"Vegas-
Ojo de La Vaca" egg tempera, 2019, 15 1/4" x 33"
(Translation: "Pastures-
Cow Spring")
This painting depicts a view of the
southernmost rockies
from Glorieta, (Rowe) Mesa. The ghost village of Ojo de la Vaca is
almost
invisible along the county road heading north toward Glorieta
Baldy, the Santa Fe Sangre de Cristos, and the Truchas Peaks in
the
distance. This mesa was transversed by ancient and modern
Indian cultures, Spanish Conquistadores, a
Civil War army, and by dry farming families. After
the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, many of the farmers sold out to
small lumber mills. The once ponderosa pine covered hills were clear-cut, and
are now mostly covered with junipers and pinon.
The clear-cut areas lend a mosaic to the landscape, but I am saddened by the loss of the ponderosa.
I have spent years painting
this mesa, scrambled around many of the hills and canyons depicted
here. I have had, and still have friends around Ojo de La
Vaca, and even lived near there for a few years.
This is a pretty good record of the landscape I have gotten
to know. Undoubtedly it will become developed and changed in the
future, but for this moment captured in egg tempera will last for
hundreds, even thousands of years. Please read my short essay.
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