Georgia O'Keeffe and the Light

Not that I had the guts to sit out "No Country for Old Men", but there a shots of landscape in that film where you can feel the wind blowing and each sage bush stands clear and the sky removes you from your seat. That is how the landscape sits here. Light everywhere and the beginning and end of days are well marked.In the valley the cottonwoods cut a swathe of yellow while the mesas are dotted with juniper and low pine.

On our way into Taos last week the day was empty and the desert was blue and grey and wind heaved our car. Ghostly earthships emerged out of the plain, wind turbines spinning, windows and solar panes worshipping the sun's southerly
travels. Nights are crisp with each passing bringing Orion higher above our heads and the Big Dipper lower in the heavens. Days herald clear with solitary clouds threading their way above the mesas, suddenly find their way into UFO shapes for which Roswell and Area 51 lay dubious claim. So true are the days that Georgia O'Keeffe could scarce staunch the flow of paint in attempting to call the hours of each day. It was a happy few hours we spent wandering about the Santa Fe gallery of her work, looking at her vivid reds and raucous florals.She moved here from New York, tired of too much green and work needing fresh impetus, spending her last 50 years here, inspiring a legion of artists looking for their muses amdist the mesas.

It is good to be here. We have stopped on a farm about
an hour's drive from Santa Fe. We are workers. We till, hoe,
pluck, fold pipes, build greenhouses and also wander around in circles. We generally delight in the ordered bliss of a shower and an oven that bakes bread and a cat brushing up against your leg. (Last night an owl took an interest in one of the farm's cats and then sat defiantly on the fence as one of us moved closer, before floating off into the dusk). And of course we listen and watch the fields as the sun ends a working day.