A Year in the Life, Part 4

Over the past few weeks, I've been sharing a recent project that incorporated a variety of unfinished sketches and ideas. Today, we'll wrap up this series by taking a look at the finished prints.

Visually, the pairing of southwestern still life and landscape channels some of the more surreal work of Georgia O'Keeffe, what with the sycamore seeds seeming to float within the color field. I definitely had works such as From the Faraway, Nearby in mind when I was working on these.

Georgia O'Keeffe, From the Faraway, Nearby, 1937, oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/59.204.2/

Our own collection also provided more immediate examples of southwestern Surrealism, with the most overt being Life and Death by Barbara Latham. Even more than the O'Keeffe, this work addresses my dual interest in pairing natural and human-made materials in the same composition. Whereas I used yarn and seeds, Latham incorporated lace and wood, also against a similarly abstracted background. While I didn't have this painting directly in mind when I was working on my own prints, it, along with Latham's other Surrealist works, has definitely influenced me.

Barbara Latham, Life and Death, 1940s, egg tempera on panel. Roswell Museum and Art Center.

Artistic influences aside, however, why did I feel compelled to make these? Let's take a look at the individual prints as I tell you my reasons for doing so:

In the most basic sense, these prints are about highlighting the beauty of your local surroundings. It's always easy to imagine other places being better than where you are, and especially in Roswell I hear plenty of complaining about the lack of interesting landscapes or vegetation. True, it's a spare landscape, but there's plenty of beauty and color to be found if you know where to look, whether it's in a single wildflower or a vibrant sunset. In short, this is my retort to the grass being greener. Your experience of a place depends on what you put into it, and while I won't deny that I miss lush settings such as Vermont, I appreciate Roswell's distinct pockets of beauty.

There was also very much a time issue behind the prints. As an artist, I make work based on my immediate surroundings. This manifests most obviously in sketching, but it also appears in prints, paintings, and ceramics. When I'm living in a particular place, my work becomes immersed in it. Once I leave that place, however, I'll rarely revisit it in my art.

For me, living in the past is a waste of time and the best you can do is keep moving forward. As a result, I've done very little with countless sketches made in Vermont, Dallas, Wyoming, Europe, and other places because I'm not there anymore. They no longer reflect my life as it is experienced in the present, so I'd rather focus on what's around me now than try to recapture something that is gone. 

In that sense then, I wanted to make these prints because I knew I wouldn't once I left New Mexico. I enjoyed making the original sketches, and I wanted to see them used in a finished project. As much as I saw potential in them, however, I knew I wouldn't do anything with them once I left Roswell. It was a now or never kind of moment, and in light of all the other unfinished ideas I'd been wrapping up, it was the next logical project to complete.

These prints were about more than checking off unfinished ideas, though. The more I worked on them, I also realized it was about reconciling the past.

As I've alluded on this blog before, I went through a rough period in my personal life around 2015, and it strongly affected my perspectives on Roswell. In short, I had developed a somewhat negative view of the place. A major reason why it took me three years to really start working with the color field studies is because I didn't really want my work to reflect my surroundings at the time. Instead, I focused on still life paintings and dinosaur ceramics, works that were less tied to a specific sense of place.

Time has a weird way of healing things, however, and I realized I didn't want to leave my impressions of Roswell unresolved. I've had some fantastic opportunities here, and the truth is, I'm in an infinitely better place now professionally and personally than when I arrived here, so my time here has ultimately been very positive. It only seemed fair, then, to go back and reconsider these sketches. After all, I was enthusiastic enough about them when they were made, so surely there must be some potential left.

So I started going through them again, and as I did, I found myself recalling all the good memories that I had experienced while making them. This was especially true of the color field studies. I found myself remembering the soft tickle of fish as they nibbled at my toes at Bottomless Lakes, or the vibrant colors of the wildflowers I found blooming alongside the road on my morning bike rides. I recalled the quiet awe I felt while watching a meteor shower on a cold autumn morning, or the gentle excitement in watching a shrub's colors change with the seasons. Revisiting these sketches reminded me that I've had a lot of wonderful experiences in Roswell, and that while it hasn't always been easy living here, there have been a lot of beautiful moments. Against the backdrop of my commute to the Museum, to my work as a curator, I've been able to do some wonderful things and visit some marvelous places, all within my own backyard, so to speak.

And paradoxically, perhaps, in going through these sketches and remembering the spectrum of experiences I've had here, I was able to let them go. As I get ready for a new chapter of my life, I don't want to feel encumbered by my past experiences here. I don't expect those memories to disappear of course, but by giving more attention to the positive recollections, I feel I've balanced out my impressions here more fully. 

It only seems fitting then, that the series ends with a dawn scene. As a new days arises in this scene, so I feel I can start a new part of my life without feeling weighted down by my past experiences here. The slate hasn't been wiped clean, so to speak, our experiences shape us throughout our lives, after all, but knowing that I'll be going somewhere free of the reminders of my life here is liberating. As much as I have appreciated and enjoyed working at the Roswell Museum, making these prints has helped me realize how much I'm looking forward to moving on from it as well.

So here's to honoring the past while embracing new beginnings.