Santa Fe

Busy day in Santa Fe: Indian market. All kinds, shapes, and sizes of visitors to town today.

Some come intent on making music:

explain a taken position:

tear into something juicy

 dry:

or fall at the feet of their favorite turquoise gurus

Artists huddle in glee:

Aleister Crowley:

"In the wind of my mind arose a turbulence called I".

Not one to thrust quotes at the public in general (don’t even sport bumper-stickers on anything that I drive or inhabit), this lingers and lingers -- as poetry really is, or as what poetry strains at the leash to be -- and is, not often knowing, since our current civilized modes and how we convey meaning have matured enough to not allow such absolute certainty , but preening and cringing just for cover. I suspect the center is long gone, we are mere edge-frey, flapping in an alien breeze.

The Book of Lies.

Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Took a little walk down some South Albuquerque streets earlier today. It is a strange, unfamiliar place for me.

Cosy though:

Drive-by ESL:

War on security

Albuquerque International Sunport...not the main entrance, but an installation around the corner delicately suggesting that the War goes on: get your black turbans and burkas all shredded as you small brown people try to swarm into our Inner Transportation Sanctum.
 

But...if you are a pink and blond sixteen year-old you calmly walk through gates, set up your tripod and start filming. Below: Lizzie unleashed at the Bag Claim in Alb. Int. No one protested or intervened. She is working on a 10 min. feature to be included in application to film school. Seems to involve luggage.

Meanwhile...took this to compare now and later. This was taken outdoors, the ground and sky reflect on the paint surface, the colors are not true (the inner blue is Prussian Blue, looks almost black at some angles), the outside area is aiming at being a transition between dark Cadmium Red, going through the dreaded Alizarin to Prussian blue.

And the whole thing is tipped slightly to the right; too lazy in Photoshop.
This is, of course, just a loose stab at photographing one of these, but I do have endless trouble getting the kind images of these pieces which represent them for what they are...or somewhere bearably close. A lot of twiddling in Photoshop. Works better clicked on.

Sacred Datura

They flowered yesterday morning in large numbers, first time this year around here. This morning again -- fewer perhaps -- promise of more -- big buds rising up from stem crotches.

photoshop? huh? what's that?

Studio (some details)

Today's arrangement. The Cadmium Red canvas is getting some much awaited attention while the Prussian Blue one is resting and drying behind the table:

My most expensive tube of paint by the edge of Red#?:

Looking down Red#?:

 The "B" and "C" Team tubes and brushes and some invaders from Acrylic World:

And Acrylic debris:

Later in the day, Blue#? back in its place -- making a mark:

Rainy season

A little moisture is always welcome...
This stuff our roads are made of has some enveloping characteristics. If you stop completely: engine off, handbrake on, and sit quietly, observing intently, you will notice that the vehicle is still in motion, this time drawn more by Earth's gravity than by internal combustion, slowly pulling it toward the inner-mud of the planet.
Advice to tourists: never stop.
  --- : --- FedEx and UPS folks: don't bother.
  --- : --- Jehovah's Witnesses, burglars, Blackwater war on catnip death-squads: wear something sensible.

The uncleansed

Feast day in Jemez Pueblo yesterday.
Our valley is divided into three separate communities: Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo, with the Natives being the most numerous. There is a lot of overlap and a lot of people cross the ethnic lines to socialize and to work. But the divisions are strong even if the definitions are very misleading. Note the definitions: "Native American" of course means American Indian; they themselves often refer to themselves as Indians, also quite often they are more specific and refer to themselves (in this area) as Jemez, Zia, or whatever else from further afar they might be, other Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, etc. "Hispanic" means descendants of the colonizers who conquered this land for the Spanish and who spent a short while being Mexican before the US invaded and took over. But to consider them Spanish (as they often do, or pretend to) is very obviously misleading. Their leaders often came directly from Spain, but the vast majority of them made a long journey to New Mexico, starting in the Caribbean, winding through various ports of call in Central and North America. Very few women came from Spain and these people are the descendants of marriages or whatever improvised relationships that might have occurred on their long trek. They often look Indian, speak some kind of 16th Century Castilian (at least further North they do, to amuse anthropologists no doubt) and cook, build, weave, farm, and live lifestyles similar to the Native Americans. "Anglo" is more a linguistic than a racial definition, it frequently even includes the few African Americans who live in this area. "Anglo" is the currently dominant "culture". I'm Anglo, hmm...

The communities are physically separate, though a lot of overlap occurres, mostly with Hispanics and Anglos living in each other's areas, Jemez Springs, Ponderosa, Cañon, La Cueva, Gilman, San Isidro etc. The Jemez (Indians) mainly live in Walatowa, though they too seep into the other communities slightly. Very few non-Jemez live in Walatowa, mostly they are people married into Jemez families. But we are one big happy family, really, sort of like Yugoslavia before the break-up...

Drawing on life itself

How drawing changes everything. To me drawing is a connected, but also separate activity to painting. My painting can be traced to something derived and developed from a drawing-like activity, but essentially it "draws" on precedent developed in previous painting. Drawing, even abstract drawing, is a parallel experience (for me; I see how others see it as an essential connection). Life drawing is a parallel universe. Even if the product is not always entirely satisfying, the process is immersing. After a few sessions I start to see again. I wonder: where have I been all this time? Look at this world, eh? Also I wonder: why do I need this trigger? Why can't I be like this all the time? Why do I ever pause? Why can't I be drawing every moment?

Separate issue: I have agreed to design a set for Moonlight and Magnolias. The previous play strikes some time at the end of January. This production and set will travel to Artesia NM for the NM Theater Festival in March. I want to use as much projection (including video|) as I can.

Look on the bright side!

Mood swing?

Not really. Just building a library of of impressions of me that I would like to make in in the digital world, which would create an adorable character that I somehow fail to always be otherwise.
The last time I worked on a self-portrait I was eighteen or thereabouts. A few details have changed since then, but this can still be considered part of same series.