SOFA Gallery Page is UP!

For your viewing pleasure, the Hibberd McGrath Gallery web page on the SOFA Chicago site. They've posted one of my Van Horn cemetery inspired pieces there!

In the News

Just added a new page to the Texas Mountain Trail website, "In the News," which will show our work with the press to promote the region. You can visit the page here. From this page, you can click on see the articles.

First up is a clipping from the New Pioneer Co-op's newsletter Catalyst, from Iowa City. They're planning to do a follow-up article on traveling the region.

Next is a two page spread in the El Paso Visitors Guide about the eastern part of the region. One of my challenges here is trying to increase visitorship from El Paso. They've always marketed Juarez, Mexico and the state of New Mexico. For them to look east is something new.

The blog is not dead

I've just been working every spare moment to get ready for the SOFA show in Chicago in early November. I finished another piece late in the day yesterday, and I'll have to keep that pace for several more weeks if I'm to make my deadline! Autumn is frequently like that--all energy and time focused on SOFA! Here are details of two recent pieces.

SOFA Chicago

I'm working furiously to get ready for the SOFA (Sculpture and Objects and Functional Art) in Chicago in November, a yearly exhibition of fine craft presented by galleries all over the world. I've been lucky enough to have my work shown as SOFA by Marty and Terry at Hibberd McGrath Gallery of Breckenridge, CO for many years.

This year, I'm presenting a group of work inspired by the Van Horn Cemetery, the funerary traditions and decorations, the sense of community displayed there, and the impact of the border on life. The piece I posted in an earlier blog entry will be there. I'll also be speaking about my work as part of the lecture series on Friday morning, November 11 as a guest of the Friends of Fiberart International. Here's a link to the show's lectures. I gave a similar presentation in 2002, and am pleased to be part of one of their panels again.

If my blog entries slow down a bit (and I'll try not to let that happen) it is because it is "nose to the grindstone" for me!

An Innate Sense of Proportion

In all likelihood, Van Horn's precipitation count for 2006 will top 10 inches this week, making this a very wet year for us. While we don't like to say this in the company of ranchers, some of us admit to muttering under our breath, "Quit raining, already! I want some sun!" Our clandestine whining is inappropriate, for we know that rain now means beautiful wildflowers in the spring. And some of us haven't been here in the rough years, when the annual rainfall has been less than 3 inches...and some years not at all.

What I'm trying to grasp is this: an understanding of what rain will do here. Spending almost all of my life near corn and soybean fields and being an enthusiastic garderner, I have an innate sense of how an inch of rainfall translates into the number of worms appearing on the sidewalk, the rise of the river, or the growth of corn and basil and bachelor buttons. In my bones I'm realizing, is an understanding of rain in the growth of I don't know how many species. How many times do we look out the window on a rainy day and say, "this will be good for the crops"? And on a simple walk around the block, how many thoughts pass through your mind almost unconsciously like, "gee, that rain last night really did wonders for the hostas"? But our knowledge is far richer than that. After a lifetime in the midwest I know the plants deeply. I know when they need rain and when they don't like it. I know how to amend the soil for different sections of the garden. I realize now this is something I have to learn over from scratch.

The soil is part of my problem. I have always loved the deep black soil of Illinois and Iowa--so much so that both times I moved to Texas (the first was in 1980 and I spent five years here) I brought with me a small glass jar of it. I'll confess to opening it up from time to time to get a whiff of it and remember the scent of home. I understand how an inch of rain will soak into this black stuff.

But the soil of the desert is different. When wet, the scent is incredible--smelling impossibly clean and herbal. But it doesn't really soak in the rain much. Water glances off. Flood in the desert is common in years like this. The highway leading from Van Horn to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park washed away last week. The state highway department put filler in there to build up a temporary road, and that washed away too. The combination of the runoff from the mountains, and the soil's reluctance to soak in a lot of moisture makes our monsoon season vexing.

When I first arrived, I wondered why Van Horn has an earthen flood retention wall built around it, but now I know, it needs it being so close to Turtleback and Six Mile Mountain. Charley, Shanna's boyfriend lost his boyhood home and ranch in the great flood of the 60s out east of town. The mud adobe walls were not protected from the path of several feet of water and they just melted away.

In time, I'll learn the native species. Their quirks and life cycles and how they react to an inch of rain will become as second nature as my understanding of lilacs or asparagus. But Van Horn also has familiar plants, so for now, I'm content to drive by a garden each morning and smile to myself, "boy, those hollyhocks look great after last night's rain." And I'll work on my windowsill herb garden.

It's raining again.

Sierra Blanca, Sierra Verde

With all the rain we've been getting the mountains are showing a tinge of green. This is Sierra Blanca in January from the east, and the same mountain this week from the west. The ocotillo are leafing out and forbs, flowers and grasses are growing out of the previously open desert soil. (the difference is easier to see if you click on each photo for a closer view)

When I drove by Sierra Blanca on my way to El Paso, the sky was dark and rainy and I couldn't see the top half of the mountain through the cloud cover. On my return trip, the visibility was at least 80 miles and, well... you can see how pretty the sky was that day.

Cibolo Creek Ranch

Sunday I went to a party at Cibolo Creek Ranch, which offers the most exclusive lodging in the region. The extremely remote location and the beauty of the place makes it a favorite of those who crave peace and privacy. The rates are hefty for my wallet ($500/night), but it isn't a surprise that a Dixie Chick chose the ranch for her wedding, and that Mick Jagger likes to stay here, too. The accommodations are very nice. Those little lakeside doors lead to a sleeping porch with huge Mexican beds, and full luxury rooms beyond. The rooms are made of adobe and have large exposed ceiling beams, and sculpted nooks and fireplaces.

Milton Favor started the ranch in 1857 as a fort against the Apaches, and the current owner has restored the property to that time, adding some buildings for visitor rooms, and engineering a small lake downstream from a vibrant spring on the property. He's reestablishing a peach orchard, which was part of the original ranch. There's a great adobe chapel, cool and dark and full of Mexican devotional objects.

The setting is spectacular, but you have to know how to get there. Even their website, www.cibolocreekranch.com doesn't give the exact location. You have to drive about a half-hour south of Marfa, know which gate belongs to the ranch, drive four miles to a second gate, and push a button that is hard to find unless you've received instructions ahead of time from the staff, and drive about 10 miles more down a dirt road to get to the main ranch. It is WAY out there, but the beauty of the property is stunning. My pictures are a little dark because it has been raining and raining and RAINING here, but party-goers got lucky and it was dry all afternoon and evening even though the clouds seemed ready to burst again.

Confession: when I was in my office in Iowa, surrounded by bits and pieces of annual giving stats and budgets and needing a break from the sheer frustration of it all, I'd often take a mini-break and let the ranch's website tour scroll through spectacular pictures of the ranch, audio turned down. Hey, a girl's gotta dream, and sometimes the dreams come true!

A couple hundred of us were treated to a full barbecue meal, the best I've ever had. I was there as a guest of Larry, my favorite board member, who is Director of the Museum of the Big Bend and a county commissioner. Politicians, influential business people, and ordinary folks with a familial connection to the ranch were on the guest list. The next day, the public was invited for a less elaborate open house.

One of my recent projects has been the production of a rack card to promote the historic hotels in the region at the State Fair, which is coming up at the end of the month. This place is on it, of course.

A Home Away From Home a half block from home

Paul's little place opened while I was away, so last night was my first opportunity to order off the menu. Paul has done a great job putting together a menu of simple meals and snacks that are a little different, but humble enough to not intimidate the most cautious of Van Horn's conservative eaters.

Shanna is planning to bring in fresh-baked cinnamon rolls every day--$3.75. Yum. Shanna's a GREAT baker. Paul also has some interesting breakfast items on the menu, including the fruit plate: sliced orange, tomatoes, avocado with cottage cheese, cinnamon toast--$7.00. "Reminds me of some breakfasts I've had in Mexico," he said. There are also smoothies. Sausage comes with most every breakfast plate.

Fatty meat, yes....you can get it there and the locals enjoy that. Paul's snack menu has pork rinds (chicharrones) with Louisiana hot sauce, and his best selling entre so far is a broiled spam sandwich. "The veterans love it," says Paul. But Paul is also offering grilled chicken and broiled fish, and you can order a glass of wine from a Marfa-based vineyard.

There are snack plates with grape tomatoes, olives and a chunk or two of cheddar cheese; or fresh jalapenos with cream cheese; or a plate of muenster, cheddar, and jalapeno cheeses with a key lime square as a mini-dessert. So far, the biggest seller is the "1940s style Old Fashioned Banana Split."

Paul's motto for the place is, "In the Land of the Conquistador, You be the Explorer, Come Find Your Treasure." In the spirit of exploration, I tried that broiled spam sandwich. This morning I had to run 4 miles to burn off the effects of that surprisingly good, but only-will-I-do-that-once-in-thirty-years choice, which will put me on schedule for another one when I'm 78!

The patio is so relaxing and I enjoy Paul and Sheila's company, so I know I'll be there often from now on.