QUARANTINE RERUNS: Each day during the early days of the pandemic, I published a blogpost based on my travels. This is the fourth.
In 2019, I made four trips to Santa Fe. Exploring the Rio Grande between John Dunn Bridge at the confluence of Arroyo Hondo, and Cochiti Reservoir to the south, key sites were celebrated in journal-paintings. Today’s post is dedicated to my all dear friends and loved-ones in New Mexico and Colorado, as they weather the storm.
Last Wednesday I published the first in a series of daily website blog-posts, of writings and artworks that celebrate personal mobility, in pursuit of mindful engagements with history, nature and the environment. In relation to a finished painting, or an essay, this process is no less a work of art than is the tree to the fruit it bears. In a sense, this practice may be ceremonial, acts of reverence, in beholding the world around us. Offered as messages of hope and solidarity, these posts will appear daily, until these dark days are behind us.
May 6, 2019. Upriver from Embudo Station. 36.2402 x 105.8366. 46 degrees NW. 2436-2450, NM-68, Taos.
Heading southwest on state highway 68, one passes a series of roadside pull-offs frequented by anglers and shutterbugs. On the outbound drive, I had made a note of the steep inclined mountain between Pilar and Embudo, framed between two sloping hills. A few miles downstream is a pair of volcanic plugs, between which Rio Embudo flows through a wooded gap, into the Rio Grande. The place-name in Spanish means “bottleneck”. Nearby on March 30, 1854, a young, bigoted lieutenant rashly led two companies of the First Regiment, U.S. Dragoons into an ambush. Jicarilla Apache and Ute warriors engaged the dragoons in a pitched, four-hour battle, forcing the soldiers to withdraw to Rancho de Taos. Considerable losses were suffered on both sides.
Native victory was short-lived. Eight days later, with Kit Carson serving as guide, a detachment of the 2nd U.S, Dragoons under Lieutenant Philip St. George Cooke fell upon the war-party at Ojo Caliente. Many who survived the attack perished from exposure. In a note of irony, as the battle raged, Carson had been on a mission to offer the native combatants rations and humanitarian aid. The present-day village was established in 1881, as a watering station for the Chili Line of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Seven years later the hamlet was selected by explorer John Wesley Powell as a stream-gauging station for the U.S. Geological Survey. Embudo Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, coincidentally the year of my first visit to New Mexico.
NOW AVAILABLE: SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
AVAILABLE September 27, 2022
Sketchbook Traveler. Southwest was due to be released in May, but due to supply chain issues related to the Covid pandemic, the first edition (which has been printed overseas) is due to arrive in late summer. Following up on the success of Sketchbook Traveler: Hudson Valley, volume 2 in this trilogy explores the American Southwest from New Mexico to the Mojave Desert in journal-paintings and field notes by the author. Conceived as a backpacker’s field-guide and coffee-table art book, this compact volume includes lessons in print; a “why-to” guide to augmenting ubiquitous photographic devices. Blank pages scattered with inspirational quotes are provided for keeping one’s own traveler’s sketchbook. Pre-order here: LINK
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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
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