Light and Shadows, Fort Defiance

Light and Shadows, Fort Defiance / 10x10

On one of my final days in Fort Defiance, I return to the spot where I painted "Snow in the Shadows." The nights have been cold, cold, cold, and I imagine that the patches of snow I painted will still be there, frozen and crusty on the shaded hillside. 

But the warm days, and the rising arc of the sun has found those hidden, shady spots, and nearly all that snow is gone. But there's another scene in the opposite direction, this rock wall and small bluffs, shaded and bright in the early morning sun, and I have a great time painting it. 

It has been a challenge, during my time on the reservation, to paint the strength and muscle and power of these rock formations. Large canvas or small, it seems not to matter. I read somewhere that one artist said he tries to paint the forces that shaped these formations, rather than the formations themselves, and while I sort of understand that idea, it's hard to do in real life. Easier to do in philosophy. 

A dust-filled windstorm blows up out of nowhere on my final day in the area. In time, I find that this wind presages a series of nasty storms that begin as I drive east. The storms precede me, follow me, catch me, force me to hole up in hotels for two short stretches on my way across the country. I rue the extra days and extra expense, but I am safe and sound, and thankful. 

My painting in the landscape

I love the combination of this blue house, the green rocks and the red rocks in the background. 

A sponsor of this trip asked me to post some closer, larger pictures of the housing in the Fort Defiance area. Above, a string of townhouse-type structures. Below, a fairly typical house and yard, with multiple vehicles and multiple buildings. 

Throughout the region, there are houses with all kinds of junk and dead vehicles in the yard. This one is a bit more clutter-strewn than most. At one point, there was a horse in the middle of all this stuff.

One of the many wildly commercial enterprises on I-40, 

nestled in to one of the most beautiful rock formations in the area. 

Two hogans

On my last day in Fort Defiance, a big, swirly wind rises up, blowing dust and sand everywhere. 

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Dog of the Day

This nutty canine gets his kicks chasing cars on a little-traveled road near Morrilton, Arkansas. 

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Psssst..... If you've read all the way down to here, congratulations! I'll be posting the final painting giveaway tomorrow, March 10... sometime in the morning. 

Shack on the Hill

Shack on a Hill, 10x10

The best painting spots are the ones when you can face in one direction and see one amazing scene to paint, then face in the other direction and paint a different amazing scene. 

That's the case with this painting. I face north to paint "Near Steamboat," then turn south to paint "Shack on a Hill." It's an especially excellent spot, as it's a windy day, and I'm able to use the van to block the wind. 

I continue to be amazed at the homesteads that I see out on the plains, miles and miles from neighbors, stores, commerce of any kind. Many of these do involve more than one building, though, and as I stayed on, it became clear that entire families live together on the reservation - grandparents, great-grandparents, and many adult children and their children. 

This is a good thing and a not-so-good thing, according to a couple Navajo women I meet. It's great to have the love and support of a family, but not so good to have the constant presence of a watchful family. One young woman moved to a hogan at the very edge of the property, but tells me she still feels that her privacy is virtually nonexistent. 

Another Navajo, however, pointed out that while I see homeless dogs on the reservation, I see no homeless people. And she's right. 

My painting in the landscape

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 I have to crop these photos so that you can see the houses, but believe me, from the road, they are just tiny specks. And there are no other houses anywhere near these. The quiet must be amazing and total. The night sky must be astonishingly brilliant. But how do you get help, if you need it? How much of your day is spent traveling to shop or visit friends, on the day that you do that? How long a bus ride is it for the kids to get to school? I thought places I saw in Maine, or on the Eastern Shore were remote - they are nothing compared to places on the reservation.

This scene, above, feels like the top of the world to me. 

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Dog of the Day

Yes, I know it's a cow. It makes me laugh, though. Cows are more or less allowed to roam free on the reservation. Across most access ways to the roads are cattle guards - roadway-wide segments of metal bars set into the road itself. Cars can go over them easily, but cows won't walk on them. But I see cows in a number of un-cowlike places, and this is one. These metal buildings are part of the government complex at Window Rock, and this cow is enjoying some government-grown grass, late one Sunday afternoon. 

Tuesday Morning Sun

Tuesday Morning Sun, 10x10

This painting, and the one I made with it, Morning Majesty, come easily to me, which is always a joy. It is a cold morning, frosty even, and I find a place to pull off the main road, a place I haven't seen before, though I look every day. 

When I paint back east, people always honk at me, and often shout at me. This is worst in New England and New York, but it happens pretty much everywhere in the east. 

Here, on the reservation, no one does this, and I am thankful. I will be painting, focusing hard on what I'm doing, and in the best of times, the real world sort of falls away, and it is me and the painting. Then some idiot comes along and feels he has to honk and yell at me. I have often jumped so hard that I've smeared the painting. And it always pulls me out of the painting, out of the zone. 

Several Navajos have come up to talk with me while I've been painting on the reservation, but they have approached me quietly, and asked if it was OK to talk and to look. This happens on the Eastern Shore, too, and I do appreciate it. 

Here are my two paintings in the landscape

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 Around the Region

Matthew Bia works the desk at the Microtel in Gallup where I stay during my time painting on the reservation. He is a nice guy, who answers a lot of my questions, and is interested in my painting. He says that he and the staff at the Microtel work seven days a week, just to make ends meet. Below, Historic Route 66, near the hotel where I stay. Hotels and gas stations and convenience stores line up on Route 66 west of Gallup. There's a strange 7- or 8-mile gap between the commercial area on the west side, and old, downtown Gallup to the east. 

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Saw this guy riding, out on the reservation, and, as you can see, walking up the hills. 

I love this small metal building, gray as the February trees that surround it.

On a day when the wind makes me stop painting, in the Petrified Forest, I drive into the

 non-national-park area of the Painted Desert, on the way to Keam's Canyon.

Here's my van, about halfway through the trip. 

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Dog of the Day

Saw this mastiff at the show in Tubac. He was sweet, but very slobbery! 

Blue Mesa

Blue Mesa

Oil on canvas, 16x16

The Petrified Forest and Painted Desert national parks are connected, and seem to me to be one park. 

The Painted Desert National Park lies north of I-40; the Petrified Forest, south of I-40. They're about an west of  Gallup, NM, and an hour east of Holbrook, AZ. 

The latter was set aside as a national monument in 1906, to preserve and protect the petrified wood found there. People have picked up and taken away innumerable pieces of petrified wood; you can buy it at dozens of shops near the park. 

Petrified wood is nearly 100 percent quartz, according to the National Park Service.  More than 200 million years ago, logs washed into rivers and were buried so fast and so deep by sediment and debris in the water that oxygen was cut off to them, and their decay was slowed. Minerals absorbed into the wood over hundreds of centuries crystallized, replacing the organic material of the wood, as it broke down slowly over time. 

Where there were cracks in the logs, clear quartz, amethyst, citrine and smokey quartz formed, the Park Service says. 

Painted Desert National Park is just a portion of the Painted Desert, which stretches from the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest. Much of it is within the Navajo reservation. The stripes and striations of the Painted Desert are layers of siltstone, mudstone and shale, fine-grained rocks that erode easily. Iron and manganese compounds which provide the pigments for the layers. 

All that being said, these places are just amazing, otherworldly, vivid, stunning. 

Also, they are windy. I am about halfway done with this painting when it becomes utterly impossible to finish. I pack up and head out, and finish the painting later, in the hotel. 

Here are more photos: 

And, in the Painted Desert outside of the park, a lone cow grazes, in spite of the wind. 

It is hard to tell, but this is a herd of wild horses. 

At the edge of the Painted Desert

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Dog of the Day

Painted Desert

Painted Desert

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Feeling out of step on the reservation, I decide to drive an hour or so west of Gallup and visit the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. I've visited these places before, and I know how beautiful and alien they are. 

I also know how difficult it is to paint these rock and sand formations. I remember struggling, three years ago, to paint them in a way that worked. 

So one of the very best parts of this trip is finding that I've learned - or figured out - how to do it! That is a joyful, thrilling discovery. 

The hundreds of paintings I've made between then and now, the hundreds of mountains I've painted, the thousands of hours of thought and study and exploration and discovery and failure and success, all these have brought me an ease and a confidence that I never imagined I'd have. 

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Around the Region

All along Interstate 40, from Holbrook, Arizona, to Gallup - and perhaps beyond? - I see Indian stores, selling everything from blankets to kachina dolls to fossils to petrified wood to turquoise jewelry. This sign made me laugh. 

A beautiful afternoon. The sky goes on forever here.

I see trailers like these, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and I wonder what it would be like to live there. I can only imagine that the people who live in these places run cattle or sheep or something - there's no way they are commuting to a job. Maybe they're just living off the land. They have no neighbors, no fences, no towns anywhere nearby. I can imagine that the nights must be unutterably dark, the sky brilliant with stars.

 These are the first red hills that you see, from the highway, heading west toward the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

Above, the view from one of the overlooks in the Painted Desert. Below,

 an overlook in the Petrified Forest

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Dog of the Day

It's Meeka, and she's visiting the Painted Desert with her humans, from California. She reminds me very much of my Jojo, minus a white streak on her nose. Also, Meeka has brown eyes, and Jojo's are blue. But the ears are the same, the nose is the same, the I'm-a-handful-attitude is the same! 

Snow in the Shadows

Snow in the Shadows

Oil on canvas, 10x10

The days are warm here - well, warmer than back East - but the nights are clear and brilliant and very cold, and so, in the shadows, the snow holds on tight. 

I get the idea to paint the snow in the shadows, and I start looking, first for the snow, and second for a place where I can pull off the road and set up to paint. 

This is always a tall order, and out here, it's no different. At least there are no ditches along the roads here, as there are in so many other places in the US. Here, there are not many roads, well, not many paved roads - and people drive fast! I understand, they are covering long, long distances. But sheesh, drive the speed limit and they're right on your tail. And I drive far below the speed limit, usually, looking, looking, looking. I am a constant annoyance on the road.

I made this painting a couple days ago. Since then, the days and nights have cooled dramatically. So I might go looking for more snow in the shadows, I like this painting so very much. 

My painting in the landscape

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Around the Area

One of the back roads in Fort Defiance. The red dust gets all over everything, washing cars and houses and trees and pretty much everything into a somewhat monotone color. 

This area is at a very high elevation! I see this sign on the road from Fort Defiance to Ganado. 

These yellow rocks above are on the way to Gallup, on the highway. 

The yellow rocks below are on the road from Gallup to Fort Defiance. 

 Sheep and a llama hanging around near the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado. 

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Dog of the Day

The first place I stop to paint snow in the shadows is guarded by this fierce - or apparently fierce - dog, who rushes out, barking wildly at me, as I pull into the driveway. I do not test his ferocity, but go looking for another spot where there's snow in the shadows.