It’s FALL, y’all! But in Dallas, Texas, it feels about the same as it did in June and July. Tantalizing 80 degree temps are always (infinitely) one more week away. This is the busiest time of year in the life of this teaching-artist, with winter shows, commissions and inventory to prep; plus, open calls and studio tours abound. As I mentally prepare myself for the work ahead of me, I am reflecting on my current body of work: cacti, landscapes, and desert flora.
Do you think that we have an inner compass, of sorts? An inward cardinal tendency, a magnetic pull (not necessarily pole-ward) that tugs on the spirit… CS Lewis wrote of his fascination with “northernness”- how the moors and the idea of Vikings and the cold seas seemed to call out to him, from a very young age. Georgia O’Keeffe loved the west (and specifically, New Mexico) so much that she claimed it as her own. Guaguin visited Polynesia and never left.
Before I had ever been to New Mexico or Colorado, I dreamed of deserts and mountains. When I was in first grade, I began to plot my escape -secretly- staring out the back window of the car and thinking “I could live from tree to tree as I make my way west!” I always kept my eyes out for habitable looking trees, and wondered if every hill in North Texas might have a real mountain hiding behind it.
The desire stayed with me, and I finally made it to New Mexico and Colorado in college. That first view of the Sangre de Cristos behind Raton pass will forever feel like coming home, to me. When I travel back east, with the mountains receding in the rear view, I am almost certain I leave part of myself behind.
This summer, I traveled through New Mexico, from Cloudcroft to White Sands and back to Carlsbad, to Truth or Consequences, and finally up to Abiquiu. I love how altitude affects the land, the temperature, the colors. The land and its inhabitants are miraculous, but the particular improbability of desert plants delights me. We passed green Ocatillos, blooming after a summer monsoon; century agave decorated with an array of hummingbirds; soaptree yuccas and the purple prickly pears of the northern Chihuahuan desert. At Ghost Ranch in the Jemez range of Northern New Mexico, I saw “Gerald’s Tree" the dried out carcass of a cedar tree that still looks the same as it did when O’Keeffe painted it as an arboreal homage to writer Gerald Heard.
Why do I love this landscape, so desperately, so much?
The land and its creatures, the flora and fauna, are sacred. We live among miracles. Much of my landscape work and natural abstractions tries to reflect this: that where we live is a gift, that we are invited to abide here, among lands and creatures and beauty that exist outside of ourselves and our human sphere of influence. The mountains magnify these truths, the desert forces us to confront them. Perfect, beautiful, inhospitable vastness of land and sky.
How do we relate to the land around us? Often, we see the earth with entitlement. The land is our dominion, its resources at our disposal; we are the masters of our world. What if, instead, we regarded ourselves as stewards?
Sharp Edges, Oil and Venetian Plaster on Panel 2019
Ghost Ranch
Tent Rocks
