A Willa Cather sky

"Willa Cather Sky," 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel

"The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still, — and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world."

“Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”

            --Willa Cather, Death Comes for The Archbishop

"Out here there's the sky," is my mantra as I paint. It's no wonder, when you grow up in the Southwest or live in Oklahoma,  Texas,  or elsewhere on the Great Plains.

Thus this painting today.

"Out here there's the sky."

"The sky, the sky, the sky," 9 x 12, 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico rough press paper

"Out here's there's the sky."

That phrase has become the mantra for much of my art work. 

When you grow up in New Mexico and on the Great Plains, the sky, the sky, the sky.

At first, I thought I stole it from Willa Cather's great phrase about the sky in Death Comes for the Archbishop, but no, hers is much more descriptive and better written.

“Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”

But she inspired me, as do the skies out here.  I remember my first watercolor teacher Cletus Smith telling me about one of my early paintings that had a sky I questioned: "Somewhere there is a sky that looks like that." 

Still have that painting, hanging in the house...a constant reminder.

Today's watercolor is  testament to those comments. 

End of day--Oklahoma prairie inspiration

End of Day, Oklahoma--9 by 12 watercolor, 140# d'Arches

I saw a cloud similar to like this yesterday, towering over Edmond in the afternoon. But after visiting my friend and oil cloudscape artist David Holland today and watching his work, I thought I'd try something different. Double inspiration--the skies and David Holland.
I decided to paint  from memory rather than trying to duplicate a photo, which makes me uptight, and also is a prescription for failure.
As David said today, it's a painting, not a photograph. This is freeing and I painted better than usual.

"Out here there's the sky," -- Terry Clark

Out here there's the sky--New Mexico

Storm building over the Jemez

"The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still, — and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one’s feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky!" --Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

New Mexico gets in your soul. Called the "Land of Enchantment," I find it more the land of the Spirit.
This last trip after a long absence made me more aware than ever, especially the skies, as the monsoon season arrives and the clouds build over the mountains.

Thunderheads building over the Sangre de Cristos.

I wrote, "As dramatic and sometimes "tortured" the vast raw landscape is, the sky and clouds exaggerate, multiply and dwarf it. The mountains are but the blue pedestals upon which they grow."
Three years ago I wrote about not wanting to live in a land of "cloudless day" as in the words of the old Gospel song, "Today's clouds and living in texture." 

Penitente morada at Abiquiu

As a child of the Great Plains and the Southwest, I can think of nothing more boring. Sure, it's a metaphor, but peace and beauty only come from dramatic contrasts, not uniform sameness. Actually, the clouds and skies of New Mexico accent the ancient land and its religions.

Georgia O'Keefe's Perdenal

New Mexico is the land of the sky. There's even a 1948 book, Sky Determines by Ross Calvin, in my New Mexico collection.
For years and many articles I have attributed a quote to Willa Cather, and discovered I'd made it up, and nobody had challenged me. She didn't write it, so I guess it's mine if someone else hasn't already written it, though it summarizes her great writing in Death Comes for the Archbishop.

"Out here there's the sky." 

 This multitude of photos on different roads from last week gives only a small idea of  how and why the New Mexico sky is so powerful in the physical and spiritual world, creating wonder. 

Evening sky looking north from the Rio Chama bosque, Abiquiu

Oklahoma Sky--watercolor

Left side, 12 x 12

Right side, 12 x 12


New red sable brush at work...

Great Plains sunset

Great Plains sunset, watercolor, 90# paper, 9" by 12"

I love the land of the big sky and wide open spaces.

Where you can see

Watercolor, 5 x 7

Fabriano Artistico 300# paper

Willa Cather wrote that in New Mexico, the earth is the floor of the sky.

It is. Here you can "see" geology, strata in the earth and in the sky and in yourself...where the intensity of light immerses you and the land and sky.