These writings and artworks celebrate personal mobility, in pursuit of mindful engagements with history, nature and the environment. Beholding the world around us with care and attention is an act of reverence. Offered as messages of hope and solidarity, these quotidian posts will continue until the present emergency is behind us.
Traveling to New Mexico early in 2019, I explored the Rio Grande between John Dunn Bridge and Cochiti Reservoir. Sites were selected for narrative reasons, as well as for their visual allure. Many of the works I produced, including my painting-journal, were exhibited at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, in the exhibitions Reimagining New Mexico, from June 28 to August 3, and Speaking to the Imagination / The Contemporary Artist’s Book, from June 21 to October 24.
May 8, 2019. Near the Trail-head above Taos Junction. 30 degrees NE. 36.3544 x 105.7294
Wake early, make journal entries, posting them on social media. Simple breakfast. Work in the studio. Decide to try to produce a concertina book. Call Artisan, ordering cut foam-core to serve as (2 each) supports of the books (10 x 48”), and large works on paper (22 x 30”). Set out to work at White Rock Canyon, but dark clouds over the Jemez Caldera cause me to rethink my plan. Instead I drive pas Black Mesa, taking photos for reference. From there I follow the river to Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), crisscrossing the river. Chary of setting up in Indian land, I follow the Chama River for a distance before heading toward Ojo Caliente.
The area is agricultural. The village appears to survive off the revenue from guests staying at the eponymous spa and resort, surrounded by a modest number of satellite B&Bs and restaurants. I do not tarry A long mesa rises more than a thousand feet to my right (east). Continuing north on US285 toward Antonito, the land rises gradually, until the roadbed is level with the plain atop the mesa. I turn right onto NM567, passing a number of US Forest Service roads. I pull into one reddish dirt road, check my location and take a few photos looking south, toward the mouth of Rio Grande Gorge. Mental note. Rent a 4WD off-road vehicle. Ten miles to Canada de Embudo. Check the map later. Returning to NM567, I guide my Subaru eastward. The road seems to have been laid down onto the terrain with a straight-edge, running from west to east.
The land falls away to the south. Red soil gives way to sharp gravel and dark rocks. All is covered by the familiar scattering of sage and pinyon, a bushy sea of celadon and jade. Gullies widen into arroyos, revealing rocky layers like icing on a cake, breaking through the soil.
Suddenly, the drawing-board that plotted my course sends the two-lane blacktop into a ninety-degree turn to the left. Black and yellow zebra signs proclaim the event. I pause, look at the map. Country Road C-115 carries on to the north, toward US64 and the gorge high bridge.
State road 567 turns right, to the southeast, winding its way down to Taos Junction Bridge.
I follow the road, as it slowly descends along a gentle grade. Ahead can be seen the rocky walls of the Rio Grande Gorge. A few hundred yards to the left I see a group of parked cars, most with rooftop carriers. Just before the main road plunges down a series of OMG switchbacks, I turn left onto a dirt road, which leads to one of the western rim trailheads. I park alongside an SUV and walk toward the rim. Following a brief reconnaissance, I set up to paint. Selecting a sight-vector of 30 degrees northeast, I open the book and get to work. Measuring distances, gauging relative spatial depth, and mapping different features and landmarks, I find myself drawn to the simplicity of the composition—a dark leftward arrow, underlining the upper band of snow-capped mountains. Below the horizontal, abstract patterns of rock-layers and vegetation remind me why this very terrain had so enchanted Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe. A thunderclap sounds behind me. Towering off to the west, black clouds seem to stride on graphite slabs—diaphanous curtains of promiscuous downpours. Scattered drops strike the dusty soil, like the shotgun pellets and .22 bullet-holes that pepper an interpretive sign at the parking-area. The storm moves eastward, four or five miles to the north. Native artists set up in the parking-lot next to the bridge on US64 must be scrambling to cover their tables, or put away their wares before the deluge arrives. Suddenly, bright sunshine warms my back. Shadows darken. Edges sharpen. The northern stretch of the canyon is thrown into darkness. Across the chasm, the vertiginous layer-cake effect of volcanic rock and alluvial sediment pales in the sunlight. Umbrageous clouds shroud the mountains beyond. Too much to absorb in one sitting, or to commit to paper with pigment, water and weasel hair.
One speaks of the Sublime, but talk is cheap. One cannot comprehend it, without knowing fear and awe. Speaking at a conference in New York in the nineteen-nineties, I shared that going into the wild, I sometimes wore a revolver on my hip—as an argument against feral dogs, rabid mammals and venomous snakes. Sitting in the audience, another presenter—the late Martha Mayer Erlebacher—raised her hand and commented. “I love it. Art as a life or death experience!”
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com