paintings that predominantly feature scenes from the 1930s, a time she remembers fondly.

Partners since well before gay rights became a national political issue, they have mostly kept to themselves and attended public protests. They’ve tried to promote compassion the best way they now how — through the arts.

“In our own, quiet way, we’ve tried to inspire,” Ellis said.

They’ve relied on each other for encouragement and strength and say each’s accomplishments could not have been realized without the other.

“We are so different and so alike,” Ellis said. “I suspect we will probably be together until we aren’t together (on Earth) anymore.”

Contact Natalie Storey at 986-3026 or

nstorey@sfnewmexican .com.

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