The Unbroken Wild West Still Invites Exploration and Adventure

I grew up in what is sometimes called “The Wild West.” We went camping and traveling throughout Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Washington and Oregon. Parts of the West are still as they were when Lewis and Clark and the early pioneers traveled for the first time over this rugged terrain.

In our travels, one of my favorite places was Taos / Pueblo, New Mexico. I still have a turquoise necklace I purchased from a Native American artist for $50. I fell in love with the artist community and the prolific galleries that dotted the streets. My dream was to return to live and work there. But you know how that goes.

According to a travel guide: “Taos is art. Art is everywhere: on the walls, in the streets, in the landscape and architecture. There are more than 80 galleries, museums, two major art festivals, several film fests, a Poets and Story Tellers festival, and four music fests.”

The grandeur of the mountains invites tourists and artists in summer and fall, and skiers in winter. The history of Taos is replete with Native American lore, an actual Pueblo village, and details about famous artists such as Georgia O’Keefe, Ansel Adams, D.H. Lawrence, John Marin, Andrew Dasburg and many others.

The broad sweep of rugged hills and jagged mountains provides year round recreation that has increased both the size and scope of Taos along with a rise in the cost of living. But a visit is well worth the experience.

When the word “wild” comes to your mind what does your imagination conjure up? The word itself makes me think “feral, uncontrollable;” not a good thing if you’re trying to harness your skill to describe in words or artwork what you see. 

Writers and artists must think in images. If you can’t visualize your subject matter, you can’t describe it or illustrate it.

Wild is one of the reasons people throng to Taos. Uninhabitable spacious vistas go on and on for what seems like forever. The color, the fusion of value and space is intoxicating.

I have a love affair with deserts. Teeming with life and color in the springtime and then withering to prickly dry sagebrush and cactus through the scorching heat of summer. Tumbleweeds blow across the roadways and line fences with woody entwined growth. They roam across the desert orchestrated by the wind in a primordial gracefulness; rolling and tumbling, following least resistance.

Taos gets under your skin. The brilliant sunsets, Native American colors and sounds, the howl of a wolf or coyote, the fresh air caressing your skin, filling your lungs. Prickly cacti needle you into submission. The stalwart saguaro look almost human in the evening shadows.

This lovely verse from the Poet Society’s Jillena Rose describes it well:

Taos
by Jillena Rose

Bones are easier to find than flowers
in the desert, so I paint these:
Fine white skulls of cows and horses.

When I lie flat under the stars
in the back of the car, coyotes howling
in the scrub pines, easy to feel how those bones
are much like mine: Here is my pelvis,
like the pelvis I found today
bleached by the sun and the sand. Same
hole where the hip would go, same

white curve of bone beneath my flesh
same cradle of life, silent and still in me.

(Poem copyright ©2011 Jillena Rose all rights reserved)

Thiis Artist’s Heart is at one with the Earth

"Sand Crane Dreams" acrylic on canvas

I was a tomboy growing up. I preferred monkey bars or playing cowboys and Indians to playing with dolls. When my mother couldn’t find me, I was usually up a tree, literally. I viewed every tree as a challenge that must be conquered.

My favorites were the mulberry trees that grew near our street. I’d straddle a branch and stuff my face with unwashed mulberries until their semi-tart taste had satisfied my sweet tooth. When someone walked beneath me, unaware of my presence, I felt all knowing and powerful.

From up here, I could see into adjoining yards. I knew who was home and who wasn’t. It was a hiding place where childish secrets could be discovered and shared later when the time was right. It also gave me space and time to ponder the wonders of the world and my place in it.

"Beach Buddies" mixed media on canvas

In those days I often ran around in my underpants, especially on hot summer days. Once while helping my mother with the ironing, I burned an elongated triangle on my mid-section. That was the last time I ironed without being fully clothed.

The next day, dressed in a sun top and a pair of shorts, the burn now covered with a still-wet scab, I climbed a wide-spreading oak tree. By this time my legs were so long it was easy to step from one branch to another and scale to the highest gnarled branches.

In the process of climbing, I scraped my midriff against the rough bark peeling back the scab and revealing a seeping red sore. The pain was excruciating. I scrambled down so fast I turned my ankle when I hit the ground running for comfort and a bandage.

(My daughter, Paula's, poster she created for her art classes)

I once scaled a tree so high I was afraid to come down. My mother’s younger sister scolded me at the foot of the tree and demanded I come down the same way I went up. Although we were close in age, she was my aunt, and she loved to Lord that over me. If I didn’t do what she said, she was sure to tattle to my mother.

I don’t know what happened to the girl I once was? Later in life, I was afraid of heights. I wonder now if the scolding’s and threats I received put a fear in me that I later associated with heights?

At any rate, as a teen I climbed to the top of a water tank and then was afraid to descend the ladder and come down. This was the first time in my life I’d been afraid of heights. Later, I cured my fears by rock climbing, repelling and experiencing a zip line. I discovered that as long as I focused on the cliff (or my goal), I was unafraid.

(The mountains where I grew up)

I continue to love nature in all of its splendor. There’s nothing like the freshness of pine mingled with the smells of frying bacon and potatoes or fresh caught fish on a crisp morning in the mountains. I celebrate still the wonder of God’s glory in every sunrise and sunset. I rejoice as an artist in the finite beauty and detail that I’m privileged to paint.