Cool, Clear Water

Without the chill of winter, we wouldn't appreciate bright sunshine warming bare shoulders. Without the fierce Texas sun, shade wouldn't be so precious, nor would water filling these ancient mortar holes in this borderland canyon along the Rio Grande south of Marfa. Here's how this one happened:

I like painting the current season. Staying seasonal keeps me connected to nature. Painting in my studio in August, I summon up the Beach Boys instead of humming "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..." which would, of course, make me look crazier than I already am, standing there at my easel talking to a parrot and making funny faces as I work out composition and such.

Anyway. I wanted a scene that whispered "summer" but wouldn't make me, or my viewer, break a sweat. I wanted a dose of summer happy, and I knew immediately what reference photo I wanted to use. And which tune to hum.

Above the Rio Grande, ranch land stretches and writhes up and down a vast complex of canyons linked by a single public road that is technically little more than a pot-holed two-horse trail. We've driven the whole distance, Marfa to River or Rio to Marfa, but never have we driven the entire stretch beginning to end on the same day. Every time, water has blocked our way. Where there are canyons, there are watersheds. cold springs and streams and hidden pools. And because we enjoy seeing this wild landscape in its full summer glory, and late summer is the rainy season, we've always had to turn around and go back whichever glorious way we came.

This new pastel is of one of those wet roadblocks we keep encountering in our travels to and from the river. On that day, as Jim gritted his teeth and skillfully turned our heavy duty pickup truck around on a stretch of dirt road a little red wagon's turning radius would exceed, I noticed the nearest water-filled rock wasn't just holding water. It was deeply pitted with ancient mortar holes. Native American grinding stones. People have lived in semi-arid Far West Texas for ten or twelve thousand years. Winter and summer, spring and fall under the Texas sun. And always praying for rain to muddy their paths.

I wonder what music the women hummed as they ground corn in these shaded holes, now temporarily blessed with precious water?

A strange sense of kinship enveloped me as I painted this one. As far as nature is concerned, we are one people, humanity navigating life. As it happens, I paint these things a lot better than I hum. We all have our place in the world.

May yours be filled with cool, clear water and shade from the summer sun.