We Are Not In Kansas Anymore ToTo

Due to hints, suggestions, and outright soft pressure, I have returned to the blog for an update on what we have been up to since leaving Kansas City. With a short stay in Colorado Springs, we continued on to Taos where we had planned to stay for two weeks. The new pricing at the Taos Valley RV park quickly put an end to that idea, as it was over $300. per week. While we were there we checked on the little rv park out on the North side of town, as you head over towards the Rio Grande Bridge and it looks like our new Go To place when we are in Taos Town. As usual while we were in Taos, we hit all the museums to look at our favorite paintings and hopefully see some new ones too. We ate Green Chile Stew and Guacamole and many of our other New Mexican favorite foods including Tres Leches Cake. See Above.

We found a great route from the East to get into Taos with a minimum of grade elevation and a fabulous road which ran from Colorado over to Fort Garland and then went straight south. And the views were beautiful the entire way. . . . . . . . .

When we got back home to Apache Junction we decided to jump on some remodeling projects around the house as well as getting ready to submit some paintings to the Fall Show in Cottonwood. Since that time we have found out that Allan had all 3 of his paintings accepted and I had two of mine accepted as well. As one of the new Workshop Chairpersons in our pastel group I had to get to work on several workshops that are coming up this Winter. We were looking forward to going to the October meeting where Lorenzo Chavez was coming to do a demo painting. He chose to do a winter scene in Colorado and although it was primarily a blue photograph, the painting turned out to be quite warm in tone. See Right. . . . . . .

We were surprised this last week to have some RV friends come through our town to visit. We are always thankful to have Rose and Mike, the first of our Rockport, Texas friendships that we made on those memorable winters down on the gulf, be here in Mesa where they also have a winter home. And then we got a call from Renita and Mark, the second pair of friends we made at the same rv park down in Rockport and who we have since met up with on the trail, come for four days this last week. But then we got a call from Nancy and Jim, another couple that we have met up with out on the road and our third friendship from down in Rockport who called to say they were staying here in Mesa until the first of January. Well we had to have our 2nd Biennial Rockport RV Reunion and it has been so great to see everyone all at the same time. Everyone has been busy with many different things; Rose and Mike have become grandparents to Charlotte, Jim and Nancy have finally completed all 48 states and have gone up in a balloon in Albuquerque, and Mark and Renita are finally turning those rocks into gold, well almost.... they are making the most extraordinary jewelry and becoming quite successful marketing it as well. In addition to our reunion dinner, we also have been out visiting Organ Stop Pizza and heading out to Tortilla Flats for the scenery and the burgers. In the above photos you can see Mark, Allan, Nancy, and Jim looking out at the Bighorn Sheep (see below) and then in the lower photo is Renita and Mark checking out the scenery.

Still In Chama

This post is to let everyone know that we are still alive and well out here in Chama, NM. I feel like I need to write something to keep the blog going, even though nothing much is happening. On the 4th of July we had barbequed chicken and a salad, then as it got dark, we walked up near the office to a small meadow and watched the fireworks shot off at the fairgrounds about 1 mile away. It is interesting how uninteresting fireworks can be when there is no sound and smoke to go with the sparkles in the air.

Each day here in Chama starts off in the same way. Allan takes the dogs out and makes a small campfire where he drinks his coffee. I stay inside (away from the mosquitos) to drink my coffee and check our friends blog or write a posting for my blog. Then we have breakfast and start painting till about noon. After lunch we read, nap, or paint. Sometimes we take a drive, and a few days ago we took Hwy 17 all the way to Antonito, CO where we had lunch at a New Mexican Cafe before turning around and coming back. On the way over to Antonito we turned off on a forest service road to check out a lake up on top of the pass and there were already many fishermen who had gotten there before us. This view of the lake is above 10,000 feet but the weather was warm and the mosquitos were swarming like flies. The entire drive was extremely beautiful with one green vista after another, creeks bubbling along, aspens flanking the spruce forests, and craggy rock formations....but for some reason, the camera does not seem to capture what we see, only getting small pieces of the view at a time. The wildflowers were everywhere but they were all tiny as the altitude was so high and their season was so short. Next week we will be heading over to Durango for a few days before we continue on over to Oregon where we plan to spend the month of August.

Around Chama

Here in Chama we are just kicking back, doing a little painting, cooking up some Green Chile Stew, and reading all the books that we purchased in the used book stores back home. The bird feeder is getting a lot of attention and we have seen Black Headed Grosbeaks, Brewers Blackbirds, White Chested Nuthatches, Stellar Jays, and Lewis'es Woodpeckers along with the usual doves and finches. The woodpecker just can't get enough of the suet and he is a constant visitor all day long. He chases off any of the other birds that might have the audacity of coming near his feeder. The little chipmunks even watch out for him.

We took a trip up to Pagosa Springs one day to check out Wolf Creek Pass and it was more daunting than we remembered. We are probably going to give Creede a pass and develop an alternate plan for the remainder of the summer. The trip up to Pagosa Springs was a beautiful drive of developed ranches covered in green grass with the Colorado Rockies in the background. (above right)

Another day we drove south to Abiquiu for lunch at the Abiquiu Inn and along the way we took some photos of the Ghost Ranch area of Georgia O'Keefe. She had purchased one of the cabins and a few acres from Arthur Pack, a naturalist who ran a dude ranch. Her cabin is not seen from the road and is not available to the public but is situated below the outcroppings of the mountains in this photo to the above left. From her cabin, Georgia could look out at the Pedernal Mountain to the south and it became one of her favorite subjects to paint.

Chama, New Mexico

On Saturday we headed north out of Taos and turned west onto NM Hwy 64. We drove over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and past all of the Earthships dug into the Taos Plateau. We crossed green valleys, aspen groves, and stands of pine before we dropped down into the Chama Valley. Turning north on NM Hwy 84/64 we found our way to the Sky Mountain RV Resort just 3 miles south of the small town of Chama, home to the Cumbres-Toltec Railroad. We got settled into our site which is not by the river but is up against a wood filled with singing birds. We set up our bird feeders, had some lunch and set out to explore the town. Chama is very small with a combined grocery/hardware store, a couple of cafes, and various small businesses, some of which do not look like they are open any longer. We traveled on out the north side of town and up Hwy 17 which is the route of the railroad and ends up in Antonito, CO about 50 miles away. The views were incredibly beautiful and when we got to Cumbres Pass we stopped to take a photo. Allan is standing at the summit of Cumbres Pass at 10,000+ feet but it looks like he is standing at the edge of a golf course. We turned around and headed back to Chama, saving Antonito for another day. Yesterday, we hung around the site, cooking and painting. Allan rode his bike into town and bought a $3.00 axe to chop wood for our firepit but when he gave the first chop, the blade of the axe broke off. He then headed back to return the Chinese axe and get the more expensive USA axe for $12.00. This axe worked well and he had a fire going in no time. Today we painted for a while in the morning while I started a Green Chile Stew for dinner and then made sandwiches which we took with us to Heron Lake for a picnic lunch. Heron Lake and nearby El Vado Lake are State Parks and there is camping available, some with W&E. But they did not have much for picnic people so we just pulled into an empty campsite and had our lunch looking out at the lake. Before we headed home we followed the road to the end and saw where the Chama River (right) flowed into the top end of El Vado Lake. There was a boat ramp there and it looked possible to launch the kayaks if we decide to go up the Chama River. The lakes did not look that kayak friendly and were windy to boot.

D. H. Lawrence Ranch and Monument

Yesterday we headed up to the ranch where DH Lawrence lived with his wife Frieda and the English artist Dorothy Brett for several seasons prior to his death in 1930 while he was in Europe. He had been invited to stay here in Taos by Mabel Dodge who was instrumental in creating an artists community here in Taos in the early 1900's by encouraging East Coast artists and authors to come here and stay at her home. Many of these artists were completely taken with the area and stayed on. One of these was DH Lawrence. As he needed a quiet area to write, she let him use a cabin (above left)on a ranch she had purchased in what is now the Carson National Forest just north of Taos. It took us an hour to drive through Taos and up the mostly dirt road to this site and it probably was an all day trip for the Lawrences back in 1922. The cabin was in disrepair and Lawrence had to replace the roof but in spite of having no electricity or other amenities, he was able to be productive in his writing, producing a short novel (St. Mawr) and parts of the Plumed Serpent. He wrote everything in longhand at a bench under a tall pine tree (above right) in front of the cabin. At a later date when the Lawrences were not at the cabin, Mabel let Georgia O'Keefe stay there for a while. Georgia lay on the bench and looked up through the pine at the night sky and decided to paint "The Lawrence Tree" (above left). A print of this painting has been mounted under the tree and the original painting is in a museum back east. As Lawrence did not know how to type, Dorothy Brett typed the manuscript for him when she was not painting (Brett continued to live in the Taos area for the rest of her life and her paintings are in many of the local museums). Lady Brett lived in an even more primitive one room cabin (above right) near the animal shed where Lawrence had cows which he named and chickens which he fed. Lawrence wrote often how deeply the Taos air and landscape had touched his soul and he enjoyed interacting with the animals of the ranch and of the surrounding forest. After his death, Frieda returned from Europe with his ashes and created a monument (right and left) on the ranch where she mixed his ashes with the cement as she did not want Mabel Dodge to get them and scatter them, as Mabel and Dorothy wanted to do. To purchase the ranch she paid Mabel with Lawrence's handwritten manuscript of Sons and Lovers. After her death in 1956 she was buried in front of the monument. The cross and monument stone that you see in the above photo is her grave. His monument is inside the enclosure. The property was deeded to the University of New Mexico just prior to her death and they maintain it to this day.

Taos Museum Strolling

At the Fechin Museum we had purchased a 5 museum pass, so yesterday we headed out to the Hacienda de los Martinez, a walled enclosure built in 1804 which served as the home of the Martinez family and the final stop on the Camino Real trail from Mexico. Martinez was a trader and his caravans moved goods from New Mexico down to Mexico and returned with Mexican supplies. The walls were built of two foot thick adobe bricks and had no outside windows as many haciendas in the area were attacked by Indians. This was a stark and primitive existence and although the rooms were filled with old objects of the past such as looms for weaving, wooden plows, and cases of rifles/muskets....we did not linger. Outside there was a small creek and a group of plein aire painters were hard at work capturing the beauty of the area. They were working in all mediums; oil, watercolor, and even pastels. This is the second time we have seen plein aire since we have arrived in Taos as there was also someone at the farmers market capturing the scene in acrylics.

We then made our way into town to see the Harwood Museum which we had visited last year. The Harwood is the former home of the artist Burt Harwood and his wife. Harwood was one of the original Taos Artists. The main gallery is a permanent, rotating display of the art from the original Taos group of painters and the remainder of the galleries are exhibitions that are always different. Last year we saw the art of Dennis Hopper and this year there was an exhibit of Gene Kloss, an early printmaker. But we usually spend the most time in the main gallery where we try and absorb the techniques of the early Taos artists such as E. Martin Hennings. Hennings work is sold everywhere in this part of New Mexico and we have purchased several small cards of his work which is all we can afford. He captures the big skies and long open spaces perfectly as you can see in the painting above right. We also saw a pastel painting (left) by Andrew Dasburg which he painted in 1957. It is a winter scene looking west and it has elements of the more modern painters of the time, almost cubist. Definitely an abstract of the landscape. In 1957 there was not the selection of pastel colors that we have today, but he apparently only needed a small selection to indicate the freezing winter of the mesa.

And finally we walked up the street towards the plaza to visit the Ernest L. Blumenschein Home and Museum. For those of you who did not already know, it was the serendipitous car accident outside Taos in 1898 of Blumenschein and Bert Phillips, two artists who were heading to Mexico to paint. After being delayed in Taos, they determined to stay and became the nucleus of the Taos Artists who began coming from the East to join them. Blumenschein on one of his many trips to Paris, married a New York artist who had had comparable success to Mary Cassatt in the Paris Salon. While in Paris, she worked as a successful illustrator of books and magazines to provide an income for them. After the death of their first child, she accompanied him to Taos where they made their home. Although he went on to become a famous and successful artist (see one of his paintings above right), she mostly gave up her painting to raise Helen, their second child and create a home where all of the Taos Artists gathered in the evenings. Later in her life, she finally went back to painting. One of her illustrations is to the right, and one of her later paintings is above left. An interesting side note is that although their daughter Helen was also trained in art in Paris and had two artistic parents, she never managed to acquire the expertise to become successful. This was the same thing that happened to Nicolai Fechin's daughter as well. She also gave a try to painting and woodcarving but ended up as a dance instructor.

An Artful Sunday In Taos

Sunday was a day to hang around the rig, do some cooking, and finally start a painting of one of the many photos we had been taking. Allan got the Carne Adovado started, which had been marinating for the past 24 hours, and headed outside with his pastels. He set up his pastel box on the picnic table and started laying on the colors he had preselected for a painting of the Chimayo Santuary bell tower.



While Allan worked on his painting his two loyal friends hung out with him, waiting patiently for him to finish so that they could go for their walk. Actually Alice is anxious for the walk but Ned is finding it hard to go far anymore and would prefer to just layabout in his bed. He says that getting old is hell. We couldn't agree more. While they were outside, I was inside with my own painting on the easel. I had chosen a Truchas scene, late in the afternoon when the clouds were gathering for their afternoon thunderstorm. After looking at so many excellent paintings in the galleries of Santa Fe, I decided to try a different technique of using more neutral tones. It is interesting to me that although I set out to do something different, the painting still is emerging in my former style anyway.


Around noon, we both set aside our paintings and concentrated on finishing up our Sunday Dinner. We had acquired some English Peas at the Farmers Market and we quickly shelled them and started them cooking. Then we took the fresh lettuces that we had also gotten at the same time as the peas, and made a beautiful salad. Sometimes...nothing beats home cooking. What a great day.

Taos Art Museum in the Fechin House

Here in Taos, we are staying at the Taos Valley RV Park. The park is completely full and it appears that some of the occupants are here for the rodeo next weekend as there are many horse trailers among the 5th wheels and motor homes. This event combined with the 4th of July on the following weekend must be the reason that I had such a hard time negotiating a time frame for our visit. There are also many river rafters who stay here while they raft the white water of the Rio Grande during the day. It is a popular park located a couple of miles south of the old town and the summer prices reflect its popularity. We are paying about $35/night with discounts for FHU. The park is dotted with small trees, sagebrush, and chamisa...which gives a wonderful fragrance to the whole area and each site has a picnic table and barbeque.
Saturday morning we headed off to see the Taos Art Museum which is located in the historic home of Nicolai Fechin, a Russian artist who relocated to the US following the Bolshevik revolution. But as we were traveling through the Plaza district, we spotted the Farmers Market and stopped in to see if we could find some good produce. We managed to find some delicate leaf lettuces and some fresh english peas. Here the peas are just starting to produce and we had finished our own crop of peas grown in my brother's garden 2 months ago. The climate always has the last say in these matters. However, the climate had nothing to do with the delicious bran muffins we found, loaded with apricot and apple chunks....so we added a few of those to our bag of goodies, along with some homemade granola.




Then we weaved our way through the plaza over to the Fechin Home and Garden. Fechin had purchased a two story adobe home which he then began to remodel, adding extensions to the home and enlarging some of the interior spaces. He painted during the day and then in the evening hours he worked on the house. He was a simple living man who enjoyed gardening, cooking, and his art. He had trees brought down from the forest to be planted around his property and many of them are still there with a beautiful garden situated around them. His own father was a woodcarver of Russian icons and he had learned this art when he was young, this skill combined with the architectual classes he had taken in art school gave him the ideas of reworking the adobe (see the fireplace above) into different forms and carving all of the doors, lintels, furniture, posts, niches, and cupboards from his own hand. The short swinging doors between the dining room and living room (photo above right) were carved freehand after making a rough drawing of the design he wanted. He used hand woodcarving tools and they are now a part of the National Cowboy Museum. There were no power tools used for any of the woodwork on the home. In the photo below right, he created a sunroom on the second floor with his own design for the windows. Every door in the home was hand carved including the doors of each cupboard and closet. His daughter was small in stature and he designed special furniture for her as can be seen in the two small chairs in the sunroom. He even designed all of the metal work for the home creating original lamp fixtures, latches, and hinges. He worked on the house for only six years when he was divorced and he moved to Santa Monica with his daughter. (An interesting aside....the Santa Monica home was purchased by Serge Bongart, another Russian artist after Fechin's death. Serge gave art lessons and Urania Christy-Tarbet, the founder of the International Association of Pastel Societies took lessons from Serge.....Allan and I then attended one of her demos at the IAPS convention where she encouraged us to look at the Russian artists in the use of color. Isn't everyone connected by only 6 steps?) Fechin's daughter returned to the house after her mother passed away at the age of 90 and began to arrange for the home to become a showpiece of her father's work. It became a Historic Site and then later the Taos Museum of Art acquired it to display not only Fechin's art but all of the collection of the Taos Artists from the early 1900's. Fechin's self portrait is to the left.





After walking the garden and peering in at Fechin's studio, we walked back through the plaza to Antonios for lunch. Of course after lunch we had to try the desserts and Allan had the flan while I had a tres leches cake. My cake was so huge that I could only eat half of it, so we brought the rest home in a doggie bag. Allan is giving this flan a first place for presentation but it only moved into second place for taste and texture.

Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe

On our last day in Santa Fe, we decided to go all the way to the top of Canyon Road and visit the Randall Davey Audubon Center. This is a lovely spot at the very end of the canyon above the reservoir and covered with trails. We walked a one mile loop trail through chamisa, sagebrush, wildflowers, and even grasses that were blooming, but the only birds that we saw were blue jays and hummingbirds. We did see a horned toad who was not happy with the intrusion and took off right after I got his photo.

We also walked around the home and gardens of Randall Davey who was an artist who had studied and travelled with Robert Henri and also studied with Charles Hawthorne, both of the Ashcan School of Art. Davey moved his family to this home and studio in Santa Fe although he continued to travel to art schools back east where he taught art. In the photo upper right, his studio is to the left of the front gate and the home is to the right. Davey came from a middle class background and became an artist against the wishes of his father and although he had moderate success as an artist, he continued to have to earn a living to have his polo ponies and fast cars. After his death, his home and gardens were donated to the Audubon Center and although his gardens were filled with bird feeders, we did not see many birds as they probably come in the morning or evening and we were there close to noon.

For lunch we traveled back down Canyon Road to El Farol and sat on the patio and order tapas for lunch. After eating every last bit of the halibut with balsamic arugula, pork tenderloin with roasted figs, sweet red peppers with feta, mushrooms in sherry sauce, and deep fried avocados with salsa....we proceeded to order dessert. Of course Allan had to have flan, but this was the all time best ever flan he had ever had. It was a rosemary-lemon infused custard nestled in caramel sauce. He tried to eat it very slowly to make it last. I chose a Raspberry Panna Cotta that was delicious and wolfed it down, it was so good. It was a fabulous lunch to end our stay in Santa Fe. We have had so many good meals here. The Pink Adobe, The Blue Corn Cafe, El Farol, The Pantry, and the Chimayo Inn. We will have to come back again next year and try some more.