Sandias, seriously.

The Sandias, when I grew up, taken from the back yard of our house on Sandia Base

I wrote the Truchas mountains were my favorite in New Mexico, commenting on my latest watercolor, and several chimed in about the Sandias at Albuquerque.

Dad's large drawing of the Sandias that hangs over my desk.

They have a strong hold on me as well, since I grew up there and my Dad painted them, usually in oils, several times. I've also painted them in watercolor, many times on a smaller scaled than Dad's, a few of which I'm fairly satisfied with.

Any painting I see of them, or even more, photos on social media, grab my attention just as they do whenever I'm in New Mexico.  They also go in a folder on my computer, for reference, inspiration, and just because.

Dad's large oil, hanging in my brothers' house

Though Albuquerque has grown to the edge of those mountains these day, much of that land was barren when I lived there.

So, for my friends who commented, here  are two of Dad's paintings, both about 24 x 36, one of mine and what they looked like when I was growing up.

I never attempt anything this large, because I'm not that good, nor am I patient enough to put in all that detail time.

P.S. You can tell someone from New Mexico, because we all know how to spell Albuquerque.

One of my watercolors, about 8 x 10 

Sandia Sunset

Sandia Sunset, daily watercolor, 5 x 7 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press paper

The Sandia Mountains loom over Albuquerque, and when you grow up there, perhaps taking them for granted, they imprint on your consciousness for the rest of your life.
I've tried to paint them many times, never as accurately or passionately as my dad, but they're always there in my mind and soul. 

Hurley's storm over the Sandias

You forget sometimes, until you return to New Mexico and Albuquerque, and they dominate the Eastern skyline, 5,000 feet above the city. If I forget, I'm always reminded by Wilson Hurley's gigantic triptych at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. I go and gaze and almost worship in awe. 
Of course, my brother and I have some of Dad's oil paintings in our homes, and I have several of my smaller watercolors here well. And views, photos of the Sandias always grab my attention--they're dramatic because of their height, their color and how they change the weather, at the east edge of the Great Plains on one side, and the Rio Grande valley on the west.
The Sandias, named by the conquistadors 500 years ago as they marched homesick and thirsty up the Rio Grande valley, at sunset, look like a watermelon, with a green rind on top and the granite face turning red in the sunset. Thus the Spanish name, "Sandia."
They loom over me as well, and make my happy.

(Daily #worldwatercolorgroup January paint happy things challenge)

Earlier paintings, photos:

• First Attempt
• Rifts in abstract

Cleaning out the garage...of history, on this day

Cleaning out the garage--actually sorting through old boxes and files of time gone by brings back memories and mementos--most of them pleasant, some of them with sadness and regrets. 
Items and more you'd forgotten about, and can't exactly be relegated to the garbage can just yet.
Two or more sides to everything--nostalgia and present tense.

So it is that I found my high school graduation "stuff." Then I saw the date. Lots of miles and adventures since then, and with those blessings, also the realization the years have piled up. 
I'm old--that's what these say about 55 years ago in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Memo: to my students, my kids, my grand kids...live today.

Old photos, article in a look at Albuqureque's past

We arrived in Albuquerque, N. M., in the summer of 1951, driven there from Fort Worth by our uncle Mike, since Dad had already taken a job as a technical artist at Sandia Corp. on Sandia Base.
While scrounging through a box of old photos and more, I can across this 1952 article and photos in the Sandia Bulletin, the base newspaper.
It tells the history of the base and includes some astounding photos of how remote the base was from Albuquerque just a two to three years before we arrived. Look at that bare mesa stretching to the Sandia Mountains. Now it's full of subdivisions, up to the mountain's very base.

20+ years ago, at the house on Sandia Base where we grew up, now gone

Sandia was at eastern the edge of the city when we came, but we never knew all this, and lived in base housing for several years. 
Reading the history, I found another interesting fact. The base was the after-WWII dumping ground of "war-weary" B-24 Liberator bombers and P-51 Mustang fighters, both planes that Dad had been a draftsman on when at North American  and Consolidated companies in Fort Worth during the war, when I and my brother Jerry was born.

Old photos, cabins, art and genes

The table, with a "stump sock" just above my recent painting.

My brother Jerry and his wife Cathrina coming to town yesterday for a concert was a rare and welcome gathering for the two of us. They live in Lubbock and we're lucky to see each other once a year these days.
He reminded me that I need to send him some scanned photos of the cabin our folks owned in the 1950s in the Manzano mountains southeast of Albuquerque. So today I went through the old family album, digging out old black and white photos, and sending them to him. It reminded me why I have this attraction to cabins, to painting them and dreaming about them. But that's another post.

Jerry and I and the table, 1953

While doing it, I came across a lot of photos of he and I in those same years, which I also sent to him. But one really stood out to me. We were gathered at our dad's old oak art table.
That's where I paint today, 61 years later. So here is a photo of it today, including the last remnant I have of one of Dad's "stump socks" as a rag. Dad, as I've told you, had a wooden leg--his right leg a stump at mid calf--and he bought stump socks to make the leg comfortable. I use the rag as a sort of sponge for my painting, and I think Dad, the real artist, would approve, especially since he must have cut it up for that use years ago.

61 years later, last night, me, Susan, Cathrina and Jerry, OKC

Coffee with Clark, perking away

The sounds of coffee perking is invigorating. The the unique smell fills  the house.
Ah...memories of growing up as a kid when Mom and Dad put the coffee on in Fort Worth and Albuquerque. More memories of making coffee in the cold mornings at my Uncle Mike's in Santa Fe as the sun comes up over the Sangre de Cristos. You'd get the pot ready the night before, so you could just turn on the burner. Yes, this is his coffee pot, may have been my grandmother's.
Today in Oklahoma, we are out of the fancy new xyz-cups at a time, and the drip thingy is long gone. Alas, real coffee.

Memories of Mom in photos

Francis Faye Culp Clark, 1949, Fort Worth

I have more photos, of course, but these span the years.  With my somber Mothers' Day trip coming up tomorrow to her grave in Waurika, they hint at her, better than the sparse letters on her gravestone--a life is so much more than a name and dates. With memories of a recent family reunion, and old photographs, I wonder at the years and stories untold. We know so little, don't we, but we love more than words can tell.

Oldest photo of Mom--1909?

East Texas girls, from left, Ima, Faye, Gladys, Vera

The Culp kids,  early 1930s? (Old car in background). From left, Vera, ET, Faye, Ima, J.C., Gladys

Faye, I don't know the year

Southwest Bell basket ball team, 1929--Faye at right, front row

Ima, Vera, Faye, dated 1931

Easter Sunday, Albuquerque, 1950s, Dad, Jerry, Me, Mom

1950s in Dallas...Mom, Sissie, Grandmother, Gladys, ET

Mom, Houston, late 60s

Mom's retirement at MD Anderson

Grandkids, late 70s, Waurika...Travis, Dallas, Mom, Becky, Derrick, Vance

Waurika, Oklahoma

Teacher appreciation week--the great ones

Someone told me once, probably a teacher, if you had five great teachers in your life, you were fortunate. Don't know about that, because I'm still learning, and will leave out several.
I can count nine, and thus I'm more than  blessed.

• Barbara Radovich, high school speech teacher at Highland High School in Albuquerque, N.M.,who taught me more about myself, now that I think about it, and gave me the confidence to stand up and speak and lead--probably the most important and influential teacher in my life.
• Don Green, Oklahoma Christian College, who taught American political thought and constitution law...teaching me to reason, think critically, and to see the long perspective of history.
• Frank Finney, Central State College, Oklahoma (now UCO where I teach)--who taught a course in Whitman and me how to interpret, enjoy and write about literature.
• Henry Africa, who ran the Linotype school at the University of Iowa, and showed me there's more to journalism than technology, and more to education than a degree.
• Callaway Buckley, executive editor of  The Duncan Banner, who took a young journalist and made an editor and better journalist of him, with scathing criticism and confidence and praise.
• Donald J. Morrison, partner and publisher of The Waurika News-Democrat, who infused me with a love for community journalism, and how to not only put a paper out, but with what it means to the readers.
• Charles Fleming, colleague at OSU, and chair of my doctoral committee, whose organization and complete opposite of teaching style,  helped me get my "union card" to higher ed, and taught me to always honor the birthday of the U.S. Marines. Vietnam's Agent Orange claimed him a few years later, but I know many fellow students in whose lives he still lives.
• Harry Heath--at OSU, my last mentor, and friend, a giant who forgot more about journalism than I know, but whose confidence and example nurtured and propelled me to where I am today.
• I've left out the name of my first grade teacher, long ago, in Fort Worth. I don't know what she did, nor remember her first name, but Mrs. Gaylee must have been terrific.

Kissin' cousin

Sandra Gail Gee Russell's funeral was today in Lake Charles. We Culps mourn.
She was as close as I've ever had to a kissing cousin. She arrived with her sister Charlotte and husband at our home in Albuquerque in the late 195os on a road trip, them driving a 1959 white Chevy convertible. 
Sandi and I went out on a date in it, full of teenage hopes and hormones. I was always "Terry Mike" and she was "Sandra Gail," because we all called people by their first and middle names back then. That was mainly because that's what our folks yelled at us when we were in trouble, but it stuck, forever.
This photo was taken by my Dad at one of our summer vacation trips to Silsbee in deep East Texas. There are so many memories. I couldn't make the funeral, but I will toast her royally at our cousin reunion next week, and remember the cute girl with the reddish hair, arched eyebrows, and captivating  laugh, forever.

Rifts in abstract

Sandias--the vertical forces of the world--7 1/2 by 9 watercolor, handmade India paper

I grew up at the foot of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, and my Dad painted them often.
I've tried and the subjects exhaust me, for they are complex, ever-changing in light and patterns and moods and views.
Today it dawned on me to paint them as they are--products of violent geologic splitting and uplift along the Rio Grand rift. Out of change and tumult and conflict can come beauty.
It is no coincidence that the skies over the Sandias often echo the geology. The mountains force clouds upward in collisions of weather that dwarf the 5,000-foot-high granite below.
(Matching rock on the west side of the Rio Grande is 5,000 feet below the current surface.)
If you want stability, live on the Great Plains, but for excitement and adventure, consider the vertical forces of the world, embodied in the Sandias.
I hope my rough abstract brushstrokes, and sunset red colors,  capture that turmoil and beauty.

Gray Samsonite kind of guy

Jerry, Mom and I getting on train at
Albuquerque for trip to Texas
In the 50's, with baggage

"Everybody's got baggage," said a friend at lunch today.
"Yes," I said, "I think mine is old gray Samsonite."
"Yeah, you're sort of a gray Samsonite kind of guy," he said, laughing.
The other friend chimed in.
"Yes, and it's pretty beat up with lots of dents and scratches," she said.
In between laughing, we were talking about people getting older and getting along with others, finding people to live with.
We agreed it was important that people's baggage pretty well match, or at least go together, if it was going to work. (That said, Susan's baggage is a lot classier than mine.)
"Having baggage isn't bad," said one friend.
"Some people have more baggage than others," added the other.
I started thinking about my gray Samsonite life. Not only is it dented and scratched and scuffed, the latches barely work, the handles are flimsy, and the hinges are almost sprung, from being crammed too tight with clothes and stuff  I didn't really need over the years. It squeaks and groans every time it moves.
I usually need to have a rope, or a belt, or strap wrapped around it to hold all the heavy junk in. It's sure not packed neatly, stuff just thrown in, wrinkled at best.
Thinking back, I find it interesting that my parents and aunt gave me two pieces of really good luggage for high school graduation. They knew I was going to travel and needed good luggage to hold all the baggage I would accumulate. Those pieces are long gone now, of course. 
They weren't gray Samsonite, but that's the first image I thought of when we started talking about baggage. I remember bright smiling people in ads in the National Geographic, boarding trains with shiny, perfectly matched Samsonite luggage.
It's no wonder today that I like to travel really light. One small bag, with rollers on it, or a duffel bag is all I need for most trips...even a week long trip to Europe. I hate the weight and having to tote things around. It takes me five minutes to pack. I'm trying to get rid of baggage.
Of course, it takes longer to pack what used to be called an "overnight" bag, carrying medicines and toiletries. You can tell the age of people by what kinds of toiletries they carry. If you're young, you've got a toothbrush, tooth paste, deodorant, a comb and brush, a razor, and some shaving lotion and aftershave. That's all.
Now the container includes all kinds of salves and ointments for various aches and pains, anti-diarrhea medicine, pain killers, stuff for stomach upset, band aids, sore throat medicine, mouth wash, eye drops, hemorrhoid ointment, nail clippers, and much more. Of course now you have to have it in a clear plastic bag if you're traveling by air so everybody can see your personal problems.
Makes you wish for gray Samsonite.

When the world was young, and so were we

Fifty years ago today...tread lightly

I can not watch any of the almost unending coverage this week on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, especially the black and white TV footage, or the many old men talking about that day, and the historical events. It's too personal.

The day dawned bright at Oklahoma Christian College in Oklahoma City 50 years ago. It was homecoming, and I'd come with friends from Albuquerque to visit friends from a year ago, and to see a special person. I'd attended OCC the year before as a freshman, but went back home to a semester at UNM because of finances. But I never forgot this high school senior I'd met at church.

Snapshots by a friend in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963

The day turned black. Many students were gathered in the student union that morning, when terrible news from Dallas changed the mood. The Young Republicans...of whom I'd been a member...immediately draped a wall with a photograph of President John F. Kennedy, assassinated a few hours earlier.

I remember little of the rest of that day, except for my date with the special person. Later than evening, outside her home in Bethany, Oklahoma, she accepted my marriage proposal. 
The day turned bright. I remember little, and when children were mentioned, she said "four." So it was over the following years.

When there was hope and joy, and Jackie

Back home in Albuquerque, while black and white TV droned on and on with the funeral, friends commented how great it was to hear my voice full of hope and joy. The next semester, I returned to Oklahoma, to Central State University, and marriage that summer.

The years were good, and not so good, as with wine, and some were bad, and there were also mistakes and sorrows. But thankfully, the four children are healthy, smart and terrific, and today there are eight grandchildren, two of them bearing their grandmother's name.

Thus it is, that every Nov. 22, in spite of forgetting other dates, I always remember--tragedies, hopes and joys, and sorrows. Journeys ended then, and also began.

America lost hope, and I found it. As with my country, there have been bright days, and fewer dark days. Today, I'm thankful for all the bright days, and the many lives and memories  that have followed.

When the world was young, and so were we.

The Sandias, first attempt

The Sandias at sunset, 12 by 16 watercolor, 300 pound d'Arches paper.

We grew up looking at the Sandia Mountains, at Albuquerque, New Mexico, which you can see in the photo in the blog title and below. After all these years, they always catch my eye and imagination.
I've never tried to paint them, until today. I guess they've been sort of a taboo. My dad painted them in oil and watercolor several times, and those paintings are masters of composition, art,  and craft. But today, inspired by that old black and white photo, I had to try. This is a first attempt, full of mistakes, but lessons learned, for  future attempts. I also learned that trying to paint this is exhausting, trying to get a sense of the drama and subject.
For those of you who don't know, the Sandias were named by some hot and homesick Spanish Conquistadors almost 500 years ago, as they marched up the Rio Grande valley toward La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis, 60 miles north. When the sun sets, it causes dramatic shadows and  it can turn those granite cliffs red, and the forested top on layers of limestone looks like a rind on a watermelon ("Sandia" in Spanish.) 
The geologic story is also dramatic. The Rio Grand is a rift valley, and these mountains were thrust up, like a trap door at the edge of the Great Plains. You're looking at the west face, the door of the opening. On the other side, the mountains slope gently to the east. Sandia crest is over 10,000 feet high. Albuquerque, straddling the Rio Grande valley, is 5,000. The rock matching the granite and the to of the Sandias, is 5,000 feet below ground on the west side of the Rio Grande.
Of course today, Albuquerque is built right up to the mountains.

The veteran I knew best--Memorial Day thoughts

Because my Dad lost his leg jumping a freight train in Tucumcari in 1932, he did not serve in World War II. But three of his brothers did. Rex, Mike and Champ. Rex and Champ were in the Army, Rex in England, and Champ in the Aleutians. Mike joined the Navy.
It's uncle Mike who became my favorite uncle, me carrying his name as my middle name. He was the bachelor, the traveler. He sent me a balsawood, battery operated PT boat from Japan while he was serving in Korea. He taught me how to kick a football in Fort Worth. From me, he caught the mumps when we lived in Albuquerque. He showed slides of his travels to Machu Picchu and other places, working for the state department teaching English in Ecuador, Libya, Iran, Mali, Tunisia. He settled in Santa Fe, teaching at the famed Institute of American Indian Arts until retirement, making friends on all of the pueblos. Then as the years passed, we lost touch, until about 15 years ago  when I needed him most, his Santa Fe home becoming a place of refuge. 

Uncle Mike, Susan and I at La Fonda a few years ago

From him I learned much about my Dad and uncles I'd never known, in our long talks at the foot of the Sangre de Christo Mountains as the setting sun turned them purple and red, viewed from his porch. Sailor's tales of WWII and Korea added to my knowledge of history and family. We'd "run up the rooster," as he would say. A former signalman, the semaphore flag for cocktail hour was a rooster. Rum and coke, "Cuba Libre," would add to the flavor of the evenings.
Now his ashes are buried in Santa Fe National Cemetery. We buried him Nov. 10, 2011 in the place he had called home for 30 some years, just across the highway from his home, and within sight of the Sangre de Cristos.
I know this about veterans on this Memorial Day...all of them have rich stories, all of them affect more lives than they ever know. Saludos a los todos veteranos. Muchas Gracias!

Mike's view of the Sangre de Christos

Stunning Western views

No trip to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is complete for me if I can't step into the huge special events room and view the  overwhelming Wilson Hurley triptychs of the American West.
My favorite of course is the one of the thundercloud over the Sandias with the Rio Grande in the foreground, from the northwest of Albuquerque where I grew up.

The others show the great falls of the Yellowstone, Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, and if you haven't been there to see these, to give you a sense of scale, I've included people in the one of the Pacific Coast.

Cloud watch encore!

Thor's home in New Mexico

Dramatic clouds dominate a dramatic landscape...ask Willa Cather in Death Comes for the Archbishop

The mountains grow clouds, or are the mountains the roots of clouds?

Vertical in a horizontal landscape.

Rain and rainbow over the Sangre de Cristos at Santa Fe.

Sunset in the Blood of Christ mountains and skies over the Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi.

Last light in one of the fabled cities as lights of gold twinkle.

Skies and lands of contrast and magic.

Where the spirits of the Land of Enchantment dwell.

Golden dawn "female" rain at the southern  end of the Rocky Mountains.

To the south of Santa Fe about 60 miles as you hit the Great Plains for a 500mile trek home, looms the blue bulk of the Sandia Mountains. At their feet stretching across the Rio Grande valley is Albuquerque, where I grew up. The weather changes here and by mid-morning, there's only a single cloud in the sky.

The Sandias are fault-block mountains, with the eastern slopes tilting toward the Great Plains like some listing aircraft carrier hit by massive explosions. Indeed, the Sandias rise like an opened trap door to over 10,000 feet at what is called "The Crest," and are crowned with Pennsylvania limestone over rugged granite cliffs dropping steeply to Albuquerque, 5,000 feet and more below. The rock that matches the crest is 5,000 more feet below the Rio Grande river, a rift valley--massive tectonic explosions indeed--10,000 foot-displacement. The Sandias are so named, because the granite cliffs turned red in the evening sun and have a narrow green rim of Ponderosa pine. To Coronado and the hot, thirsty conquistadors a long way from Spain in 1540, they resembled sliced, juicy watermelons--Sandias.

You may click on any of these images to make them larger. Bienvenidas a mi tierra y corazon.