Storm a'coming on the Great Plains

Daily watercolor, 5.5 by 8.5--Stormy evening on the Great Plains

It's one of those evenings on the Great Plains. A storm is coming. You can see it, sense it, smell it, on the wind, in the air, in the color of light, in the rapidly changing skies and clouds.

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.

Unsettled skies

"Unsettled Oklahoma skies"...today's watercolor, 9 by 12

It's one of those days, and months for that matter, and the skies today captured my mood without my even knowing it, until I made myself paint, and then write about it...the first blog post this month. 
Unsettled skies and more...
Plenty to write about, plenty of books and people, and yet like the skies in the opening pages of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the rain won't come. Part of the drought is an almost aversion to the computer and keyboard, part a "rain shadow" from the peaks of activity in   the past months, and probably, part just because of the years and miles.
 But at least, there are the skies of the Great Plains, and the promise of rain.

143 countries--from a land of beauty, brutality, slavery

March was a dry month for blogging as I was flooded with administrative work at UCO, having only  myself to blame for taking on tasks I consider important. But the cost in time and stress and details harmed my teaching, and since this is only the fourth post of the month, my blogging.

The high point for me was when I discovered a reader from far away Uzbekistan clicked on the blog, making the 143 blog this country has reached. Literally too pooped to post, too drained when you get home to even want to write.
I sure wish I know who this reader was, and the joy of new readers is my journey into discovery of countries, people, history and my beloved maps.
The central Asian country is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world (surrounded by landlocked countries).

One of the ancient mosques

Becoming independent with the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Uzbekistand is a country with a violent history and invading armies. It's known for its mosques, mausoleums and other sites on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean. 
Samarkand, a major city on the route, contains a landmark of Islamic architecture--the Registan, a plaza bordered by three  ornate, majolica-covered madrassas dating to the 1400s.
It's officially a democratic republic with a diverse culture and its official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in our Latin alphabet. Russian is also widespread as a language. 

What's left of the huge Aral sea

In addition to being landlocked, none of its rivers lead to a sea and about 90 percent of the territory is mountains and desert. It is home to the ecological disaster of the Aral Sea, destroyed by damming and abuse, and now largely dry.
Uzbekistan also has  the world's second highest rate of  slavery with 3.97% of the country's men, women and children living in bondage to slave masters in both domestic and industrial labor,  being forced to pick cotton for the country's main export. There are currently 1.2 million slaves in the country.
Who's invaded? Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the USSR. Ever hear of Tamerlane? This is his home, and his real name was Timur. His man  name struck terror across the  Asian world, seeking to emulate Genghis Khan.

Timur's Empire

A brutal conqueror guilty of genocide and more, ruled over an empire that, in modern times, extends from southeastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and even approaches Kashgar in China. The conquests of Timur in the 1300s are estimated to have killed  up to 17 million people, about five percent of the world's population. His capital was Sarmarkand.
It's interesting to me that in America, we never studied any of this in history. Why?

The flag colors and symbols  carry cultural, political, and regional meanings. White stands for peace and purity, while blue represents water and the sky. It also alludes to the flag of Timur. Green  epitomizes nature and fertility – though it may also represent Islam – while the thin red stripes represent the "life force" within everyone. The crescent evokes "the rebirth of" Uzbekistan as an independent country, and the Islamic faith practiced by 88 percent of Uzbekistan's population The twelve stars, which signify the months of the Islamic calendar and the as  constellations featured in the zodiac.
Thank you Uzbek reader. I learned so much. And you got me back to blogging.

The day when you can see time

Susan and I at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

There are two days a year when I think specifically about New Mexico...and this was one of them.
Coincidentally, and really unawares,  in the past week, as a matter of fact last night, I'd talked about camping out at Chaco Canyon, the site of the Anasazi culture that more than a thousand years ago accurately recorded and measured the movement of the earth around the sun.

Equinox dawn at Fajada Butte, where the Anasazi measured time

This day --equinox-- figured deeply in their religion and lives, and since I've camped there several times, it figures deeply in my life cycle.
I've written about it on this blog many times, and may not be able to add much original this year, but I'm still drawn to it, to the memories, to the power that still resides in that place

Camping on Equinox at Chaco

I was last there about five years ago, camping out alone, and it was freezing cold. I'd been to see my late uncle Mike in Santa Fe, and then headed northwest, eventually 25 miles off the paved road, to silence, to solitude, to imagination and much more in the high desert.
I don't know if I can convince my very urban wife to go there overnight in a tent on the ground, but the place is calling. It always does. To me it isn't about history, it's about eternity--present tense.

You can see time move... 

You can see time move there, from the stars wheeling overhead, to the shadows of  the rising and setting sun climbing up the sandstone cliffs, to the ancients' markers in their stone architecture. 

These ruins are not vacant

And those ruins are not vacant, as the Pueblo Indians will tell you. They are still inhabited by the spirits. That I believe, else why would my spirit be so drawn two specific days a year, and in between?

Fajada Butte--watercolor

Links to a few previous articles from the past seven years:
Where you can travel in time
When you can see time
Solstice dawn and days missed
When the sun stands still
Poetry in the canyon 
Where you can see time