Week 26 - 2018 in Photographs

Day 175

Ocate to Wagon Mound is definitely a road less traveled for me. My post office is in Ocate. I don't have to go there to get my mail because I am on a rural route but I find that valley of ranchers magnetic and take to get to La Cuerva where the Raspberry ranch and green houses are. But on this occasion I took it because the fire closed the short route and I had someone to meet in Wagon Mound. I, of course, stopped to take photographs. A couple in Ocate I had not taken before and then Ojo Feliz and the south edge of the Clayton-Raton Volcanic Field.

Day 176

  
This crumbling house on the eastern edge of Ocate I have photographed before. But on this particular day I was drawn by the way it framed Laughlin Peak in the background. And I have photographed that volcano more than once. I have even painted it.

The travelers on the Santa Fe trail used the volcanic peaks which are scattered across the high plain as sign posts. Settlers used them later to mark where they lived and their neighbors ranch gate should be. You become familiar with the shape of a peak from any direction.  I believe that is Laughlin Peak again between the two volcanic mesas. One day I must find a view of it from the south.

Day 177

Day 178

There is a tree in the saddle of these two remnants of a more violent era. It sits on the right slope. Oh, yes there are other trees on the front and right of that butte. But that one tree in the saddle seems alone. I find myself wondering if just out of view there is a grove of trees. If not how did that one tree come to be there alone.

In what is no longer the town of Ojo Feliz there is this marvelous old shotgun adobe which like that tree in the saddle drew my attention. There was no convenient place to pull off the road so most of these are taken from the window of my pickup truck: creep by photography. It has its advantages. The window can be raised or lowered to just the right spot to be a tripod. And the cab can be a screen from the glare of the sun. You need to know how to fold in your rear view mirror to get it out of the way or serve as another tripod.

While creeping along you have to watch for other traffic on the road, of course. Good idea to have your flashers on. When you have taken the photos you want continue to creep looking for a place to pull off and park for the next trip. Record that in you notebook beside you in the seat with a mention of time of day. If I want to photograph the other side of this building it will have to be in the late afternoon. I wrote that down.

I will go back to Ojo Feliz and maybe this time make it all the way into Wagon Mound.

Day 179

Day 180

Day 181

The Edge Series

On the Edge
30 x 18 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1350

 On the Edge above is my first painting about the starkness of life. To some degree they are inspired by the canyons of the Colorado Plateau which I paint frequently. But more they were hatched, if you will, from my experience in October 2011 visiting the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Parks.

Some inspiration takes longer to peculate through the subconscious than others. And this series came by way of a visit to the Clayton-Raton Volcanic Field.  That visit resulted in the Fat Grass series of paintings and a departure into green in my palate. But it had the same emptiness and loneliness of the Painted Deserts of the Southwest. And because of volcanic births the same energy.

I took the emptiness I found on the volcanic field of Clayton and Raton and carried it back to the haunting memories of my visit to the canyons of Arizona and came up with On the Edge. Painting number two of the series was Over the edge. And the newest is End of Days which I just finished. This series is my most abstract.

Water or the lack of water still figures as a subtext in these landscapes. The flock of crows is down to a solitary raven somewhere in the sky.

Having just finished The End of Days I find myself already sketching out in my mind the next in this series.

End of Days
16 x 30 Watercolor on Artists Canvas
$1200

Over the Edge
18 x 24 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$975

Purple Sage
19 x 36 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1600