Prelude: Being in Place

We shall not cease from exploration, 

and the end of all our exploring 

will be to arrive where we started 

and know the place for the first time. 

T. S. Eliot 

Borrowed Without Permission from the Facebook Photo Archives
of Carlos Padilla (see below). 

I begin my first public dissertation-draft installment following this brief prelude. I was away from my dissertation town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, for the longest period since my ethnographic project began more than a year ago. Almost two months passed. There were IRB issues, (Institutional Review Board at UNM--the people who make sure research is carried out in an ethical and methodical manner given the historical abuse committed in the supposed pursuit of knowledge--see the first couple of lengthy posted from 2012 on this history if you are at all inclined to know more--nothing I would recommend), personal issues, global weather calamities, ordinary life/work happenings and the like. A host of likely excuses. The seasonal change is a reminder of work to attend to and promises to keep. 

Finally made my first Art Hop this last Saturday and still did not make it through the town proper to every venue. I look forward to more time spent wandering. It was a gorgeous good time. Emagen fell in love with the square dancers. Do the 5th graders still have to learn how to square dance? Or was that 8th grade? My urban Albuquerque friends thought that learning square dancing was hysterical. So did we as I recall. 

Not that different really, or maybe so. It is a question that frames many of my observations about Truth or Consequences. Less a general verses specific rendering than it is a question of pattern and particularity. "What is it about this place man?" I will drop the man from the draft version. Maybe. I need to spend more time, wandering and otherwise. Not too much, though I could spend a lifetime doing ethnographic work. I say this a lot, but as a method it is pretty compelling. I begin my dissertation-draft writing talking about ethnography as a method. I will beat that horse a little longer across the landscape in view. 

Speaking of landscapes, the new downtown mural by "the Young da Vincis," is the kind of inspired landscape that keeps me looking around in wonder.  The impeccable Kathleen Sloan wrote this brief account. 

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Young da Vincis’ Debut—Lee Belle Johnson Senior Center Murals

By Kathleen Sloan

HERALD Reporter

The City of Truth or Consequences got several beautiful murals for the cost of materials and the group organized and named by Jia Apple as “the Young da Vincis” got trained in the art of mural making.

 

Apple and seven of the eight da Vincis presented the murals to the city on Saturday, August 18, at 5 p.m. at the site—the Lee Belle Johnson Senior Center, at 301 S. Foch St.

  

The da Vincis are, Reed Tische, Megan Burke, Bethany Walker, Jannelle Knaus, Josh Candelaria, Kyle Cunningham, Jeannie Ortiz and Hannah Goldman (who was moving the day of the dedication and was unable to attend). 

Something less tangible than the murals and the transfer of craftsmanship was in evidence at the dedication—an esprit de corps among the artists for one thing, and a communal joy wafting through the crowd for another.

The project started in April. Four months and at least 2,160 work hours went into it—nine people working about 12 hours a week for 20 weeks. Local flora/fauna/habitat is the theme, which were researched. Overall design and consistency of design had to be hammered out and executed. The integrity of the historic building had to be preserved and the mural materials and attachment had to be researched and executed. Apple’s experience as a muralist saved hundreds more man-hours that would have had to be expended without her leadership. 

Apple also modeled how to go after and get civic support for a project. She and some of the da Vincis gave two presentations to the city commission. 

Apple’s itemized budget and estimated labor (not charged for) also gave the da Vincis and hopefully the community some idea how valuable artists and art are to a community. 

Apple suggested Truth or Consequences MainStreet approve the design of the murals, which the city commission approved, opening up further community participation, transparency and oversight. There are several civics lessons to be learned and pondered in that move.

 

The disparate shapes of the boarded-up windows—used as an inset for the murals—must have made maintaining a design scheme throughout difficult. 

Repeated design elements gave consistency and rhythm. The habitat was strongly delineated in curvy shapes and diagonals that pull you into the picture. Land, water, mountains and sky were depicted in a consistent palette of alternating oranges and blues. 

The animal life was consistently depicted two ways—as strong black silhouettes, or set apart in a tondo/circle form, painted in “grisaille” or in shades of black and white with some tans. 

This non-color/overlay/animal design contrasted with the high-color habitat shows great visual thinking. It works very well with the strong curvy lines of the historic adobe building—a WPA project. Jia Apple and the Young da Vincis’ strong communal effort and involvement are a great continuation of the WPA tradition.

***

Ah. Love the continued traditions made fresh anew. To that end, the continued tradition to moving south among others, I am moving myself and bonny traveling companion to Monticello full time. 

I will intersperse random moments ‘in town,’ with late night dissertation writing in the months ahead. I have been derelict in posting regularly these past few months. I was processing, pausing for reflection, and procrastinating. The last one should stand alone. Speaking of standing alone, I will spend the next months in the company of many others as I write out one of many draft versions of my dissertation here in this virtual space. It will be my first-round draft, and for this I apologize in advance to my few but dedicated and much-loved readers. 

The final version will be readily available in a year or so if my good luck and hard work hold. I have much work to do in the town still, but it is work that can join my narrative like the arroyos have been joining the river in the past few weeks. Tumultuous floods when there is rain. I am sorry for the pain and loss that the weather brought to some families in the past months and years, from fire to rain to everyday heartache. 

The community persists, stronger in ways even as parts break and sever. Pulled together by love, by family and history ties, by loss and redemption, but art and dancing girls--never torn asunder as long as there is the will to keep going—this is community and being in place. 

#Flooding in Ash Canyon eroded Highway 152. Part of the highway and guardrails fell into the canyon below with a portion of asphalt having no support underneath. #newmexico #rain. Caption and photo borrowed without permission from the facebook photo archives of Carlos Padilla (Herald Editor).