Bear Clan

Bear Clan by Phillip Hoyle
Collage of monoprints

As I have worked with this image of a bear in the past year, I have always seen it as a spirit image and without thinking much assigned it to the male gender in my mind. When my daughter-in-law saw several of the prints, she saw it as a female bear. My art friend Sue saw it as a bear, not assigning any gender label.

So I wonder how others may see it. If you want to tell me, make a comment! It's a little bit difficult, but select the anonymous category. You may have to type in a code from an illustration. I would like to know. Comment below. I hope to learn something.

Oh, I entered the piece into the WOW open art show at CORE gallery. So now I wonder if its a she-bear, a he-bear, or something else AND I wonder if I'll be jury-ed in! Hope so and further hope you have a good art week. 

Denver, 2015

It's a Frame Up

"Petroglyph on Turquoise" by Phillip Hoyle
Acrylic washes on paper

When I was in high school I went shopping at Mrs. Steadman's antique shop. Much of what she offered was not antique but many items were. In her disorderly yet intriguing store I found myself drawn to frames, so I bought some, cleaned them up, and started searching for prints to put in them. Mom abided my taste and let me hang them in my room and eventually in the living room and other places in the house. Since I now produce my own artwork painting and printing them on paper, I have the need for frames and still experience joy as I clean up old and new frames, wash glass, cut mats, and place my art in frames.

These days I'm specializing in very small frames, mostly purchased at a second-hand store, in which I display the very small prints I have been making. I contrast this work with very large frames, ones that can display pieces 30x22". I've painted quite a few such pieces over the years, most of which have waited patiently in folders and boxes for what I am now doing! Just this past week I hung one such piece in my display at Colorado Mountain Art Gallery. I'm pleased with the effect it has on my whole show there. (Sorry I didn't get a picture; I forgot to take my camera.)

Enjoy the photo of the artwork (above) though. Imagine it in a black frame with a narrow white mat. AND if you get a chance, stop by the gallery where I have it and lots of other-sized pieces of artwork on display--large, medium, and small. 

Denver, 2015

Petroglyph Conundrum

ATC Ute Rider
by Phillip Hoyle

I've worked with many petroglyph designs over the past eleven years. I've sold quite a few paintings and a number of prints inspired by them: deer and bears, dancing shamans and mountain sheep, monsters and gods, dogs and cats (actually mountain lions), and abstracts beyond description. I've made many, many pieces of art related to these figures.

Early on in my fascination I made a number of collages and paintings from horse petroglyphs. They have been among my favorites. BUT I have never sold a single one of either a horse or a horse and rider. I was sure that out here in the west where people actually ride horses, there would be someone who couldn't resist owning one of these old designs.

The author back in 1981 with a favorite horse design.

This past week I made a small block cut of one of the most interesting horses, one with a rider. This one is located on the escarpment of Spring Mesa near the Ute Trail (as it has been called for well over 100 years) and near another petroglyph of a bear up a tree with a clear track of paw prints from a crack in the cliff wall to the tree. In the olden days the Ute bear dance was held on the vernal equinox announcing springtime's arrival and with it the emergence of bears from their winter slumber. Bear taught the Ute people to do the dance; that's what the old stories told.

Bear Dance
Acrylic washes on paper by Phillip Hoyle

On the cliff not far from the bear petroglyph is the horse. Beneath the horse and rider is a similar trail of hoof marks? That's how I see them. The bear dance was ancient. Horses didn't arrive in Ute country until the 17th century. All I really have are questions and suspect ideas related to the proximity of the two figures.  Still I like the relative positions of the two figures. And I really like the figure of the horse and rider.

On the Trail
Mixed media by Phillip Hoyle

I made my miniature ATC prints to offer for trade at the next swap I attend. Of course, maybe no one will want one just like no one has ever wanted to buy one of my horse paintings. Oh well. Perhaps I need to make up a story like how Utes were changing due to the first fast tracks made possible by their new transportation. Some folks were worried that the old ways might be forgotten. One of the concerned artists related the traditional bear dance to the new ways with these hoof prints that seemed to echo the nearby bear paw prints. Keep the old and new together, you know.

Well such a story would take lots of expansion and polishing. OR I could promise if you trade for one of these cards, I'll not tell you a story about them.


Denver, 2015

The Journal

Although I started my art journal last week, I have made only four entries in it. I suppose because I write my Morning Pages every day, I assumed I might do more than three or four entries a week. But who knows? I didn't write everyday although I have written several times a week in my pages for over seventeen years. Perhaps I will develop my own way to do my art journaling.

I don't really feel disappointed, but I do wonder just what all I will make of art journaling. I am struck at how much easier it is for me to write a sentence than to draw a picture. At this point, with four entries made, I find that what I write does two things: it interprets something about the print I have mounted on the page and it tells stories related to the petroglyph I have made the block print from. For example, I have mentioned an artist I drew with in the valley where I first saw these petroglyphs. I have also mentioned my grandson who saw some of these when he was young and asked me a question about one of the figures I had posted on Facebook. 

The first time I heard about keeping an art journal, the friend who told me had spent weeks making mandalas on a daily basis. She explored her thoughts and feelings through the designs and drawings, through colors and shapes, through abstracts that sought to explore things she barely had words to express. I was impressed and recalled a workshop I attended in which I too made mandalas. Of course, these were assignments for the express purpose of the workshop and did not become a regular practice. Perhaps I will add some mandalas to my art journal. So far I have not.

The second time I discussed an art journal with an artist, I was encouraged to draw, draw, draw. It reminded me of Julia Cameron's write, write, write approach to Morning Pages in her Artists Way book. I draw but not incessantly like my son did in his high school years. I doodle but don't feel prone to do so every day. So I'm wondering, now that I have begun my first art journal, what am I going to do?

What I actually did was to mount two more prints and mess around on the pages! The second one with the big bear became a confetti celebration and a few words. The third one with a deer became an explanation of the petroglyph type, its location, some archaeological information I recalled from reading about it, and my feelings from first seeing it on a huge boulder near my in-laws' farm. 

I'm not quite sure what I think about what I am doing, but I'm sure happy to be doing it. I wonder what I will learn. What new ways will I learn to relate to art? What new ways will I learn to express my feelings? I feel hopeful and mildly excited and mostly feel like I'm on the verge of learning something mighty nice about art and myself.

Denver, 2015

Still at It

This past week and over the weekend I dedicated quite a bit of time to my current art project that I described a couple of weeks ago. I have completed six of the projected twenty-three pieces. I'm pleased with the results and am looking forward to displaying them soon. 

Bagged, acrylic washes on watercolor paper
by Phillip Hoyle

I've been messing with these petroglyph designs for many years and have never tired of them. I'm working with some designs that are familiar and others new to me this time. It has been fun to try a few different colors and shades. The great breakthrough for me was when I began to use masking medium in the process. By building up washes close in color and texture to the "exposed" rock (that that has weathered less than the face of the rock) and then applying the design in masking medium, I create the effect of the subsequent washes being the weathered rock. The design can look like color was removed. At least that is how I have learned to work. 

By not using flow enhancer in the acrylics I get a more rustic look that seems compatible to me for the look of sandstone. Anyway, I love working with these primal subjects and ever changing artistic ways and always seek to treat the designs in a manner respectful of the people who made them in some cases many hundreds of years ago. 

Hope your art projects are bringing you the same kind of buzz.

Denver, 2014

Save That!

In a week-long painting workshop I attended years ago, in which I learned a particular approach to using acrylic washes on paper, my teacher had us lay out all our first designs and went around to talk with each of us. He saw one of mine and pointing at it, said, "Save that and hang it in your studio." I was somewhat amazed for it seemed like just a few paint strokes and lots of dribbles in basic colors. He went on, "You will rarely get that free again." AND he was right. So I framed the thing and hung it up where I'd see it every day. 

An assortment of Ute designs

Last week I finally got around to beginning a painting project of smaller pieces, petroglyph designs I could sell at a low price at the co-op gallery up in the mountains. I chose to use all Ute designs from the tribes that roamed what we call the Central Rockies and the Colorado Plateau these days. It's a project still in process, but here's what has happened. I selected sizes and designs. I drew the designs on the designated areas of large pieces of Arches 140# watercolor paper. Then I washed the background with two coats of similar color, the second one slightly darker than the former. and upon washing the second one sprayed a mist of rubbing alcohol on it. The droplets push back the paint leaving a stippling effect similar to the way I see the sandstone rocks where these designs were made. 

The masking medium is shiny and resists the washes leaving
the undercoat untouched.

When they were dry I tore the papers into the marked sizes and painted the designs with masking medium--actually a product used with watercolor washes but that I discovered also works with acrylic washes. It's a resist medium made of latex and ammonia that when the paint dries can be removed with an eraser. It will be left on the paintings through several more washes.

My current "Save It" guide
acrylic washes on paper by Phillip Hoyle

I'm not referring to that first "Save It" piece, but this time using a painting of a petroglyph I made several years ago, one that attracted the interest of collectors and artists. I will this week paint the other layers of washes and next week let you see what happened. 

Art is always a process, and for me it is a process that may go on for weeks. Whatever work you do, get to your studio and get it underway!

Denver, 2014

Shopping Around

Hands and Feet, acrylic washes on watercolor paper
by Phillip Hoyle
Petroglyphs are found in groups like this painting of
some in western Colorado. When I'm in a more literal
mood, I paint groups of these rock carvings.

My daughter loves to shop for office supplies. One of my friends loves to roam the aisles of hardware stores. Another one rarely goes by a clothing store without looking inside. My partner loves to find bargains at groceries and shopping clubs. I like shopping for art, but not going from gallery to gallery even though I have done my share of that kind of shopping. I’m not talking about going on line to find a painting or print to hang in a just-right place in house or apartment. I’m not talking about going to silent auctions hoping to pick up a bargain or stopping by the neighbor’s garage sale looking for an undiscovered masterpiece. I used to go alone but finally have found a friend who shares my specific love of art shopping. Sue and I go on shopping forays for art supplies, one of my favorite activities and the only kind of shopping I can easily embrace.

Preparation calls first for the making of a list. I keep a growing list on the counter behind my art table. 

Set the date and hope I can make it.

On the day of a likely shopping trip, I gather coupons from the paper or on line just like Sue taught me.
I have a special factor: my hope she will be up to the next trip. Sometimes health factors limit her mobility.

One day I was looking around the locally owned Meiningers art supply store for a kind of pen I needed to finish some Artist Trading Cards. There I ran into Sue who immediately said, “Have you seen their sales?” Also shopping with Sue was Jan, another person who does art work and writing. As the three of us shopped, I realized I have an additional shopping partner! We had fun looking around and buying more things than we needed, at least I did so. While the shopping was pleasant, having Sue there served another purpose: she knows products, their use both from her teachers and from her years of using them often in surprising and experimental ways. She likes to teach what she knows.

You can imagine that now I have many more things to work with and a beginner’s knowledge of how to approach the things Sue has led me to. While digging deep into my drawers and boxes run across supplies I bought years ago and have never used. When that happens I evaluate if I can use the product right away, perhaps on some Artist Trading Cards. Then I open the package or bottle to see if it is still usable! I love the supplies I keep using and buying, and I so enjoy sorties to art stores to find replacements and brand new supplies: paints, pencils, paper, canvas, boards, lino-blocks, gouges and knives, replacement blades, mat board, new mixed-media papers, on and on. It’s almost like these things speak to me as I walk the aisles of the stores, and if they don’t, sometimes Sue or Jan will speak for them.

Have fun with art. I certainly am! AND I am anticipating another shopping trip this Friday!

Denver, 2014

Painting Petroglyphs

On the Trail, mixed media by Phillip Hoyle

    “I am painting petroglyphs,” I write.

     My niggling internal editor suggests, “Isn’t that painting pictographs? One chips away to make petroglyphs.”

     “No,” I insist. “I’m painting petroglyphs.” I work wildly, spraying a water mist on paper, splashing paints of various shades of brown onto the wetness, letting the colors run.

                                                                                         

     Occasionally I look up at the petroglyph rubbings that hang on the walls of my studio. I recall standing against the escarpment as I rubbed them, my skin getting burned in the western Colorado sun. The designs seemed so beautiful to me, carved on the sandstone walls and boulders out there under the blue sky, but so ugly when I wanted to hang them on the walls of my apartment. Crayon rubbings on yellowing newsprint. Pathetic looking. I had to do something artistic with these crude rubbings so I could continue to enjoy their beauty and celebrate the feelings they stimulated within me. Collage was my answer. I bought mat boards and started cutting, arranging, gluing. I replicated depth, depicting the rough texture and cracks in the rocks. I was full of ideas and enjoyed creating design, color, and contrast. I started becoming an artist so I could remember.

     While my paper collage contrasted greatly with the hard medium of the original creators’ work, making them did connect me with those ancient artists. They chipped away at the rocks to create an environment of ideas, mnemonics, and myths. I cut and pasted together a world of imagination that carried me back into childhood visits to my grandparents’ farm and forward into a life grounded in such memories.

     The parade of deer, moose, bears, horses, foot and handprints, lines, arrows, stars, medicine wheels, and unnamable creatures elicited an ancient world in my imagination. They conjured a life of wickiups and teepees, of cooking fires and ceremonial smoke. The wind that blew down the Shavano Valley seemed to carry the sounds of chanting, hoof falls, snorting animals, and playing children.

I found in these rock carvings a way to imagine

a life of the past;

I found in them a topic for research;

I found a subject for reflection,

An experience of beauty.

     Crude. That’s what W. C. McKern called these Ute petroglyphs. From his point of view as an ethnologist doing a study for the Smithsonian Institute in the early 1920’s, they were crude chippings of an inferior culture. His evaluation reflected an assumption of trappers, who contrasted their impression of Ute life with that of the Plains Indian tribes much more influenced by white trade goods and ideas. His judgment also reflected philosophical and scientific biases that, in my opinion, missed what these petroglyphs were in themselves and what they represented to the people who made them. The great problem with these markings lies in the fact that it is impossible to know what they represented. Even Native American scholars admit they don’t know. The passing of centuries created an impassable gap, leaving us ignorant, unable to guess with any kind of certainty at the meanings of these scratches. Their permanence laughs at the changes of the societies that made them and of those that still gaze upon them.

     There they remain on isolated canyon walls, colored only by desert paint in blacks and browns. I imagine them peopled, complemented by the colors of feathers and beadwork, by the odors of cooking meat and smoking tobacco, by the sounds of milling horse herds and the melody of a flute. As I rub them, I hear a truck pass on the road below, a hawk call in the sky above, a grasshopper’s wings crackle in the dry desert atmosphere. As I cut the images for my collages, I hear the furnace in the apartment click on and the rush of wind pushing through the vent. As I paint them on paper, I hear footfalls cross the floor above and the motor circulate water in the hot tub.

     I lift the edge of the paper to make the paint run and wonder what the Ute was thinking as he pecked away at the rock. What was his artistic concern? How long did he look for the harder rock to use as a tool? Perhaps he was trying to remind himself of the spirit of the animal he killed to feed his family, his chipping a prayer of gratitude. Maybe he was simply making marks to distance himself from the activity of the camp like a student doodling during a lecture.

     What am I doing? I am thinking about what colors to select to best leave the impression of sandstone. Certainly I am distancing myself from the others with whom I live, but I think I am doing more. I am creating a reminder of the valley, of its plenitude of deer, elk, plants, beaver, gushing springs, rugged rocks, and endless blue sky. I am recalling the past of my imagination to keep alive the leisure of childhood, its unfettered freedom, its sense of unlimited possibility. I am celebrating my connection with the past, with a human spirit that reaches far beyond my family, society, and culture. I made collages and now I paint to show my children and grandchildren life is more than making a living. It is also, and necessarily, an expression of spirit, of beauty, of art.

     I paint my petroglyphs, or more precisely my petroglyph designs, in a work that seems to me as ancient as it is contemporary.

Denver 2006

Paintings by P. Hoyle On the Trail (above) and The Hunt; photo of me in my studio.

The Hunt

Watching Shavano

Antler Dream by Phillip Hoyle

All my life I’ve lived in buildings whether a single-family home, duplex, dormitory, or apartment; always a building except for a few days I lived in tents. Then I cooked over a campfire, slept on a thin mat on the ground, snuggled into my bedroll, and yearned for more comfortable accommodations. I’ve endured few days without running water, central heat, or electricity, days that taught me to appreciate my life of relative physical ease.

     But now in Shavano Valley, I sit alone on a low sandstone outcropping looking across to the desert-painted escarpment that defines the valley’s northern edge along Spring Mesa. I can make out the old Ute trail that climbs the steep slope amid boulders black, red, and tan that for centuries provided shelter to people who camped there. The people came and went, staying a season, chipping stone tools, hunting deer and elk, processing nuts and berries, weaving baskets and mats, and making ready for the challenges and opportunities of the seasons to come. They followed predictable migration patterns year after year. These people, who included the precursors of modern Utes, found reasons to return to this spot on the eastern edge of the plateau lands that stretch far to the west. While they camped, they marked their habitation not only with castoffs but also with hundreds of petroglyphs. I sit here trying to imagine their lives.

     I know my contemplation is hardly more than speculation. I have little experience in common with my subjects except to know how the desert sun burns, the rocks hurt, and the cacti prick. Summer days here are usually hot; the nights cool and sometimes chilly. The daytime sky is almost always sunny; the nighttime sky brilliantly full of stars. Daytime reveals grasshoppers, dragonflies, black flies, bees, and small clouds of gnats; nighttime swarms with mosquitoes. I guess without screens, the place might become pretty uncomfortable. I live here in a house with screens.

     For nearly forty years I have read about Native Americans but don’t know much about the Utes, particularly the Uncompahgre band, who lived in western Colorado near the San Juan Mountains and used to stop here. So this summer I’m supplementing my knowledge by reading all the books Montrose Public Library offers on the tribe and its several bands. That’s not much. A 1920s study, Western Colorado Petroglyphs, includes a chapter about the stone carvings in the valley where I now sit. On my first try to locate its reported petroglyphs, I found a group of two carvings un-catalogued. The author, W.C. McKern, and his team of archaeologists and anthropologists probably needed another day in the valley. He reasoned both early and late Utes were nomadic, but the eariler limitation of foot travel made for more consistency in technique in the pre-horse society. The later petroglyphs display a great variety of techniques indicating for McKern changes in Ute culture due to the increased mobililty provided by horses. The new hurry-up society took less time for artwork and borrowed time-saving techniques from tribes they had never before known. I have gained perspective for my consideration from this and other books and recalled two titles about Utes I read when I was young: Ouray the Arrow and The Last Indian War. Books and my memories from books are aiding my understanding.

     Place names on maps and in local lore have provided a few clues for my consideration. I’ve walked the Indian trail up the side of the mesa, gazed at Indian Lookout on the edge of the valley just a short walk from where I sit, drove the ten miles up Colo. 90 to Arrowhead Springs picnic area, and visited the city of Ouray about thirty miles to the south. I’ve looked trying to imagine the Utes there but think this valley is my best place for contemplation. So I’ve clambered over the boulders around Picture Rocks and made rubbings of many petroglyphs. I’ve searched other outcroppings in the valley hoping to discover more petroglyphs. I didn’t find any. None appeared at Indian Lookout, but I did discover great views of the valley. I climbed another, taller butte about half a mile away where there was no evidence that anyone else had climbed it (well, this is a fantasy of discovery). A shed snakeskin lay beside a small pool of water, an observation that brought caution to my steps and the good idea to climb back down to the road. But first from this high point I took in the vista that included the valley’s far north end. A scout could sight intruders or visiting friends from sufficient distance to alert anyone living near Picture Rocks, but he’d have to run.

     Sitting here on my low rock, I wonder if the concentration of petroglyphs across the valley ever served as a place for vision quests. I imagine I am an older man (not too difficult for one in his mid-forties) who watches from the distance to be sure the young man in his charge doesn’t get into trouble during his vision quest. I am alert to the possibility of other tribes moving through the area and want the youngster to be safe. I sit in solitary far across the valley out of sight in the shadows of these rocks. The young man has no idea I watch. At that distance he appears to be about the size of a tiny ant.

     I realize the fantasy is probably off course. Any young man seeking the power of the spirits would surely be unafraid of other possible dangers he might encounter. He seeks power for protection, motivation, and personal strength and would not tolerate the unnecessary care of some tribal elder. I don’t have any idea if this is true and wonder how customs varied from tribe to tribe. Did the Utes even have vision quests?

     The books. I’ve read nothing actually written by Utes. I have found some traditional stories collected by ethnologists and several accounts of Ute encounters written by early settlers. These latter were mostly observations about how different and primitive the Utes seemed to them, stories about fears and about meeting fears. I hope someday to find more such resources and possibly tribal histories written by Native authors.

     Although there were few written records, there are things the ancient residents left behind. I look for arrowheads on the hillside above the canal road. After a rainstorm a couple of years ago my nephew found a beautiful point just below here on the road. I search the top of the hill where some large rocks and a scattering of junipers and piñon pines could have sheltered a family or two. About halfway down the hill I find a rock that may have served as a pestle. Its river-rock shape and igneous origin differ from the sandstone all around. I’m sure someone left it here. I search under trees, among boulders, in full sun and shade, and find several chips of hard rocks that contrast with the sandstone. Finally I locate half of a broken arrowhead. Did a lone watcher sit here making points for his arrows while a young vision-seeker or a cluster of families lived across the valley beneath the escarpment? I don’t know the reasons why, but I do know someone was here. Perhaps many people over the ages called this valley home.

     History depends on things read, things found, and ultimately, things imagined. I wonder how to envision what is not here and how to see what I cannot imagine. My wife’s uncle, a very successful Paleolithic point collector, once told me he always went collecting with a buddy who could see the tiny points that he himself could never see. His friend always overlooked the larger points. Between them they reaped a generous harvest of things left behind by an older culture. I’m out here alone and wonder what I’m missing; surely it must be plenty.

     In this valley, white settlers enthusiastically erected buildings, dug wells, strung fences, and planted fields once the Utes were forced to move away to Utah. Yet these pioneers were latecomer recipients of the valley’s fertile offerings. Before their exploitation began, the valley had given up harvests of reeds, succulents, and cacti; flowers, herbs, berries, nuts, seeds, and roots; deer, elk, beaver, and rabbits; and much more. The petroglyphs on boulders and cliff faces celebrate the plants and animals along with other wonders. People had been coming here to hunt, harvest, socialize, dance, and thrive for centuries.

     Shavano Valley had many artesian springs and, still sixty years ago, according to my father-in-law, lots of wetlands. Beaver lived here, but farmers wanted more land to plow. They filled springs with rocks, drained bogs, and otherwise prepared the flattest portions for cultivation of crops: potatoes, onions, corn, beans, and grains. They killed off the beaver, but before long more of them would move in and burrow into the banks of the drainage undermining valuable farmland and damaging roads. The farmers here continue to wage war with nature to wrest out an uncertain living. That’s one of the things farmers do.

     Now as a citified adult on sabbatical from my life-long church-related career, I am in the valley considering the past and my own past. I write, read, hike, and help out with Grandpa, who is afflicted with some type of senile dementia. I refinish furniture, keep the yard and flowers near the house, and even chase the cows out of the green alfalfa. I am pleased to be doing all these things. The leisure of it has taken me back to childhood, to my early loves as I walk the valley and simply watch.

     With too few facts and too much imagination, I sit here weaving images. I really can’t imagine myself living in a brush wikiup or in the shelter of huge boulders with a roof of sticks overhead, a rush mat beneath. I don’t know what I am looking at. If people lived a few feet away from where I found this arrow point, just where did they build a fire, erect their hut, or lay out their blankets? The attempt to picture it seems the proper outcome from my having lived as a wanna-be Indian, but I realize I cannot know. The problem with my efforts is the superimposition of my own experience and values. I wonder if there is any validity in my ideas, and I wonder about my theme of protection. Probably this latter is a projection related to the fact that from my rock I can see the house where my son, daughter-in-law, and several grandkids live. Part of my vision includes my intergenerational concerns. I want my kids and grandkids to gain visions here for their lives, to gain dreams of possibility and hope.

     I feel small in this valley with its huge boulders, steep escarpments, and awesome breadth. I feel unprotected. Who is watching out for me? My father died a few months ago, and my mother and in-laws are aged and frail. I sit on the cusp of becoming an elder watching a generation pass as a new generation grows here. I wonder how often this ancient place has watched such developments. It’s seen the change of ages, the archaeologists’ Archaic-, Proto-, Prehistoric, and Historic Utes, then Whites, and now my wife’s family’s fifth generation! But this last is little, as small as I am in the landscape.

     I think of my months here as being an in-between time similar to the Native vision quest. I am nearing the end of my career. I’ll give it one more shot hoping to work in churches until retirement. But I know I will never do this work in the same way, with the same meanings, or to the same ends. My Shavano break is for me definitely a visionary time for gaining a renewed personal insight into what I have and have not done, a chance to explore other themes of importance. It offers me power to live in a new way. I laugh at my self-important language. I am simply having a plain old midlife crisis. I really love not going into the office, not attending endless meetings, and not delivering sermons and speeches. I like tramping around the hills with little schedule or responsibility.

     Watching Shavano, I experience the exhilarating excitement of imagination mixed with the dulling realization of not knowing. My attempt to correlate these experiences has been a life-long try. Had I never lived in a house with electricity’s advantages, I think I wouldn’t question myself so thoroughly. I view Shavano, the valley’s shortening then lengthening shadows, its contrast of desert browns with plowed field greens, its variety-filled landscape, its constant flow of water, its maturing crops, and its abundant native plants; its changes minute and large. Watching, I place myself in a landscape of possibility and change.

Denver, 2010

Shavano Valley's Spring Mesa escarpment, home of dozens of petroglyphs