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 

Aging

"Sandia Sunset," 5 x 7 #watercolor birthday card

You think you're old?
Consider the Sandias at Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we grew up. Ancient before we were born.
They have become powerful icons to us, dominating not just the skyline, but our imagination and memories. I've painted them many times, as did my Dad, and one of his paintings of them hang in both my brother's home and just above my shoulder as I type this.
Those were the thoughts for today's painting, a birthday card of course.

Previous paintings and blog posts:
First attempt
Sunset
Abstract
Old and New
Memories and Magic

Old and new - looming

Snowy Sandias at Sunset, 30 of 31 December 5 x 7 watercolor card

A new year looms before us, an old year looms in memories. 
An icon looms in my memories, the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I've written about them often, and painted them some. A drawing of my Dad's looms over my desk as I write this. I did so earlier this month in an earlier card: Towering Memories
Memories of growing up  with them dominating the eastern skyline loom in my past. When I see a photo of them on digital media, I often save, hoping to paint them again. Hope for returning in the future looms in my mind.
How can something past loom? If it's something or someone with powerful positive or negative memories or perceptions, it can become an obsession that looms over our existence--constructively or destructively.
But living in the past negates the present and future. The happiest people I know are those who have left the past behind, no matter how unpleasant. It doesn't loom over them.
The hope for the new year, even our New Year Resolutions,  is that what looms in our consciousness will be of beauty...like the Sandias.

Mountain Spirits, a painting's stories

"Mountain Spirits," 22 x 30, 300 lb. d'Arches

Long ago we built a cabin in the foothills of the Manzano Mountains in New Mexico.
My family bought two and a half acres  southeast of Albuquerque, where we grew up, so my Dad could have a studio.
As boys, my brother Jerry and I were given free reign to roam the forests, and the cabin and the mountains became part of our souls, our spirits, forever.

    " mountains became part of our souls, our spirits"

We loved the freedom, and the scenery as Dad painted oil landscapes. We could see the blue eastern slopes of the Sandias to the northwest, and south of us were the intriguing peaks of the Manzanos. 
I've even hiked to the top of the tallest Manazano peak where there is a fire observation tower. So many stories.

Dad painted them many times, and so have I. One of his, of sunflowers, painted not far from our cabin, hangs in our living room, as I've written about before. 
On the road to those peaks you pass through isolated little mountain villages, and in one, Tajique, is picturesque little Catholic church and its campo santo. I passed through there one Sunday and people were just getting out of church. So many stories.
I also took a black and white photo of it, which is somewhere here, though I can't find it at the moment.

My Dad painted that church, a small oil, and it also hangs in our living room. But  years later, I also had to try, and I think my watercolor is somewhat worthy of Dad's work. It may be my masterpiece. They hang together.
Then I tried this painting, my largest, and it hangs in my home studio where I'm writing this, getting ready for my April art show in 11 days at In Your Eye Gallery in Paseo Arts District in Oklahoma City. 
It will be one of 36 framed paintings and at least a dozen matted series, "Unicorn Universe," and "Barn Again."
The gallery will be open for the First Friday Art Walk from 6 to 10 April 6, and it's open every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from noon to 5. 
I'm now a resident member of In Your Eye, and will even be down there painting some days. In other months I'll have a few paintings displayed, along with 10 of my fellow co-op members. 
The stories, the spirit,  of a painting lead down many roads.

Birthday thoughts and old photos

Finding another trove of old black and white photos yesterday in the garage brought back memories and questions as another year starts and another ends as a birthday approaches.

Never before seen--two small 1" by 2" photos of my dad Terrence Miller Clark as a junior in Comanche, OK high school, 1930-31.

 Then some of me through the years.

No caption necessary

With uncle Rex after the war, in Fort Worth

With Mom, Jerry and uncle Mike at Grand Canyon

On Sandia Base, Albuquerque, cloud covered Sandias in background

And some of the people responsible for it all, Mom, Francis Faye Culp Clark, and Dad

In Taos, 1950s

Erle Thweatt Clark,Comanche, OK

Dad, grandmother Cuba Jon Miller Clark Reasor, and husband Worden, New Mexico

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.

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.

Opening the pages of the West

Western non-fiction books to be judged, in front of my Dad's old drawing and watercolor of the Sandias.

One of the pleasures and blessings of my life these last few years has been serving as a judge for non-fiction books for the Western Heritage Awards at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/

This December, 29 of them arrived in two boxes with a January 31 deadline. I have to pick the top three, and my selections will be combined with the selections of two other judges before the winner is selected. That author/publisher will be presented one of the handsome bronze Wrangler statues at the annual shindig at the museum, scheduled April 19-20 this year.  
www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/events/wha/default.aspx

There are many categories of awards, from poetry to fiction, music to movies, and more. The celebration brings a crowd of movie star celebrities, authors, publishers, and unbelievable western characters and dress from across the West.

So what do I get out of it, other than just judging books, seeing photographs and maps and reading about the West? 

First of all, as my wife Susan will tell you, we get complimentary admission to the Jingle Jangle Mingle on Friday and then to the black tie awards dinner Saturday. That's where she got to go ga-ga over Tom Selleck and get her pix taken with Ernie Borgnine. http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2010/04/agog-at-mingling.html The food and liquid refreshment is terrific--a don't-miss-event.

Here also I got to meet poet and Mongrel Empire Press www.mongrelempire.org publisher Jeanetta Calhoun Mish a few years ago when her poetry book Work is Love Made Visble won the poetry division. I usually buy a book or two here, and the benefit was a new friend, and painting buyer for that matter.

Then last year, I noticed that of the 37 entries, about one third of them were from the University of Oklahoma Press. www.oupress.com/ I took that idea and Oklahoma Today www.oklahomatoday.com/ bought my story on the press and its role in printing books about Native Americans this past year.
I also get to work with the folks at the Meusem's magazine Persimmon Hill--editor Judy Hilvosky and former student and photographer Carolyn Seelan. Fun all around.

And then, I get to keep the books...those I want, and give the others away, to libraries and friends.

So now I've finished judging the books, and will have to wait till April --as will you-- to find out if the other judges are  close to me (I've managed to pick the winner for several years now).

If you'd like to see more  images of the Western Heritage Awards, search that term in the Search This Blog blank on the sidebar. It's a natural for photos and writing and lots of posts over the past few years. Here's one link to whet your appetite:

http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2010/04/jingle-jangle-mingling.html

I've scattered them across the floor in the photo above, to give you an idea of these books, in front of my Dad's old drawing and watercolor of the Sandias at Albuquerque, where I grew up in the West. This is also meant to gig Jeanetta a little too, because she and her husband recently moved from Oklahoma to the base of those mountains, and she keeps posting photos of the Sandias, gloating away.
These books and people and connections are the power of the West to me. 

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.

Route 66 memories--Chapter One

I grew up on U.S. 66 in Albuquerque, never much thinking about it.  Central Avenue was our Main Street, descending in a straight line from the mouth of Tijeras Canyon in the Sandias all the way to the Rio Grande and then up the West Mesa.

After emerging from the twisting roads of the canyon near the end of our trips from Oklahoma and Texas, we'd look out over the city below in the miles-wide valley The first thing you'd see, becoming to a kid, was "Covered Wagon Curios," the first of many tourist traps in Albuquerque. It was a huge, fake stucco building made to look like a covered wagon, white rounded top gleaming in the bright sun. I think it was later moved to "Old Town," the original Albuquerque plaza, where more tourist traps stores still flourish.

If you came through the canyon at night, you'd come over a rise, and the glittering lights of the city beckoned. I remember my uncle Mike once saying, "If Coronado had seen this, he'd have known he'd found the cities of gold."

In those days, the outskirts of the city were still a few miles away, but today urban sprawl laps at the edge of the mountains, and I-40 takes the highway traffic, and Central Avenue is fringed with shabby businesses liked decaying "tourist courts" because all new hotels are glued to the Interstate exits. There are pawn shops, strip clubs, mobile home parks and stores.

Housing on the south side looks like the typical low rent districts around any military base--Lawton comes to mind--because Sandia Base and Kirtland AFB, and the VA hospital dominate that area. The main difference is that there is precious little grass, lots of gravel in yards, mostly flat-topped stucco homes imitating adobe. I grew up on "The Base," Sandia, and in this area, riding bicycles to grade school on the base, taking school buses and city buses to Woodrow Wilson junior high and Highland High School, which is visible from Central Avenue.

Highland is at the edge of where Central avenue starts to get respectable now. The State Fair Grounds are on the north side , a mile or two north. Highland was the most elite school when I was there (all the base school kids went there--a boon of federal aid to that school). almost everything was college prep, and with so many students (560 in my graduating class--I only ranked about 67th), we were an academic and sports powerhouse. State Football and basketball champions year after year. Six years after I graduated, my brother help set a state relay track record that still stands.

Since then more high schools have been built out on the mesa near the mountains where all the moneyed housing additions are, and Highland is still large, but not the star.

As you keep going downhill from highland on Central Avenue, you approach. the University of New Mexico.

But that's another story....