Windy and pink! This I can live with. Met up with a friend this morning and we found ourselves talking about Taos winters and how, as we get older, they seem to be getting harsher. We traded information about Arizona and named the people we've known in Taos who spent winters there - like Frank Waters and his wife Barbara. Frank always complained when it was time to go, but he lived well into his 90's. Did those gentle winters have something to do with his longevity and the writing that never stopped until he did? One year I made several jars of raspberry jam and gave one to Frank. I was told that he brought it to Tucson with him and wouldn't share it with anyone! After his death I wrote a poem about that. I also had the privilege of taking photos of his memorial for Barbara's book, "Celebrating the Coyote" (MacMurray and Beck, 1999).
right in my own town
On Sunday afternoon I went to a signing of Lyn Bleiler's book "Images of America: Taos". This is a series from Arcadia Publishing that chronicles the history of various places in the United States through vintage photos and text. The book is filled with historic images for which she had to delve into museum and archives. The event was held at the Ernest Blumenshein House and Museum.
Blumenshein was a painter who first came here in the early 1900s because his vehicle needed repair and broke down in Taos. He stayed. He painted iconic images of adobe villages, Indian and Hispanic figures, rocky vistas. His work helped define the perceptions of the area. The weather was foul on Sunday and I wanted to stay home and knit, but I'd promised and it turned out to be a worthy detour. The museum/house is filled with his work and life. I'd never been there. So close, yet so indifferent to it. Walking through the maze-like rooms I got the feeling of a real home. There were fun facts. Blumenshein and his wife brought into Taos the first electric stove.
The rooms have been recreated as authentically as possible so there were more fun old things to see - as well as a selection of his paintings, his easel, an old dusty box of paint tubes, his fishing tackle basket, and a cake of yellowing soap.
As I explored the rooms Lyn signed books for a large waiting crowd and I didn't notice the snow clouds growing thicker and darker. By the time I left for home, I drove through the start of Sunday night's snowstorm - a fading memory on a day when the temp reached nearly 70 degrees and pink is in the air. Have I mentioned that we keep our sweaters and shorts available all year long?
A curious friend seeks me out.
"No artist had ever recorded the New Mexico I was seeing. No writer had ever written down the smell of this air or the feel of that morning's sky. I was receiving...the first great unforgettable inspiration of my life."
Ernest Blumenshein
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