Hogan on the Hill

Hogan on the Hill, 10x10

It is a windy day when I see this hogan on top of a small rise on the outskirts of Fort Defiance, but I'm able to angle the van into a little driveway cut-in, and get out of the wind to paint.

The hogan is deserted, but still sturdy and straight, and habitable, I'd guess. It must have a good view of the mountains, and of that edge of town, too. 

According to Steve Getzwiller's Nizhoni Ranch Gallery, a website that explains and discusses a number of topics about the Navajo, the hogan is considered a gift of the gods, and, while it is the traditional home of the Navajo, it "occupies a place in the sacred world." The first hogans were built of turquoise, jet, and abalone and white shells. Traditionally, the building of a hogan is a community affair, and is consecrated with a rite asking to let this place be happy. 

And yet, many of the hogans I see are deserted, like this one. One Navajo tells me that the hogans are used for religious purposes, or to provide shelter if someone in the family needs a place to live. There are no walls inside a hogan; it is one big, open space. Traditionally, it had a hole in the ceiling; a fire would be built below the hole, and the smoke would rise and escape through that hole. These days, it is as likely to have a chimney instead of a hole, and a door instead of a blanket hanging over the single, east-facing opening. 

Also on Getzwiller's site is a page showing some contemporary Navajo rugs. Click here to see them! It's well worth the time - they're amazing. The historic ones are, too, and you can find a link on that same page.

My painting in the landscape

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 A couple days after I paint "Off Navajo Road," I go back to the same road, hoping to paint again. I turn off the main road, drive about a half a mile, and see something happening down the road in front of me. I stop to watch - there is no traffic - and I realize it's a herd of something, crossing the road in front of me.

I wait, and pretty soon, I can see it is a small flock of goats, with a llama and three dogs. The llama and dogs must be protection and guidance for the goats. Two of the dogs are cattle dogs, and one is a large white dog, probably a Kuvasz, a Hungarian herding dog Peter and I first encountered in Maine, at a farm owned by a bunch of nuns.

The dogs get the little herd safely off the road, and guide them along the scrubby verge. It seems very clear that they have some place to be, and I can't help wondering how this little journey began. Have the goats decided they want a new place to graze? Did the owner of this little herd give instructions to the dogs - "Take them down the road until you get past that third driveway, then turn south and bring them to the field along Indian Route 12, ok?" It is mystifying.

After they pass, I head down the road, until I see a sign that promises road construction for the next 55 miles. That's when I stop, have my lunch, make the small watercolors, and head back. When I am on the main road, I catch a glimpse of the little herd near one of the green hills along the main road.

Here's the herd, a couple hours after I first see them, grazing away in a field off the main road.  

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Dog of the Day

The paintings I'm posting are still from the reservation, and I have a few more still to post from there. But I've moved east, heading for Memphis, where I have a show this coming weekend. I've been stuck a couple of times by bad weather. This dog, I encountered on a sunny moment between storms near Morrilton, Ark. He was someone's dog, but he'd have jumped in the car and come home with me. He was that kind of friendly guy. 

Cathedral Rocks

Cathedral Rocks, 30x40

It's late in the day when I arrive at this site, one I've wanted to paint since before I arrived. I painted it years ago, and struggled, and have thought about it since. The painting I ended up with back then is a good painting, and I liked it, but it was a fight from start to finish. 

This time, it is easier, but still a big, overwhelming subject. It's easy to say, "I will not get lost in detail." It's easy to say, "I will paint the spirit and not worry so much about the particulars." It's far harder to actually do that. 

It is windy by the time I arrive, and the sun is already going down. This is what I want. I want those blue shadows, those deep red-orange colors. But hitting that light the way I want it means working very fast, and over a series of days, for a canvas this size. And one never knows what tomorrow will bring - in terms of sun, and clouds and wind and rain and weather, in addition to everything else. 

I find a good place to pull over, and I begin to set up, and in a couple minutes, a band of dogs comes rushing up the driveway near me, barking and barking. Somehow, I know these dogs are not going to attack me. They're barking, but that's it. They're telling me off, not trying to chase me away. In time, most of them wander off, but one stays there, barking, the entire two and a half hours that I paint. The next day, when I come back to finish the painting, the dogs come out again. They do some barking this second day, but they're not really into it. 

I paint in warm, pink sunsets both days. People come along in cars and talk to me. One woman tells me that the rocks I'm painting change every day. Some days, they change every hour, some days, she says, according to the light. It's like they are alive, she says, and I know what she means. One older woman tells me that when she was a girl, she used to climb up on those rocks to watch the stars, and her face softens and brightens with the memory. 

My painting in the landscape

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Scenes from the Area

Inexplicably, these plastic swans decorate a gully in front of my hotel in Gallup. 

Here's a nice-looking hogan I see near the rock wall I'm painting. 

These two cows are out in Window Rock one morning, grazing on the busiest corner in town, right by the stoplight where the road from Gallup and the road to Fort Defiance intersect. They stay there, munching away, until I have to move on. I'm the only person paying them any attention, as far as I can tell.

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Dog of the Day

Above, three of the four dogs who come rushing out of the driveway to bark at me. All four are Australian cattle dog-type dogs, and these three seem to be related, with their black ears and their spots. Below left, the fourth dog is brown, and seems to be some sort of an outcast. Below right, the indefatigable barker. He stands near me and barks at me for more than an hour and a half. 

Off Navajo Road

Off Navajo Road, 24x24

Down the road from Fort Defiance is Navajo, NM, a tiny town, basically a blip on both sides of the road. A blip with a gas station and grocery store, and signs urging people not to litter, and to watch for livestock. 

When I drive there the first time, I go through town and keep heading north. In a pretty short while, I end up on a flat sagebrush desert, and a road that looks like it will go on, straight and unwavering, forever. I turn around. 

The next time, I go through town and take a right down a paved road that looks promising. I come around a curve and see these thee amazing, gigantic buttes, each heading in a different direction, each with different light, different colors - breathtaking. 

I stop the car, and two horses come into view. They take a look at me, and then continue on their way. But then, as I am setting up, a thin dog walks up. She has had puppies fairly recently, and it seems that one of her nipples is infected. 

I get the food from the car, and put some on a paper towel, 15 or 20 feet from where I'm standing. She slinks in a big circle around me, watching me the entire time, and finally makes it to the food. She wolfs it, watching me, and then wags her tail a little. I feed her a second time, and then I wait. In a while, I give her a third big handful and then I know I have to stop. It will do her no good to eat to the point of throwing up. 

I feel bad for her, with her puppies and her hunger and her possibly infected nipple. Her fear makes me feel bad, too. But I like feeding her, and I enjoy her company, and talk to her pretty much the entire time I'm painting. She watches me, and though she is afraid, I can tell that she has enjoyed the food, and is enjoying being a little close to me, and lying warm in the dusty driveway.

It takes me hours to make this painting, and I love it. Love it! As I am packing up, a car pulls up and stops and a Navajo woman gets out, to talk and see what I'm doing. Mama Dog is gone when I turn around. 

The buttes. 

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Scenes from the Area

 

Down the road from where I painted

These horses watch me as I pull up and set up my easel. 

 

They take a long look, and then they mosey along. 

This cow watches me, as well. 

Then there are these guys. 

 ***

Dog of the Day

This is the mama dog who watches me while I paint. She enjoys three

 good meals, then settles down in the sun and watches me, and maybe dozes a little. 

Even after I give her three dinners, and we spend a few hours together,

she shies away as I try to pet her.

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. 

***

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! 

Back to Window Rock

Window Rock Again, 10x10

I go back to Window Rock on Sunday, and make this 10x10 of Window Rock. It's windy this afternoon, but I'm able to position the van to block most of the wind. 

I have been hoping to go back and paint there a third time, but between the people working at the Navajo Nation, and the days of even stronger wind than Sunday, I don't make it back. 

Still, I have made two nice plein-air pieces, and taken a whole lot of photographs, and I think I will paint Window Rock again when I get back to Wachapreague. 

My painting in the landscape

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Here's another view, earlier in the day.

 

Horses on the way to Ganado. 

The Ganado Wash is an occasional river that runs near the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado. 

In  1851, the US government established Fort Defiance, to have a military presence on the Navajo reservation. The fort was built on valuable grazing land, and the government kicked the Navajo off of it. Fighting followed, and in 1864, the US government forced the Navajo people from their reservation. They were made to walk, at gunpoint, to Fort Sumter in eastern New Mexico. 

When they returned in 1868, they found their herds gone, their homes ruined, their fields destroyed. Trading became more important than ever. 

The Hubbell Trading Post introduced Navajos to items like flour, sugar and coffee, and the Navajos brought wool and sheep, jewelry and rugs, baskets and pottery to trade. 

Those items are still for sale at the trading post, along with sodas and candy, postcards and books. There's amazing stuff to see, to touch and to buy, as well as exhibits, demonstrations and more. The Hubbell Trading post is the oldest continuously operating trading post on the Navajo Nation. 

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Dog of the Day

This sweet, shy girl was hanging around the Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado.

 She was very hungry, but too scared to get too near me.