Eroded Values

On a parched hillock between Encino and Vaughn sat an adobe ruin and a leafless tree punctuating an unforgiving plain; the tree's roots exposed by decades of torment.

No more breakfast

US Highway 285 enters New Mexico near Antonito, Colorado and heads south through Santa Fe where it bends to the southeast through barren plains and threadbare railroad towns before entering Texas south of Carlsbad.   The dusty and dying railroad towns, scarcely more than sidings really, called to me a couple of weeks back.  Encino and Vaughn wouldn’t exist if not for the BNSF Railroad and as it is are on life support.   At the edge of what’s left of Encino a school bus gazes forlornly into the sage and mesquite.   The school now abandoned.  The last café shuttered.  No more 99 cent breakfast.

Inky Shadows

I got several calls and emails from folks who were particularly enthusiastic about Long Shadow, last week's post.  So here's another Sketch of Winter replete with shadows.  This looks to me like an Aspen Rorschach test.

Long Shadow

And while we're thinking about shadows, here's Long Shadow from my evolving Sketches of Winter series.  In the series objects are depicted as line drawings on featureless white paper.