Cimarron Sunset

"Cimarron Sunset," 9 x 12 acrylic on canvas panel

"Out here is the sky," has become my motto the longer I paint. Growing up in New Mexico  and living most of my life on the Great Plains, I've always noticed the skies, but art has intensified that interest.

At first, I thought the saying was Willa Cather's comment about the skies in "Death Comes for The Archbishop." It's not, and hers also resounds with me in painting as I study and try to capture the vastness and beauty of wide open skies in wide open landscapes.

"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

Long ago I canoed down a stretch of the Cimarron River during daylight, captivated by the silence, the moods, the solitude of the river--where human time doesn't apply. I hope this painting captures some of those impressions, reflecting the ever-changing colors of those skies at the end of day.

Soon available at In Your Eye Studio and Gallery where I'm a member artist in Paseo Arts District.

Homage to Willa

""Stinging air and moving cloud," 9 x 12 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches rough press paper

"The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monstrous 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."

                                  --Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

"Out here there's the sky," I've told you is an overlying theme of my painting, which I paraphrased from Willa Cather, who says it better than anyone.

So amid today's constant March turmoil in our Oklahoma skies on the Great Plains, here's today's watercolor, homage to Willa, who understands how the sky gets into us.

Christ-Mass Eve, Holy Ground

"Holy Ground, Holy Night,"--Santa Fe, Christmas Eve,  5 x 7 watercolor card

Christ-Mass Eve, there are holy places and times in the universe, and in Northern New Mexico the Franciscan churches draw the faithful to  of mass Christmas eve, in the cold brisk mountain and desert air.
Inside there is warmth and ceremony and tradition, symbolized by an icon in La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis--El Catedral Basilica de San Francisco de Asis. (The Spanish version of the name is more appropriate for me in this city founded in 1610.)
Built in the 1800s by Archbishop Lamy, whose statue stands in front, and the subject of Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, the church draws visitors year around, from around the world.

Jerry and I, and his painting, 2015

But especially this season, and Holy Week before Easter, is when it shines as the testament to the residents' faith, with all the liturgy of an ancient mass. 
And it is an icon, a landmark just east of the historic Plaza,  to anyone who loves New Mexico, even non-Catholics.
I've written about it before, and tried painting it several times, including a large one commissioned by my brother Jerry for his home in Lubbock.
This year's card is a rough rendition, sent to faithful Catholic friends in Santa Fe.
You can read an earlier post from 2012 and painting attempt on this link: "Exploring Creativity."

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

Storm a'coming

"Storm a'Coming," Today's watercolor, 5.5 by 8.5

On the Great Plains, you can see the weather coming. 
Rural people know how to read the sky, the changes, the dangers, the blessings. We sit in our urban homes, read the internet or TV radar maps and forecasts, the horizons obscured by buildings and traffic. 
I love the  weather maps...they tell me what I would  already know if I lived in a ranch house where, as Willa Cather put it in "Death Comes for the Archbishop," Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky."

Reasons I love Texas--part 2

Jerry and Cathrina Clark

Three years ago, or more, I think, my brother Jerry "commissioned" a watercolor painting of the Cathedral of St. Francis in Santa Fe. Since then he's given me snarky comments at reunions, etc., about not following through. 
Hey, it's his fault, he didn't give me a deadline. In fairness, I tried...multiple times...taking photos on site, studying other photos and paintings, and failing, time and again. And, in fairness, he made it difficult. He wanted it big, and he wanted a night scene, with snow. 
Jerry and his wife Cathrina live in Lubbock, where they've constructed this beautiful Santa Fe style adobe home that stands out from all the "Dallas style" cookie-cutter brick semi-mansions around it. It's beautiful. The decor is distinctly New Mexican.

Brothers

We grew up in New Mexico, and haven't figured out how to get back on a permanent basis. Families and careers are in West Texas and Oklahoma, thank you. We are distinctly New Mexican--the place is inside us.
That made painting El Catedral Basilica de San Francisco de Asis...the accomplishment of Archbishop Lamy--daunting. You can read a fictional account in Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop."
But, I kept trying, and this week, after having it framed at The Great Frame Up in Oklahoma City, delivered--afraid they wouldn't like it. Sigh of relief, they love it, and we hung it. We love New Mexico, and Jerry and Cathrina are more reasons I love Texas.
And before and after, Jerry and I played Scrabble, just like our folks and uncles did long ago in Albuquerque. I think we split.

Look at that watercolor sky

Great Plains spring, 9 by 12 watercolor, 140# d'Arches

Wild skies today, as the constant weather changes act out the drama in the clouds and wind. 
We may get rain, violent thunderstorms, tornadoes, then a freeze, perhaps a dusting of snow, then warm humidity again. What beauty in such beastly uncertainty. 
How can you not love the skies out here on the Great Plains, where the landscape is not really plain, and the skies never are.
It doesn't take much to imagine an old shed, out in the greening up rolling countryside of the Osage or Flint Hills or many other places in Oklahoma.
"Out here, there's the sky," wrote Willa Cather in Death Comes for the Archbishop. Out here, the skies are made for watercolor. 
"Look at that watercolor sky," I said to myself when I looked out the window this morning. 

Out here there's the sky

High Plains sunset, 8 by 8 watercolor, handmade Indian paper

"Out here there's the sky," wrote Willa Cather in Death Comes for the Archbishop, set in New Mexico. As a resident of the Great Plains in Nebraska, she knew.

So does my sister-in-law Cathrina Helms Clark, in Lubbock, where the only drama in landscape is overhead. Here's her photograph this evening, walking their dog Ranger. And my promised daily painting.