Human connection to this landscape runs incredibly deep. Artifacts found within the caldera have been carbon-dated to 11,000 years ago, proving its use dates back to prehistoric times. Oral histories record that the area drew the ancestors of the Jemez, Zia, Santa Clara, and San Ildefonso pueblos.
On the Road in New Mexico: When Los Alamos was a Ranch School
Founded in 1917 on the isolated Pajarito Plateau, the Los Alamos Ranch School was designed as an “outdoor school” to combine a rigorous college preparatory curriculum with intense physical activity in the wilderness.
The Miracle That Is Kathleen Ramsay, Part 1
Ramsay’s wild patients represent the untamed world we’re running out of space for. So she takes them deeper into the mountains and forests, back to where she hopes the sweep of time may forget them.
The Miracle of Kathleen Ramsay, Part 2
I was there when she handed a rehabilitated Great Horned Owl back to the man who had saved it, ready to be set free into the forest where it was found. I was present for the release of three fat, healthy bears—overhearing a Game and Fish officer note with immense satisfaction that “Ramsay always releases fat bears.”
Is There More to Tell? An Artist’s Journey from Realism to Abstraction
A reader presented an idea this morning. She asked if I would consider incorporating some of my paintings into the blog and talk about my process. I’ve touched on it in some earlier posts, but her question stirred something else inside me. I took this with me out on our morning’s walk just ahead of a storm. Was there more to tell?
Why Aren’t My Paintings Pretty For God’s Sake?
There is a real story to tell–about where I was as an artist before I came to Truchas and after Truchas. It is a story of fences and horses and grasses and how they changed me.
So You Think Artists Are Lazy?
I didn’t paint for 26 years after college, where I was a painting and drawing major and a printmaking minor. Coming back to painting took a tremendous commitment and no small amount of effort.