70 SACRED PLACES Worked at it all day in lovely sunshine, breeze, and silence until 7.00. The painting looks very odd—far too complex as usual and makes no visual sense. I hope putting in tomorrow’s shadows will help. SATURDAY, MAY 22 The show should be about everybody’s reverence for extraordinary landscape. It seems to me this is a universal response that has existed for thousands of years. Sometimes codified into religious or cultural practices in declaring places sacred. In our age we declare places national parks instead, but it is the same compulsion at work. CHACO CANYON (AGAIN!) TUESDAY, MAY 26 To the trailhead for the Pueblo Alto Trail, which Belle & Bill and I did last month. Trying to see the view of Fajada Butte that I saw on that hike and thought would make a retrieve the situation, I spill water all over the painting. Somehow I think it is time to stop, before the situation gets completely out of hand. I think the painting is just recoverable. Hope so because it was a rather nice sparkly little thing. MOUNT HUMPHREYS AND THE SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2010 With Bill Brace, get everything organised and head 520ft up a volcanic bump—most extraordinary black pumice with no understory and sporadic trees—apparently the eruption was 1000 years ago. Finally make it to the top, where a battering wind nearly scalps us. I find a site on top of the hill that I think might work, but at 7220ft the wind is a serious problem. Head back down and make camp in a flat spot just off the forest road. Pitch tents under some trees and eat lunch. Pack up drawing board, tube, and all other necessities—about 32lbs I should think—and stagger back up the lava dome, rather like snow in that you slip back half your step each time. I arrive at the summit sweating with my heart pounding and find a site protected from the worst of the wind by a tree. I erect the drawing board with a complex system of guylines and rocks and tree branches and walking poles, and it seems quite stable. Drink tea at 4.00 then put paper onto board and start drawing—Mt. Humphreys and other SF peaks with Sunset Crater in the foreground. Drew for an hour in a wind so fierce that it blew me over twice. Cold at 5.30, I retreat down the mountain. Made a fire, cooked steak (delicious) with bread, onions, and tomatoes and a bottle of wine. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9 After lunch back to the crater, but finally at 4.00 a rudimentary sky formed, and I thought I should do it. Worked on until 5.00—a slightly feeble but passable result—and then washed a blue haze over distant mountains and hills. Not quite the result I hoped for, but I like to think I can make it work. Packed at 5.45 and Roadside shrine, New Mexico. small painting. Hiked up to Pueblo Nuevo and Pueblo Alto—a delightful trail with lots to see. Spotted what I thought was the view from last time but discovered it very marginal—tame and uninteresting. It must have been the strong sky or the light that attracted me. I should have paid more attention, as I have come all the way back here just for this! Shows how desperate I’m getting! Walked on for a while and then went off trail on slick rock to a higher point and found a small view that will work. Sat drawing until 12:00, and reaching for my paints, found—AARGH!!—I had left them behind in camp. Walk back down, regroup, and then hike back up again, arriving at the painting site at 3.30. Start work, and it goes quite well, though it is nearly 100° in the sunshine (87° in shade), and I begin to feel a bit dizzy. The painting is going well until 6.30, when I try strengthening a cloud on the RH side. One thing leads to another, and it gets progressively worse. Try to sponge it out but lose the sponge, and the raw umber from the paint box. Trying to
