Pronghorn on Birch Panel

I needed to use up some of the amazing wildlife stuff I had.   Trying to be more iconic, I got the iconic beasties of the park.  Pronghorn.
This couple was hanging out on the amazing last trek down.  He decided to rest and the three girls in his gang sort of wandered around.  This little girl decided to hang and chat.

I had a number of these panels from another project.  10" square with 2"deep sides, I never liked painting over the beautiful wood.  Seems as though the colors just organically tie in...
Start:

Finished

Memorial Day

I gave up on making art!  I was coaxed into a necessary hike to say I had been here.
I made it to sleep about 9:30 and when kitty said sun up, I got up.
I looked through the stacks of hikes that were in the room and Martha's Butte was short enough, daring just a bit and qualified as an adventure so I hit the trail just about park opening.
En route I saw my ONE AND ONLY BOBCAT!!!  Camera was not ready but it was very dramatic.
I looked ahead to see a pronghorn racing to my left and noticed a brown boxy shape, seriously like a massive THINGY, dark brown, no neck, ears flat, racing across a gully to some eroded rocks.  Size color shape... this was IT!  No face, but some things are just for the memories.
The pronghorn was a handsome guy who stood in the typical Pronghorn-stare until I left.  Nice with the sun behind him.

Down the road a bit, his girlfriend was looking stunning and doing a fashion  shoot with me!  Look at those gams!

She went off into the beautiful scenery and then decided she would not be intimidated by me, so she just crossed the road, right in front of me, for better scenery, me snapping all the way!

The map was a topo map and I KNOW what it all means, but one of the very cool aspects of the park is that going off the beaten track is encouraged, but you are OFF the track.  It is for people who have a respect for the fun of hiking and off spring of.. and actual boy-scouts etc!

I was all alone out there and I knew if I were to trip and die, I would be found very soon, the footprints were dense... and it was fun looking at the animal trails too!

This is that amazing spiral (sipapu as I used to call it.. I think) that people flock to for solstices.  It is rather solitaire, making it very noble and unique.  Only a couple of glyphs nearby so it is a very important spot. (EDITED when I got home.... sad to say, my feeble body did not make the full walk around.  THIS LINK to someone else's trek is GREAT and shows what another 20 minutes of stamina can find!)

Once arrived, I did my 10 second selfie:

I guess it was about an hour.  Normal folk might do it faster or longer with more side trips but I was so proud!

I got back to my car and there was something on the hood.....

It looked like a mylar balloon had tangled in my windshield wipers...

On closer inspection, I found a gift from Dennis (who, with his wife JoLynn, had entertained us last Wednesday in great style!) of a specific LEGAL "souvenir" I was looking for as a gift for someone else.  There is was.  The ENTIRE empty park and he drove by and dropped it off for me.

Two more days.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Back to my report...

As I drove to the bottom of the park looking for Dennis who apparently turned around and came back or something... missed him.... I headed out to Holbrook. I  needed to replace a few items for the next visitor in the casita and was completely out of any food.  I could be tided over at the $$ Store, so I went off looking for rocks again, but did not stop and come back.  I found a little outcrop of yellow and red, much more interesting stones and brought them back too.

Took a full hour nap upon my return and ache and am way stiffer than I wish I was.  But I did it!

Needed  few photo copies to make my reproductions.  I ran out of Eagles, pronghorn, roadrunner, and bobcats!  Of course everything in the park is shut down.  People with the power are off and working and those left behind are below pay-grade!

So, I will make my tuna sandwiches, prep things for tomorrow and have everything set for an early scouting mission... short walk again, trip up here to get copies and then TWO episodes of demos at the PDI.  I am tired in such a good way today!

One Week Down... Waaaa!

I know, I am being a whiner, but I am very upset that I am almost 1/4 done... One week?  Not cool. I really don't want to do art, I want to plan art and stare at things.

Managed to cover my head for about an hour!  Got up at 6 and am feeling better and better.  I don't seem to have any unexplained aches and today was promised horrific winds and cooler temps.  Not real weather, but "dry lightening" was forecast...OOOoooOOo. Felt almost jolly, having a painting under my belt and more ideas, I ran into the compound and loaded the blog.  Takes much longer than at RFM, but weather was nice.


Here is the main parking area and entry to the PD Visitor Center.

 You are looking at the gift store and the area where the offices and my area of contact are.  They have a library I was very interested in... but it is NOT my kind of library.  It is for research and has serious stuff in there.  I was hoping for a copy of Desert Solitaire as I don't seem to know how to download my library audio books.  They are all set to stream and won't store. Drat!

Here is the Ortega shop and best fry bread cafe in the park!! (only one, of course, but their "baby" is exactly right!  I always drown in Navajo Tacos but these are human sized!) To the right is the patio area and where the best wifi is available.





I don't like to admit how much time I spend there.  I MUST get my booty down at dawn's early break and learn how to unlock the gate so I can use that extra hour before things get hopping.


I know, I am supposed to use the lock-down time to commune with nature on my own, but I am only today starting to understand the ins and outs of how the park is available and NOT available to me.



A weaver and her daughter had set up camp in the PDI over weekend and there was a couple of tables of rugs and beads.  The stuff of Pow Wow wares and the loom with the framed samples of dyes.  I remember the display in Mesa Verde and seem to vaguely recall the weavers on the side of the road... Alice and Donna had introduced themselves to me on Friday and I got carried away yesterday so I stopped in again. The other artist had given them his space and I think we will need to coordinate.

I would have loved to paint them working!!!

Alice is 97 and you don't see her picture.

She is still debating whether I can take a photo to use for a painting.  I understand completely!  For decades Native American's images have made money in advertising and their snapshots have been turned into art by amateurs and PROFESSIONALS and they are still eeking out livings trying to keep the culture alive.  I totally honor that decision........but she will be back the last weekend.  I will clear out my Saturday to see if I can work from photos if she lets me snap her on Friday!

I had visited PDI twice and the first trip (wherein I planted the idea of photos... and would return) is where I chatted up Dennis.  He was a volunteer who I would have talked to all day.  He turned me on to his best thoughts about wildlife and explained a phenomenon that I had a hard time putting into words:

Some of the amazing area near the TeePees is much like the rest but less colorful and it looks dusted with espresso!  I didn't understand why it was coated with all this brown.  He explained that the layers erode in sequence too.  So this area had eroded to the brown and it was falling from the top, although it looked like it was being coated in it!  SOOO COOL!



The first trip in, Suzie the amazing woman who is EVERYWHERE, showed me that the flier is done for the demo in Holbrook on Friday.  Looks REALLY good!  I am going to demo a coffee stained drawing.  Always action packed!




Again I have two neighbors.  Just for one night and I have already forgotten their names but they are passing through and you could see it in their eyes, they felt so privileged.

I got brave and inspite of the storm blowing up around me I went hunting and FOUND two pronghorns, right where Dennis proposed!  Not best shooting conditions but babies with barely horns and new poses.
A great day all together!

NEWS IN JANUARY

Quite a few distractions have taken up my art time and on January 3, the first working day of the new year, I got a call in the middle of a family crisis from Kip, the AIR Ranger in charge! Dismissing myself from the ruckus, I spoke with him an he asked if I might wish to share the month of May with another camper.  It seems the casita will be empty as the Artist for May has a great big travel trailer and only needs a hookup in a different area of the park... so if I did not mind sharing my month, I could come in the spring.

I JUMPED on it!
I was there last year in May and found the wildlife reference I was hunting in Colorado - pronghorn and bighorn sheep - wandering around, taunting me!! I used a couple of them on my rock art.

The chilly months elsewhere are wonderful here in the Valley of the Sun - Phoenix AZ, but the summers are hell.  And our summers tend to start about March in the 90s.  YES I would love to come in spring.  TODAY it is in the high 90s and I am feeling it.

So the blog went live on March 16.  

45 days out from the month I get to move in!

I hope to update it regularly during the residency, but I understand I may have to set up camp in the visitor center with my laptop during business hours.  This will be a major upheaval!  I turn to the internet at home in town for solace and companionship with human beings.  I am a private painter but love doing demos and talking to people.  I will have NO PROBLEM interacting and enjoying my time with the public, but look forward with dread and anticipation to the isolation.  It will not be hard to fill my time making pictures.   They bounce in my mind all the time, but the purpose of my residency is to experience it.  But I tend to be a night owl and this is going to be a project about ravens....they fly all day!

The theme I presented dealt with following the ravens where they lead.

I was kept company last spring by any number of black birds that were watching me and the other visitors as we watched them.  Somewhat like useless tour guides who simply shepherded us.

Long before humans realized this was a special place, the animals just watched.....

I firmly have vowed to let the experience as a visitor - simply being there - fill me.
I want to meet other visitors, and the people working there, visiting the park for their livelihood, coming to explore, and dig into visitors of the past.  It will be trying to subjectively celebrate the experience.  Not a hiker or an outdoors-woman, I am a visitor.  I expect to connect with the nature that we all need to recharge, but as an artist I have a give that will help me make permanent those moments to share with others.....

Wish me luck!