Man of the Hour

Cuba at San Antonio

If Cuba was the star of the Monument show, and he certainly was, a headshot is fitting for this post.  That's all folks.

Click on the image to see every pore of his weathered visage.

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The Immel two for one sale Saturday night at Wilder Nightingale was quite the party. Big thanks to all that attended the Peggy and Steve duet aka "Monument." Thanks, too, for all the wonderful comments. We’re glad everyone enjoyed our inaugural two person exhibition.

While we had very different takes on the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument folks seemed to feel that Peggy’s paintings and my photographs coexisted quite effectively.

Thanks to my dear friend the photographer Daryl Black who was in attendance with her husband weaver Fred Black I have at least one photograph that shows a sliver of the festivities. This one is yours truly with the ever stylish Thea Swengel and her bon vivant painter spouse John Farnsworth. In the background looms the star of the evening, the immortal Victor “Cuba” Hernandez. Cuba was, as far as I could tell, “the most interesting man in the world” Saturday night.

Steve, Thea, John and Cuba just behind .

Cuba and Daddy

White Sage and Borregos

Winter Dance

Cuba and Perros

Thanks everybody.

Corral to Corral

It’s a good thing I called to check on the sheep. Andrew Abeyta told me he’d be moving the critters back to the Taos Plateau the very next day. That was April 30. So I rousted myself at dark o’clock and was nosing around Mogote by 8.

The first day of the walk back was one hell of a lot easier than January's slog through shin deep mud. Then of course I was driving this time. We got as far as a rickety corral in the village of San Antonio. I couldn’t be part of day two's  festivities due to pressing matters that shall go unexplained. That’s mostly because I don’t remember why I couldn’t continue. I do know Cuba is encamped on one of side or the other of US 285 near San Antonio Mountain as we speak. I just have to find the boy before June 16 when he heads for the high mountains.

The following show the gist of the day which began in a corral in Mogote and wound up in a corral in San Antonio. Write your own damn story.

You get the picture.

Mother Roads

I'm fascinated by US Highway 285, the road that cuts a diagonal course across New Mexico from the Texas border to Colorado just south of Antonito. It's is on my endless list of photography projects though I haven’t explored for its own sake in several years. Many of the sheep herding images on the Taos Plateau were taken within a properly inflated football throw of 285, a connection I didn't make till yesterday morning.

Where 285 crosses I-40 east of Albuquerque lives an iconic truck stop called Cline’s Corners. I don’t know if that’s the name of an actual town or just the name of the business. I do know that it’s a picture post card of Eisenhower’s interstate highway system.  

Cline's Corners

Then a little farther south 285 enters the metropolis of Vaughn which like most rural New Mexico towns wouldn't exist were it not for the BNSF railroad.

Vaughn

More sheep will follow shortly. I followed the critters half way back to New Mexico on April 30 but haven't had initiative to wade through 1,000 images for the best half dozen. The one below was begging to be seen, however.

Penco lambs

If this doesn't make you a vegetarian there's no hope for you.

Ripples and Ridges

When we visited the Spring Harvest Festival at Tierra Wools in beautiful downtown Los Ojos I thought that I'd grab some folksy shots of sheep being sheared and weavers at their looms. And while that was there for the taking it was the rippled and bent corrugated roof of Tierra Wools that captured my fancy. Got a thing about the angles, shadows and edges that the low brow metal reveals.

Tierra Wools is the soul of tiny Los Ojos which sits just north of Tierra Amarilla on the way to Chama. It's a worthy day trip and absolutely brimming with character. While you're there check out my friend Fred Black's extraordinary rugs. Or see them at www.bigsageartisans.com.