Captivated

I love that Don got caught in the reflection of this painting ...

entitled Taos by Dan Namingha.

Our day had begun at Taos Pueblo

https://taospueblo.com/ ...

but the air was hazy and we were asked not to take photos of the residents without permission, so I only took one other picture ...

But we did come away with some hand-crafted memory pieces, chief among them being this cottonwood drum ...

After lunch, and before our ill-fated journey to the Rio Grande Gorge, we went to the Millicent Rogers Museum

http://www.millicentrogers.org/

which had a phenomenal collection, well-presented, as with this historical weaving ...

as well as this weaving in progress ...

Don was on the lookout for some particular artists, so we were gratified that the MRM permitted photography (I always ask).

We found two by Tony Abeyta ...

this one glass-fronted which reflected glare unfortunately ...

We also found one by Fritz Scholder (about whom there will be more in a future post) ...

Unfortunately, I neglected to snap a picture of the pottery process display that detailed Maria Martinez's methodology, but I was quite taken with this bronze depiction of her ...

Likewise, I have but one image of the many, many pieces of pottery ...

We left well-sated, then headed out to meet our destiny on the rim ...

Addendum:

I went to the Wimberley thrift store this morning and found three issues of American Indian Art Magazine (which Don mentioned liking when we were in Taos). It was only when I got home that I realized Maria Martinez was featured in two of the three ...

Time well-spent

Last week with P was gently spent, and naps afforded some time for stitching ...

This was a thrift store find, originally white linen that I overdyed with Prairie tea (Croton) gathered in our yard a couple of years ago. The plackets needed to be tacked down, so I started some detached back stitching with variegated Valdani #12 pearl cotton last month ...

but as so often happens, I liked the back better ...

so the first pass got ripped out and replaced with inside-out detached backstitching. One side done, one to go.

And no, I haven't forgotten our travels need to be documented further ... all in good time.

On the go ...

One of the good things about grandparenting is being able to help out when little ones are sick and parents have to go to work (a stress I remember all too well from our own working parent days). So we’ve been spending lots of time with P this week and will return to home and blogging next week.

Ranchos de Taos

We stayed just south of Taos proper, at a B&B in Ranchos de Taos ...

There we found tranquil beauty ...

and shelter from the sun ...

But best of all, we were close by the plaza where the San Francisco de Asis church has been the subject of Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams, among others ...

getting close enough to see this is not faux adobe ...

Then wandered on to "shop" at Chimayo Trading del Norte 

http://chimayotrading.com/

that was more of a museum than a gallery  (which is to say, far out of our price range) ...

and the Two Graces gallery next door 

http://www.twograces.com/

which was, by contrast, well within our means ...

Two boxes of metal later, it was clear we had fallen hook, line and sinker. 

Getting there

I'll have more to say about my favorite thrift store linen shirt soon. Suffice it to say for now that it is little more than shreds ...

But I've got some serious walking back to do first. I mean really ... how is it that we left for Taos almost four weeks ago and I'm just now getting to blogging about it?

Maybe because I took so many pictures that it's hard to sort through them all?

I mean, seriously. These are just the ones taken from the car on the way there ...

Although I must admit there was a lot to see in 776 miles of driving. I even pecked out some of the interior monologue that ran through my brain during Don's turns at the wheel. A crazy stream of consciousness threaded with my own personal soundtrack and the songs Don played on his CD mashup ...

Country Road (James Taylor)

Tuesday, July 31

7:25 Amarillo bound, 501 miles

GPS ETA 3:20, rain on the radar

That’ll change ...

Purgatory to the Devil’s Backbone

Follow the River Road along the Blanco, past Luckenbach to 290 (a good stopping point)

Wide open spaces (Dixie Chicks)

Then through Fredericksburg, accelerate to 75 on an undivided two-lane highway and cruise thru Grit and Hext (tho they aren’t more than signs along the way) ... none to see but goats

Shine a different way (Patty Griffin)

Stop in Menard (meh-NARD or MEN-erd rhymes with Leonard?) we’ll never know ... the town is dead or dying

Abandoned gas stations and dry creeks 

Summertime thing

The Hill Country begins to flatten, but in the distance, earthen tables lead to musings about buttes, mesas and plateaus 

Then there was lunch in Sweetwater ... the less said the better

Wind, oil and cotton fields on the flat land ... tractor wakes of red dirt dust ... smoke seen from miles away ... the smell of petroleum ... silos ... Georgia O’Keeffe’s clouds seen from below throw welcome  patches of shadow on parched earth ... irrigation fields leave literal crop circles ... and the rail road runs through it ... Idalou ... cattle dotting far-flung fields, the land so flat their backs define the horizon 

Two miles to Happy ... the road shimmers as cars far ahead appear to rise above an improbable river of highway ... a dust devil twists in the sun, flinging soil toward the sky

Palo Duro canyon a missed opportunity and a lure for another day 

And still the road goes on ... steadily rising to meet the Colorado Plateau

Morning glory (Jimmy Daddy Davis)

Wednesday, August 1 

7:07 63 and breezy under a waning gibbous moon

275 miles to Taos

The land even flatter, the horizon even farther ... wind farms as far as the eye can see 

And, seemingly in an instant, the land changes to scrub and red sand

Mesalands 

The dashlights glow white as we climb and climb and climb, ears popping 

Watch it shine (Walt Wilkins)

"They say there’s iron in these mountains ...

Sunlight through the heavens

Watch it shine"

Go wherever you wanna go (Patty Griffin)

Tall pines and mountains surround us ... elk crossing signs make us cautious about what we wish for

Mora

Falling rock and cow crossing signs as we follow switchbacks up into the Sangre de Cristos

The mountains rise straight up and while I’m not asking Don to slow down, my heart feels like it’s trying to find its way out of my chest

Big horn sheep crossing?

Leaves shimmer ... aspens?

A troubling sign of what’s ahead ... an  S-curve sign standing on its head ... the closest I come to “please slow down” is a comment on the horse carrier ahead of us “he’s from here ... he’s braking for a reason”

That and my foot is about to go thru the dash

Seriously, who rides bikes here?

So it went ...

Lastly (if you've actually made it this far), a confession. In all the years I've flown and looked out the window of the plane (okay, not that often do I actually get the window seat), I have wondered about this ...

And only this past month, as we drove down the road, did I realize the circles of green are formed by irrigation systems that pivot around a central water source.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out. Always I am learning ...

That's better

I'm happier with this version of the waxing quarter moon (aka half moon) for page 7 of Moon Myth ...

Both halves of the black sky are Deb Lacativa dyed damasks, and I love that one trends red while the other trends green ...

The starry field is not-so-invisible basting worked in silk. The moon is cut from the selvage edge of a handwoven placemat.

Of course, this isn't exactly what I had planned. I had auditioned these pieces of cloth ...

and pieced them together ...

then invisibly basted them down with the expectation that I would reverse appliqué to reveal both white and a mottled "dark half" of the moon ...

But then I had second thoughts, confirmed by my in-house consultant, that it might be best to reverse appliqué only the half over the moon. So I unstitched, cut and reworked ...

with the result shown at the beginning of this post. 

Phew. I've almost reached the half-way point with seven out of sixteen pages complete. Now I have more bases to make and more pages to compose. 

I think I can, I think I can ...

One step forward and one step back ...

Note: You can view the Moon Myth pages sequentially by going to the sidebar page FOLLOW THE PROGRESS OF MOON MYTH and clicking the link entitled Draft of the most current images.

Page 6 of Moon Myth ...

with some cloudy blue skies and pure white damask, both courtesy of Deb Lacativa who responded awesomely to my request for SunMoonStars cloth ...

and likewise Deb's "dirty threads" seen here encircling the reverse appliqué edge. 

As we drove to Austin yesterday, I spotted the same kind of cloud edging that I was going for ...

albeit a bit more artfully done by Mother Nature.

Unfortunately, I'm less than thrilled with progress on Page 7 ...

So my solution is to cover it up with text rather than try to to rip it all out (and fortunately, I have more of Deb's beautiful dark blue cloth to work with) ...

Finally, I haven't forgotten Hazel's query about how I worked my crossed stitch edging a while back. So, for those who might be interested, here's a step by step.

After pre-cutting a white damask crescent and lining it up behind the cloudy blue cloth which had an erasable marker circle drawn on it, I invisibly basted both to the light blue cloth. Then I cut along the edge of the marked circle, creating a reverse appliqué ...

Of course, I forgot to take process shots of the first step, so what you see is the step where I am wrap stitching the edge of the crescent moon in leftover wedding handkerchief silk ...

After securing the moon's edge, I took a single strand of Deb Lacativa floss and began to stitch counterclockwise around the edge of the cut circle, using the invisible baste stitches as a guide ...

Note: in the earlier version, the invisible baste stitches were larger detached back stitches, and I intentionally varied the distance of the stitches from the edge of the circle  ...

 After completing the first pass ...

I reversed direction ... 

going clockwise ...

to complete the edge ...

As I commented to Hazel, I enjoyed this far more than blanket stitching, but for sure the raw edge will be far more prone to fray. That's okay by me for this application, but might not be appropriate for others. Certainly, a turned appliqué edge on the outer circle could precede the crossed stitch edge for more stability.