Living Waters

Here’s a piece from my latest series, which is all about moving water. This is the first presentable piece, titled “Living Waters,” an oil on Claybord, a type of archival panel I’m very fond of. This piece is 18″x36″ in size, and comes from a car trip we took up the Unaweep canyon on the Uncompaghre Plateau. Unaweep is Ute for “canyon with two mouths;” it is a very unique canyon in that the creek that created it has it’s own divide; halfway up the canyon the waters split, so that the creek feeds into two different tributaries on each side of the divide. This is of West Creek (as opposed to East Creek; so the English names aren’t nearly as poetic as the Ute…) The day we headed up was one of those weirdly beautiful days only Colorado can create; the fall color was still in full force but there had been a light snow which dusted everything in pearly white and diffused the light both above and below the horizon. At this point in the journey I had just disturbed an American Dipper, a small bird which fishes in rivers and creeks in the Rocky Mountains (the only bird which does not have hollow bones because of it’s diving proclivities, just FYI…) (The dipper I disturbed was quite annoyed; they hang out on rocks in creeks and hunt for small fish and insects. I was in the way.) It was a truly magical afternoon; expect more imagery from this trek.

Here’s a completely unrelated quote I just found in a book I’m reading titled: The Desert Is No Lady, Southwestern Landscapes in Women’s Writing and Art, edited by Vera Norwood & Janice Monk.

The desert is no lady.
She screams at the spring sky,
dances with her skirts high,
kicks sand, flings tumbleweeds,
digs her nails into all flesh.
Her unveiled lust fascinates the sun.

Pat Mora

Desert thoughts for you during the last vestiges of autumn!

Dawn