Chaco Challenge--All About Geometry

Chaco Geometry, watercolor, 5 x 7, 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press paper

'Chaco is all about geometry on earth and in the heavens.'

Painting about, or at, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico is a challenge,  and it was for me last month during my daily happy things watercolors. About six attempts were unsuccessful
I wrote about it, and intended to post the painting, but didn't, so unhappy was I at the "happy" subject.
I've painted at Chaco before, and Fajada Butte is a favorite. But painting the ruins of the Anasazi is intimidating, because the Anasazi deserve respect. A poor painting would not be worthy. The stonework is varied in a million shapes and angles and shadows, and if you get too detailed, you lose the effects of Chaco, and the emotion the painting carries.  
As a detail-oriented person, that makes it almost impossible.
But last month, I wrote, after another attempt:
"Wanted to keep it abstract and failed. Chaco is all about geometry, on earth and in the heavens, and I've got to try again, keeping that in mind.
"But here's the attempt--failed because of the infinite geometry of the bricks--should have left them alone. "

Failure Number 1

Then yesterday my friend and former right hand at UCO, Sherry Sump, commented that the failed Chaco painting was her favorite (She's a Westerner and biased).
So today, I had to try again, keeping in mind geometry. "Paint what you feel, not what you see," said one art teacher.
"Paint shapes, not lines," said another.
Today's effort came from those thoughts. Better. I'm happy with this. It would not have happened without all those failures.
Here is the first failure, and what I wrote a month ago, and Don Strel's inspiring photograph below.
(I've written many times about Chaco, and if you search on the blog, you'll find lots of photos and comments and poetry.)

(From January 19, unpublished)

"Chaco Canyon in New Mexico makes me happy, but trying to paint it is an exercise in frustration.
I was inspired to try again today, because Anne Hillerman, daughter of the late Okie mystery writer and journalist Tony Hillerman who wrote about the Navajo nation, will be speaking at Full Circle Bookstore tomorrow.
The book by Tony and his brother, the late Barney who was an OKC photographer, is Hillerman Country. I have a signed copy of it, signed by him when we inducted him into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame years ago (He's a United Press International vet, wrote A Fly on the Wall, set in the Oklahoma Capitol, and ran the UNM Journalism School.) I've read all his books.

Don Strel photo in Hillerman's Landscape

I also have Anne's  book, Tony Hillerman's Landscape, photographs by her husband Don Strel. That's where I saw the photo that inspired this. It's also signed by them. She has continued her father's famous characters in her three mystery novels. Yes, I've read them.
Anyway, I'm going, thanks to info from a friend, and former student at OSU, Lynne Baldwin Matzell.
But I dug out the books and found this photo by Don. Had to try. 
Wanted to keep it abstract and failed. Chaco is all about geometry, on earth and in the heavens, and I've got to try again, keeping that in mind.
But here's the attempt--failed because of the infinite geometry of the bricks--should have left them alone.
Frustration in happiness--Chaco Canyon."

Two more books as the year is half gone

Does rereading books count toward a year's total? In this case, yes, and I finished two more this month, bringing to 15 read as the year is half gone.
When cleaning out books to give to my daughter, Booked to go, I parted with my Tony Hillerman books, except for one I had forgotten about.
It is a tattered and signed 1970 first edition of his first book, The Blessing Way, before he became famous. I bought this book at a Society of Professional Journalists silent auction here years ago. 

If you didn't know, the late Hillerman was an Okie and first a journalist and covered Oklahoma politics and more for UPI. In fact, his novel A Fly on the Wall, set in a fictional state capital, which is obviously Oklahoma City and the state capitol building. 
 He'd given this book to a friend and another Oklahoma journalism icon, Carter  and Loretta Bradley, and they donated it to the auction. 
 Reading it again was like reading it for the first time, because it had been so long ago. In it, Joe Leaphorn is a young Navajo cop and Jim Chee hasn't been created yet. Leaphorn aged with Hillerman.

The back cover, young Hillerman

Reading this and seeing his inscription and photo on the back cover brings back memories, especially of my beloved New Mexico, and of the passing of time.

***

The second book I reread was Art and Fear, Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, a musician and a writer
I needed to go back through this heavily marked-up book, mark even more, to get me off my duff and back into watercolor painting.  Books like this are food.
I won't give you many excerpts without almost reprinting the entire book. 
But one stands out to me as a journalist:

"To the artist, art is a verb."

Here are pages I've obviously read well. It's not so much advice as philosophy and common ground on the emotions and mind set of what happens when you decide to make art.

The Lady in Red, RIP Helen Thomas

America lost a giant of journalism today with the death of Helen Thomas, famed "lady in red," of the Washington Press Corps, at age 92.
She was a pioneer, "barrier-busting" journalist, covering 10 presidents in her long career with United Press International, and was feared and admired by politicians and press alike, because she would always ask the tough questions many in the sheepish herd of the Washington Press Corps wouldn't. She always sat in the front row, usually in a red suit, and after a few years, always got to ask the first question at press conferences.
But she didn't rely on press conferences to do her work, and was an excellent reporter. She was also tiny, and was questioned in later years because she spoke her mind. One such instance was a speech where she supposedly made anti-Semitic statements, though I think it was just her speaking her mind by saying unflattering things about Israel that people didn't want to hear. She was Lebanese, which to me raises her stature, because all of the Lebanese I've known are wonderful people--journalists and students alike, including Oklahoma's late Anthony Shadid (who also spoke at UCO), his cousin Ed now running for Oklahoma City mayor, and Edmond's Ray Hibbard of Edmond Life and Leisure.
I admire her most for being the tough questioner, for being so objective and even-handed in grilling all politicians without bias, for searching for the truth without an agenda. Alas, like UPI and now her, much of that is missing from today's so called journalism at Foxfart and MSNBC and elsewhere on cable and the Internet, which have agendas  that make them seem to be no more than mouthpieces for political viewpoints, where "fair and balanced" is anything but ironic hypocrisy, not in depth news.

Her passing is  a metaphor for the state of journalism in this country. 

I got to meet her when she came to UCO to speak in 1999, both in a reception in Edmond, and at the speech, and she signed this photo for me. The next morning, I had a flight somewhere early, and there she was at the airport, by herself, at 6 a.m., waiting on a plane, at age 78 or 79.
Thank you Helen, America needs many more of you, but you are the end of an era.
Helen Thomas obituary