Top of the World

The view from 10,500 feet. That's the sloping from of San Antonio Mountain some 40 miles distant at the far right.

In the dark of night I repaired to the big corral on FR 87 just past San Antonio Mountain. There I was to meet Andrew Abeyta and ride with him to Cuba’s second camp and follow Cuba and 340 wooly critters to their high camp in the Cruces Basin Wilderness. This endeavor required a 2:45am wake-up call with no shave and breakfast on the road if I was to meet him at 4:30 sharp. By mid-afternoon I was paying the price. Old people aren’t meant to sleep four hours.

I hadn’t been at the corral for more than five minutes when headlights approached from US 285. I jumped in to Andrew’s pick-up and we began the tortuous trip to the Top of the World. This was the missing piece to the whole year of following the annual sheep ranching cycle You may recall that I couldn’t reach the high camp last year because of bridge construction on FR 87.

This is what it looks like at 5:30am when you've had no sleep.

Ready to leave camp two.

Leaving camp two

On the way to the Overlook

Arriving at the Overlook

Victor and Andrew at the Overlook. Those guys make me smile.

It was easy going getting to camp two but from there all bets were off. That is some rutted out mess. Andrew bottomed out at least three times but was able inch his vehicle and trailer out of the crater every time. Guy's a pro.

The journey was rewarded by a camp site they call the Overlook. From Cuba’s aerie is a view over a lush valley with a shimmering blue lake and beyond that mountains separating the Cruces Basin from Highway 64 between Tres Piedras and Tierra Amarilla.

Do I look fat in this picture, Andrew?

Van Gogh at Saint Paul's

Window in the entrance portico of Saint Paul Asylum

From May 1889 to May 1890 Vincent Van Gogh was a patient at the Saint Paul de Mausole Asylum outside Saint Remy just 12 miles north of his former home in Arles. Following his legendary ear cutting episode Van Gogh committed himself and picked adjoining cells so he’d have a studio. Well into the 1920s France was at the forefront of all medicine, the place where doctors from around the world came to learn the latest treatments for the gamut of afflictions including those of the mind. At least at Saint Paul's the humane treatment that the mentally ill received in late 19^th century France provides a stark contrast to the care of the mentally ill in 21st century America.

Van Gogh's cell.

For Van Gogh the stability of the regimented life in the hospital was a tonic and within those safe confines he painted 150 paintings that year. “I feel happier here with my work than I could be outside. By staying here a good long time, I shall have learned regular habits and in the long run the result will be more order in my life.” 

In September 1889 his Starry Night over the Rhone and The Irises were exhibited at the Société de Artistes Indepéndants and and in January 1890 six of his paintings were shown at the seventh exhibition of Les XX in Brussels. Sadly, just as he was gaining recognition his epileptic attacks became more frequent and, feeling that he was not improving, he vacated Saint Paul's for the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise.

Saint Paul's, now Clinique Van Gogh, is still an operating mental hospital, one that uses art as a therapeutic tool. On the day we visited an art show displayed the work of patients and therapists alike. 

Wander Saint Paul's sunswept grounds and signs show what Van Gogh saw when he painted during that prolific year in France’s Alpilles.

Two Weeks Two Shows

From the Fog Series are Presidio Pines #1, Canopy and Silent Running.

Silent Running, Putney, Vermont

What with preparing for The Eye of the Photographer that opened last week and The Presence of Light that opened Friday there hasn’t been a whole lot of photographing around the old homestead. It’s a weakness of mine, not photographing enough, and is exacerbated by single mindedness that has been described as a one track mind and the inability to multi-task. As I approach the midpoint between 70 and 80 I worry that I’ll run out my days in a slow crawl of consecutive projects.

Because I have little new to present I’m left with the options of image surfing, that is scouring thousands of old images for a hidden pearl, shooting something specifically for this week’s post or reporting on Friday’s gala opening. The show at Taos Town Hall has won out so this is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.

Posting about the show leads to a reprise of some photographs from the Fog Series, shown above, since that’s the work I contributed. And here's a look at some compatriots in the show. The first two are my cell, er wallmates.

David Farmer with his elegant silver gelatin prints.

Steve Bundy and his extraordinary landscapes.

Heather Sparrow's carefully staged black and whites.

The very same Heather Sparrow flashing some leg.

Then there's the obligatory shot by a dude taking a picture of dude taking a picture of a gorgeous blonde.

That's friend John Farnsworth capturing the captivating Thea Swengel with his ever present iphone.

And this.

Three seniors with Doug Yeager's images to your left and Heather Sparrow's to the right.

About 150 people turned out for The Presence of Light. That's a big audience in our little burg. Thanks and congratulations to Paul Figueroa for putting it together and to Pattie Traynor for curating the exhibition so masterfully.

The Eye of the Photographer

My partners in crime Cris Pulos, Bill Davis and Terry Thompson with his wife Linda at Wilder Nightingale Fine Art.

Cris Pulos, Robbie Steinbach and Bob Parker at David Anthony Fine Art.

Aftermath, the old four at Wilder Nightingale.

Saturday night the exhibition "The Eye of the Photographer"opened at Wilder Nightingale Fine Art and David Anthony Fine Art in beautiful downtown Taos. Thanks in part to our partnership with the Taos Center for the Arts to which a portion of the proceeds was donated, the ticketed pre-opening event was chock-a-block with art aficionados and the subsequent public opening was even busier. Thanks to all that attended.

Among the red dots were these images:

Cuba and his Mauser España

Andrew and Lamb

Under a Big Sky

The show continues through July 4. Please come take a gander.

I give up

When Fort Ord shut down it 1994 it was one of the largest base closures ever. The part facing US 101 and the Pacific became California State University-Monterey Peninsula while the rest was left to decay in the briny air blowing in from the ocean. A handful of wooden basic training barracks on the north end of the base have been converted to businesses but most, like my old crib, have withered away, a haven for the unseen.

Exploring the barracks it was clear that the closing had been haphazard and incomplete. Army manuals lay about and evidence of human habitation since the closure was everywhere. Graffiti was in florid display as if it’s destiny is to cover every vertical surface. 

A poem on a barracks door speaks achingly. "I can't get enough. Hoping that we never see the sun coming up. I give up." The dark wish asks us to write the ending.

Silvery, shimmery, glimmery

This is a detail of a gnarly pine atop 12,100 foot Frazer Mountain just north of Taos Ski Valley. Frazer Mountain is the crest of Northside at Taos Ski Valley, the Pattison family’s 1,200-acre aerie in the Sangre de Cristo Mountain that rise above the town.  The photograph reveals shimmering highlights that are reminiscent of a real silver gelatin print. That silveriness is something that digital prints often lack. The soft focus background or bokeh lends something ethereal and seems to bring the pine forward in the frame. 

Bokeh comes from the Japanese word “boke” and both are pronounced “boke eh”. Fittingly enough the word means blur or haze. Quiz later. 

Cylindrical and Tubular

Spiky versus smooth the Saguaro cactus and the grain silo aren’t often paired as an artistic statement. Both have been photographed and painted ad nauseum but together they're refreshing and new. Or so I say.

Saguaro, Saguaro National Park West

Silos, Sudan, Texas

Towering Saguaros and the even more towering silos of, say West Texas, attract the eye and belong in the pantheon of forms the we know and love. Each of us has a list of forms that appeal to us and I just bet there are some matches on our lists. My list, were I forced to disclose it, would include the aforementioned silos and the statuesque Saguaro and would be joined by the acoustic guitar, the racing bicycle, the female posterior, the lowly corral, the hood, grill and fender of a vintage car, trees in general and the wine bottle, itself cylindrical and tubular. What's on your list?

Tubular was once slang in the vein of "bitchin", "far out", "rad" and "grotty to the max." These are important phrases to bandy about at your next soiree.

Better late than never

Every decade or so I Google my old singing partner, John Ellsworth, the artist formerly known as John Acuff. Who knows what prompts me? Our duo broke up in the summer of 1960 when John wearied of couch surfing across Hollywood and West LA, fell in love with Becky something or other and retreated back to Arizona. It felt like the end of a friendship though I think we limped along musically a little while longer. Still the intensity and heady moments of our youthful half steps reverberate and the connection continues however frayed.

This is literally the only image I have of John and me singing. I honestly have no idea who the the guy on the right is. This a scan of a scan from the 1960 ASU yearbook .

Losing, as I saw it, our chance at stardom made me resentful, a sentiment that persisted for a while, if “a while” can describe 56 years of what might have beens. The big time was a long shot but I know “I coulda been a contender.”

After our conscious uncoupling we lost touch except for crossing paths as solo acts around Phoenix. The last that I remember was at the bandshell at Encanto Park where we each performed and felt the awkwardness of superficial pleasantries. John may remember it differently

I floated in and out of the folk music world into 1964, most notably opening for John Denver at the Lumber Mill in Scottsdale, Hoyt Axton at some bottle club in Salt Lake City and auditioning at The Abbey in Aspen when Buffy Sainte Marie was headlining. I didn’t get the gig and began to get the message. It ain’t happening.

When the Beatles landed in the spring of 1964 it was sayonara baby. I hung it up for good. 

For the longest time I tried to find a copy of our record, Once Upon a Time, and hoped that John might have it. Just as he and I would start a web conversation it would end the moment I asked if he had the record and if we would make me a copy. A lot of baggage comes with that little 45. In advanced middle age I’m more sympathetic than I once was about it. So, forget the vinyl, buddy. It’s not that important.

From our infrequent interchanges over the years I knew that John and Becky moved to her home state of Illinois, that he had divorced and remarried somewhere along the line and that he had become a lawyer near Chicago. That’s about it. Then came this week’s revelation. When I did the aforementioned search up popped John Ellsworth and, in pictures associated with that name, the lanky dude with whom I harmonized so sweetly appeared, still 6’4” or so he says and with all his hair. I didn’t expect that for some reason. But hey, I’ve got all of mine, too.

When I clicked on the pic a link to the author named John Ellsworth appeared and I discovered that my old singing partner has become a prolific crime novelist with 500,000 copies sold so far and a new volume published daily. Well, not quite. I tend to inflate.

This doesn’t completely surprise me. John was the wordsmith of the twosome.

His tale is aspirational. Becoming a best-selling author at our age boggles what's left of my mind and knocking out a new one every 40 days blows me away. And to think I’ve been talking about one simple book for a year and a half.

Intricacy and Luminance

Point Lobos at the top of California’s Big Sur and just below Carmel Valley is the stuff of photographic legend. On a handful of visits over more years than I care to disclose I have been skunked but for these kelp that are jewel-like in their intricacy and luminance.

Reach for the Red Bull

Not Amos Abeyta

In late February the sheep are shorn. It’s a communal effort where friends and neighbors gather to help out. For friends of young Amos Abeyta, the great grandson and namesake of the Amos Abeyta who started the whole shebang back in the twenties, there’s actual work to be done, work fueled by copious quantities of Red Bull, Bud Lite and eclairs.  For older volunteers there’s a lot more kibitzing than work.

The sheep come in the front door all insulated and round and exit the side door ten pounds lighter. That’s the weight of a typical fleece. Last year all survived the trauma of losing their wool but dozens were lost to the cold. This year one didn't make it, the apparent victim of a heart attack. It was a back to earth moment that underscored the uncertainty of life wrested from the land.

In the waning moments of World War Two, I was in my first year of kindergarten in Salinas, CA. That’s a turn of phrase I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard.  But rather than a case of sluggardly scholarship it was just that my single mom was a second grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary and they let me attend kindergarten as a four year-old. Those two rigorous years no doubt account for my stellar college career and numerous advanced degrees.

These photographs of downtown Salinas depict a withering city little changed from 70 years ago. They include the scene of my first movie at the Fox Theater, my first fresh strawberry pie from a café in nearby Alisal and is the place I learned how to hang a sweater from some high school kid in the neighborhood, the way I do it to this day. Some lessons really stick.

More importantly it was the place I had my first homemade flour tortilla rolled around melting butter, though I’m guessing it actually was margarine, wartime rationing considered.

The Cat with a Hat

My friend Lenny Foster, the estimable photographer and debonair man about town, had a birthday yesterday. These portraits from a couple of years back celebrate Lenny’s fifty some odd years on planet earth sharing his abundant talents and gentle spirit with everyone he meets.

The first two are the Lenny in our mind's eye. The other is a more severe and challenging version of his handsome self.

Feliz cumpleaños, Amigo

Nothing but shadows

I'm under water with images to process and prints to print. So today I'll rely on that old standby, the ever so lovely and evocative shadow. No flowery prose. No telling of stories. Just these nuggets.

The Eye of the Photographer: Four Guys Two Galleries

This doesn't happen very often. Meaning it's exceedingly rare that I post images from a same-day photo shoot. Today is that rare bird.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by David Mapes

This is the first of hourly reminders of the above referenced exhibition. It will run from May 28 through July 4 at both Wilder Nightingale Fine Art and DAFA, David Anthony Fine Art, in beautiful downtown Taos. Part of the proceeds will benefit our beloved TCA, the Taos Community Auditorium. Details to follow as the opening draws near. Mark it in your calendar please.

This morning we photographers namely Bill Davis, Cris Pulos, Terry Thompson and Steve Immel held a photoshoot to get worthy images for our press material. Here are but a few.

Bill Davis by Steve Immel

Cris Pulos by Steve Immel

Terry Thompson by Steve Immel

Steve Immel by Terry Thompson

And from a couple of years back this studio shot of the Greek fisherman himself.

Cris Pulos by Steve Immel

Around the world and then some

New York Marathon in 1982

This month I celebrate 40 years as a runner. Back in 1976 we had just moved from to New Canaan, Connecticut from Boston. I’d been promoted to vice president of a major fast food chain after having operated a small subsidiary for three years. My last act in office in my former gig was opening a new restaurant concept, a task fraught with 100 weeks and the loss of about twelve pounds to 168 pounds, the loss of which suited me and that I maintained for thirty years. This all happened at the apex of the running boom that started with Frank Shorter’s marathon win in Munich, Billy Rogers' victories in Boston and the publication of the book with a red cover and the taut and sinewy legs of one Jim Fixx. For you sports historians that was The Complete Book of Running. In March, all caught up in the furor and wanting to keep my boyish figure, I began running, if you can call it that, from our house. At first I could make it precisely .8 miles at which point I would walk around the intersection and shuffle back home. Pathetic is the term that comes to mind.

After a couple of months in I contemplated running five miles for the first time. You’d have thought it was an ultramarathon. I was so unsure I could do it that a requested a sag wagon. As I remember it I asked Peggy to wait on the main road to from New Canaan to Pound Ridge just in case I succumbed to exhaustion. Happily that I didn't happen and, in a self-congratulatory glow, ran my first road race just over the hill in Wilton, CT on July 4, 1976. The time was not memorable. Let's just say I did beat it by 13 minutes in 1987. 

1987 Triathlon National Championship at Hilton Head. A modest 40th of 102 45 to 49 year olds.

Some 55,000 miles later, running and fitness have been major part of my life, behind only family and a good meal. My next 55,000 miles is, well, a laugh line. I have slowed to a crawl and the cartilage loss in my right knee has me, if not hobbling, moving gingerly. Don't get me started on my pulled hamstring. Still hope springs eternal and my delusions may be forgiven at this very senior moment.

You maintained your 168, you say, for thirty years. What about the last ten? It's now 155 but that's more a function of shortage than weightage. I'm shrinking before my very eyes. Kind of like watching grass growing but in reverse.

As yesterday

His eyes grew moist as he told of the freak snow that dumped three feet of snow on the flock. The snow threatening to kill all the sheep and Alfonzo and his father Amos with them. Alfonzo was thirteen in the fall of 1951 and is choked with emotion even now. It was only October and they were still tending the sheep in the high mountains of Apache Canyon above Chama. The Cumbres and Toltec train clattered in the distance. As the snow mounted only one thing mattered. How do we get the sheep down the mountain and to the safety of the valley floor?

It was a moment of truth and the truth was that the sheep couldn’t make it out in three feet of snow. And Amos and Alfonzo couldn’t the last for three days and 17 miles without shelter. Alfonzo recalls with crystalline clarity that the first night they slept under towering pines and on the second, wet and weary, Amos covered themselves with a tarp topped with pine bows and needles. He is felled two mid-sized pines and drug them behind horses to sweep a route for  the sheep to pass. On the third day they made their way to the crossing of the Rio de Los Pinos below Oshir. At the crossing help arrived with food and dry clothes and they brought the sepp the rest of the way to Mogote and the Abeyta Ranch. 

All survived because of Amos's resourcefulness and a father's love. And because of both the flock of sheep that began with a single orphan ewe in the 1920s delivered their wool to Tom Barr's shearers last weekend. It’s a Jeremiah Johnson tale set in the mid-twentieth century, one that illustrates how tenuous yet enduring a life from the soil was and still is.