When It's Springtime in the Rockies

"Spring Morning in the Rockies," 9 x 12 acrylic on canvas panel

 

"When it's springtime in the Rockies

In the Rockies far away...

The flowers with their colors are aflame... ."

                                                   --Gene Autry

Today it is 12 degrees out, sleet, snow. It has been a mild February so far, but I was still dreaming of springtime and travel and mountains and a cabin two days ago when I began a painting with that old song refrain in my head.

Now I'm really dreaming of the Rockies, New Mexico, travel, and a cabin, with the wildflowers blooming in the meadows between the evergreen forests, and lingering snow beckoning on the highest peaks in the distance.

I look at the weather map and see it's warmer in Santa Fe at 7,100 feet and Truchas at 8,000 feet with my favorite mountains, the Sangre de Cristos, the Truchas, covered with snow.

So yes, I have spring fever, and it helped me finish today's painting, palette knives and brushes, and remember Gene Autry's love song.

Booked Up, 2021, Part 4--Soul Food, Poetry and Art

 

Poetry and Art, bottom, top

I suppose books on art, and poetry, should be considered non-fiction for the most part, but I separate them because they're special to me. 

I think that's true even of Whitman, His poetry touches parts of us that are as real as our heart beats. This past year I've been through about 10 such books, not counting Walt, whom we turn to often even for a few lines and memories.

ART: Other than those reread, posted earlier, there have been two more. The most recent art book is one we bought in October, visiting Susan's favorite town, Truchas, on the high road to Taos.

• Truchas, Sally Delap-John. We stopped in her gallery years ago and bought her first book, and couldn't pass up another chance to view her paintings of Northern New Mexico. We will eventually buy one, but this time settled for her little book with great painting of my favorite mountains, the Truchas, on the cover.
•  The Art of Noticing, 131  ways to Spark Creativity..., Rob Walker. A book Austin Kleon recommended, and full of ideas to push me out of ruts and find inspirations for painting.

POETRY: “Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough."--Ray Bradbury

There were only four poetry books  I read in these six months, but they brought life and honesty and sense into this pandemic world.

Poetry is a tradition in our marriage. We have more than one shelf of thin books of poetry in our front room, many by people I know, others  I've found at the Western Heritage Awards at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. And, Susan usually buys me a poetry book or so on either our anniversaries or Valentines days. They also are usually poets I've never  heard of.

So it was in October, we walked into the smaller, a "boutique" bookstore in Santa Fe, Gunstock Hill Books, with more than 8,000 books. Owned by a retired doctor from New Hampshire, it is packed with first editions and signed books of all sorts. As we got ready to leave to go across the street to eat, Susan cam e up with three poetry books, all first editions: 

• Turquoise Land, Anthology of New Mexico Poetry, 1974, New Mexico Poetry Society, 99 pages of poetry plus bios of the poets.
• Leonard Cohen, Poems and songs, 1993, 234 pp.
• The San Franciso Poems, Victor di Suvero, inscribed. 1987. 63 pps.

Closer to home:

• In The Days of Our Resilience, Nathan Brown. 2021, www.brownlines.com The fourth  in his Pandemic Poetry Project, a poem a day since May, 2020, poems  written on prompts from sponsors, including one from me. 287 pps. Brown is former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma. Reading his books is like taking a journey back in time through the last almost two years of turmoil in the U.S. They exercise and stretch the senses and mind, with wit, compassion and insight.

Truchas inspiration

"Truchas sunset," 11 x 14, 140 lb d'Arches cold press paper

Don't paint the scene, or what inspired you. Paint the inspiration. Paint what you feel.

Those words are paraphrases from Thomas W. Schaller's book, "Architect of Light," which has become my inspiration, and art text book this year.

Truchas Dreams, 8 x 10

I've tried painting the Truchas Peaks in New Mexico many times, and earlier this month had some success at an 8 x 10. See Dec. 6 blog: "Truchas Dreams"

Since then I've tried to go larger, which intimidates me, and it shows, because I get too uptight, and don't paint the inspiration, but the subject...plus I'm not very good controlling water on larger pieces. More to learn.

But today I got close, preserving the light, painting the shadows, using complementary colors, trying to catch how those rugged mountains, the second highest in New Mexico, make me feel every time I see them. They make me feel small, but part of that rugged, free landscape.

So here's today's watercolor, catching what I hope is their domination, their drama, near sunset, after an early snow with some aspen still in color. (There is a slight blue cast to this because I took the photo outside, to avoid incandescent warmth.)  

Exotic Enchantment

"Enchantment," 5 x 7 140 lb Fabriano Artisitico cold press paer

What do you think of when you hear the term exotic places? Probably a beach on a south Pacific Island?  Me too, but not just there. I could choose the moors of Scotland, or almost anyplace with tall mountains and few people.
There are several definitions to the term exotic, coming from Greek and Latin "exo" meaning "alien, " or "from the outside."
It's used today for plants or anything introduced from another country, or not indigenous; anything strange, different, mysterious, exciting, romantic (how it's meant for this prompt); or having to do with strip tease.
I guess I could have tried to paint an exotic pole dancer, but...

Every person probably has different exotic places in their imaginations and memories, and the Truchas Peaks in northern New Mexico, towering over 13,000 rugged feet into the sky, captivate me. I wish I had the youth and lung capacity to get to the remote top, but that probably isn't going to happen. I  photograph them often as their mood and light always changes. No wonder they're exotic, exceeding all those descriptions.
Then add a cabin near those mountains, a metaphor for exotic to me anytime.

First snow on the Truchas

First snow on the Truchas peaks, 9 by 12 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches cold press

The 13,000 foot-high peaks of Truchas disappear when dark snow clouds move in from the north over a deep cobalt blue sky. Winter's first snow obscures the knife-sharp contours of New Mexico's most rugged mountains, softening the  surrounding timbered ridges and foothills. 

Palette--Ultamarine blue, cobalt blue, Prussian blue, indigo, burnt sienna

The books of July

I just reserved the latest Harry Potter book from Best of Books in Edmond.
Not for my grandkids, but for me is J.K. Rowling's, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
I'll drive over to the book store about midnight Saturday to see the kids dressed up to get theirs, since it is released at 12:01 July 31. I've done this for all the others through the years, and I'm excited.
It's not a novel though, but a play. Ah creativity. And when I'm through, the grandchildren can have it. But I won't finish it before the end of the month, like I have four other books this month.

Most recently completed was by Mitch Albom of Tuesday's With Morey. It's the time keeper, a fable about the man who cursed us by inventing time, and how we're controlled by time in everything we do. Think about it, and more on that later. We listened to the four CD set on our way to and from New Mexico.
On that trip to New Mexico, in our favorite town at the base of our favorite mountains, the Truchas, we found a little book, another fable, by a Truchas artist, in the High Raod Marketplace.

 It's all about art--Mauve Sky, Yellow House by artist Judith Hert, with paintings by "Morris Mouse." This book also stretches your mind with her/his paintings and fable.
Before that, browsing Best of Books, I picked up my first book by well known western writer C.J. Box. Shots Fired, short stories set in Wyoming, some featuring his main character Joe Picket.
And earlier in the month, I found there  another book, by the super creative Austin Kleon of Steal Like an Artist, titled Show your Work. 

Two fables, two about art and creativity, and some fiction. All inspirational and idea-spurring--a good month, with Harry Potter coming up.

Revelations, perceptions, realities and New Mexico

Morning dreaming of the high road to Truchas, 5" by 6" journal watercolor on back porch

Quiet time revelations after a walk

 in Hafer Park this morning

"Since perception is reality, therefore all art is reality. There are no false views, wrong expressions, when artists put down what they perceive."  -Terry M. Clark

Think about it--yes, some are better at perceiving than others--Mozart, Michelangelo, Cezanne, Picasso, Whitman, Conrad, Twain, Parker, Ansel Adams, McPhee, Prince, Mish, Jake Harms, and millions more in all the arts. Perhaps a few times, Clark?

"Above all, I want to make you see,"--Joseph Conrad. "When I'm on stage, I don't think, I feel,"--Keith Richards.

As an uptight first born journalist I began painting by trying to get every detail photographically right. Some freedom eventually came with more practice, and especially watching my grandchildren paint, for who there are no rules. Looking at early work, or at work now when I'm in a dry spell, I see this morning, that every angle is different, every color is different, every shape is different, depending on how I look at things, and knowing you will see them differently. Why have I not had this insight before on my work--whether watercolor or writing? 

It helps to attend the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts and be bombarded with a multitude of perceptions and realities.

Thus home from the walk to take out my leather bound watercolor journal--art and perceptions of reality in its own right--from Mind's Eye Journals--bought last year, but renewed with a visit at the art show with owner Teresa Merriman and her husband of Colorado. 

The high road to Taos, at Truchas, New Mexico, painted from memory, because that perception, that reality,  is so deep within.

Shadows of the crosses--III

Campo Santo at old San Geronimo church at Taos, which was destroyed in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

Crosses of every shape and form dominate the ruined San Geronimo church at Taos Pueblo. The cemetery is holy ground, where hundreds of years of believers lie. Only Taos Indians may enter this area, while others may take photos from outside the adobe walls.
If you get on the backroads of the state, you find more little churches and capos santos and crosses everywhere, all decorated and remembered by the faithful, but especially during Holy Week in New Mexico. And the gravestones only multiply in size and variety of portraying the cross.

Church at Canoncito, near Santa Fe

Gravestone at Canoncito

Crosses at Canoncito

At Canoncito

Gravestone at Truchas, Penitente Morada in background

Cemetery near Penasco on High Road to Taos

Shadows of the cross--II

A crown of thorns always hangs on a cross beside The San Jose de Gracia Church, also known as Church of Santo Tomas Del Rio de Las Trampas, on the high road to Taos at Las Trampas. Built between 1960 and 1775, it's one of the oldest surviving 18th century churches. There are still folks up in that area who speak Castillian Spanish, direct from the Conquistadores' entrada in the  late 1500s.
The shadow of the cross is omnipresent on our favorite journey in New Mexico is up the High Road to Taos to ancient Spanish villages and churches, including Chimayo, destination of Holy Week pilgrimages and holy dirt; Truchas; and Las Trampas.

Inside El Santuario de Chimayo near the beginning of  the High Road where there is holy dirt

Cemetery at Truchas on the High Road to Taos before Las Trampas

Crosses at the ruined pueblo church at Taos Pueblo at the end of the High Road

Somewhere on the High Road

The High Road beckons

The High Road, 6 by 9 watercolor, 140# d'Arches

It's called "The High Road to Taos." branching off the main highway at Espanola or Pojoaque and heading toward my favorite New Mexico mountains, the Truchas peaks. 
You go back in time the higher in altitude you get, because of the ancient Indian pueblos and Spanish villages, like Chimayo', Nambe, Cundiyo, Truchas and Las Trampas. Some people up there still speak Castillian Spanish, from the days of the Conquistadors.
The way hasn't been paved long, and it's an excellent back road trip away from tourist traffic to our favorite town, Truchas, at more than 8,000 feet in elevation, still 5,000 feet below the 13,000 foot trio of Truchas peaks looming above. 
Most people don't know it, but they are the mountains in the famous Ansel Adams photograph, Moonrise over Hernadez, N.M.
The High Road to Truchas beckons as I see it in the days before pavement.