Last night I painted plein air near the cabin from the movie ” City Slickers”. The kaliedescope-light show was spectacular last night, 360 degrees of beauty changing every 5 minutes. I paint fast, but not fast enough. I finally folded up my easel and let the changing light mesmerize me. It felt good to have my bike panders loaded with painting supplies, and a couple finished paintings, and ride off into the sunset.
I love the way this Mesa glows just before the sun sets.
“Ghost House” is a beautiful old adobe built around 1880, rich with stories, many of them ghost stories. Cattle thieves, local legend, and Georgia O’Keefe…if only the old adobe walls could talk.
Wet paint. 10″x8″ oil on panel
In northern New Mexico, down a 17 mile dirt driveway, at the end of a canyon sits a very special place where 40 monks keep the hours and pray the psalms. That place is called Monastery of Christ in the Desert.
Here is Father John tending the hops, collected from local canyons, grown to make Monk’s Wit
Ale. Benedictine monks have been mixing a life of prayer, work, and study for the last 1500 years. I like to think it is a bit like traveling back in time when I visit this monastery. It is a contemplative monastery, and they respect a rule of silence. Deep in the desert, and off the grid, there no road noise, or buzzing of machines. I expected the silence to be oppressive, but I experienced it as a true gift. The quiet makes it easier to quiet one’s mind, and it makes their chanting that much more beautiful.
When I showed this painting to Father John he quoted John 15: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
So I post this painting today to remember these brothers, especially today on St. Benedict’s feast day.
Rooster white. Farm beautiful.
The days are so hot and bright. I love the way an afternoon storm is like a sigh of relief.
If you have ever been here, you know why they call it the painted desert. Wow! I get to use all the crayons in my box, with out embellishing the colors.
The red sand hut is a cross between a shanty town in South Africa and a Norman Rockwell painting. It is what happens when you mix brothers, sisters, and friends old and new, and you give them an afternoon of device-free down time. They built the hut into the side of a Mesa with scraps of lumber, drift wood, and old metal. Then they defended it with stick swords and metal trash can shields. As I painted this, I loved playing with the lost edges between the kids skin and the red dirt. It seems that if their skin and the dirt weren’t the same color when the day started, they became more and more so as the afternoon passed on.
I love when you can see rain falling near the horizon. We have such perspective when we are able to step out from within the storm.
paintandsimple 