Last of the Taos Trip

Whew! This is it! The fourth and last installment of the images from the recent Taos trip! Aren't you glad?

In order of appearance we have: an old adobe building near Arroyo Seco, the town of Arroyo Seco, the front of one of my favorite pickup trucks (1950 Chevy), aspens in the ski valley, apens from afar, the fish tank, a double exposure of aspens, purple aster, seedpod, 2 crosses on a hill (the space between the hills are shaped like a heart...wow), a metal sculpture (at the Dirt Floor Gallery in Embudo; Jake Harwell is the artist and you can reach him at: rustofages@yahoo.com), a church in Espanola, and a beautiful Taos sunset.

So, there you have it! My tour is complete and I'm ready to move on.

IMT: Control

Hi. My name is Paula and I'm a recovering control personality (I didn't want to use the word, 'freak' here as it seems too negative). Alright, already! This month's prompt for Inspire me Thursday (IMT) is control. I think that perhaps the best way one can really examine a concept is to do an excercise of the opposite nature. It is then that you are able to get a better understanding of what it means to have control, be in control and realize if you are addicted to being in control. My submission (Abstract Watercolor) is an excercise in not having control and not letting myself be in control. It is, really, 'controlled chaos'. An oxymoron? Perhaps...but, the process of being purposeful in not taking control of the direction of the piece allows me to get in touch with how I sometimes have to fight the desire to make something be that it really wasn't meant to be. It is a dance, or maybe even a battle between logic and intuition! This piece had been unfinshed for quite sometime before I picked it up again last night to work on it. I now consider it to be finished; I am done with it. I now have to control myslef to keep from going back to it to do just one more thing! Can you see why I picked this peice for IMT's 'prompt' this week?

Taos Town

Another round of images from the Taos trip a few weekends ago...these are of the town itself (although not really representational from a tourist's standpoint).

The lighting was perfect that day; overcast and not too sunny. The colors just seemed to pop even in real life!So much color before things die off!

Most of the images are self-explanatory; the one of the clay mask and glass eyeballs (yes, those are real eyeballs that had been worn at some point in time). That was from an antique store called Maison Faurie Antiques in Taos, NM. The proprietor is from France (it seems) and he is a character! We like to stop by that store as it always has the most unusual antiques (including scientific equipment).

I also feel compelled to explain the dead flower image (I'm sure someone out there must be wondering why on earth would I take a picture of dying flowers and post it?). It is a reminder of the fleeting nature of life; that all living things are just here for a moment in time. Vanitas.

October ATCs

The suggested theme for this month's ATC trade is, "Spirits". These are the two designs I had made for the trade; 14 of the Day of the Dead style card and 28 of the one called "Spirits". The Day of the Dead card is simply a hand stamped image (from Our Lady of Rubber in Santa Fe) that has been thermal embossed with white embossing powder. The embellishments are mostly things that I punched out from specialty paper punches.

"Spirits" is generated from one of my glass negatives (aka albumen printing process). The background paper was made from applying gesso (with lace stencils) and paints over a sheet of scrapbook paper. The other 'caption' on the card is, "Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem" which means, "Gentle Lord Jesus, grant them eternal rest". The emulsion had rotted away significantly on this negative, leaving very little information of the subject. It was probably taken circa 1909-1918. There is no way of knowing who the person is, which makes it all the more intriguing!

Taos Trip (cont'd.)

I said I would show more of last weekend's trip up to Taos, NM, so here is a second installation of ___? Not sure how many more segments I will post. I still have the general roadside images to show and Arroyo Seco and misc things. Feel free to leave me a comment to encourage or discourage me from showing MORE of that trip!).

This one is of a place that sells door (old ones) and other architectural elements. I love it! The name of the establishment is Dunbar and Dunbar Antiques. I don't know if they sell a lot of doors, but they must sell enough to stay afloat since they have been there for awhile.

Other than the fact that it is a whole bunch of really neat old stuff (how's that for description?), I like the concept of having so many doors in one place. It's like a smorgasbord of portals that you can choose from to travel to other unknown destinations; whether that destination be a place or a time.

IF: Grow

Here is my submission for this week's Illustration Friday's prompt, which is, "Grow". It is a mixed media collage and is one of the pages from my "Goddess" book.

IMT: Hats!!

This weeks Inspire Me Thursday prompt is: hats.

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love hats and that I wear them year round. This is a hat I made for a chairty tea affair (I think the hat theme was 'outrageous' or something; my etch-a-sketch memory got shook since then).

I made it. I wore it. It's got a garden of flowers in it and some hummingbirds and bees. I had a ton of fun making it. And for the IMT prompt, I decided to tweak it further in PS CS2 (translate to: Photoshop Creative Suite 2). Yah, it's over the top, but that' what I felt like doing!

If you want to look at it more closely, click on the image and you will get a larger version of it.

Gasoline Alley

I couldn't have asked for a lovlier fall weekend than the one I just had! My friend, Robbie Steinbach, whom I had met in a Making Art Safely Printmaking workshop in the summer of 2006 was opening a show at the Milicent Rogers Museum. This is a big deal, months ago, I made sure that I put the date down on my calendar so as not to miss it. She lives in Taos, New Mexico and the museum is there too. I convinced hubby to go up with me and to spend the weekend. However, I did give him fair warning that I planned to take MANY photos along the way (since we would not have our teenager with us complaining about all the stops). For thirteen years now, as we drove back and forth from our home to Taos, there are so many lovley photo ops along the way. I've never been able to stop and take all these pictures. I took a sizeable amount of pictures over the course of two and a half days. I do plan to post a good representation of the images from the weekend, but it will have to be broken down into main subject areas!

The main photo op that I was dying to do is a yard with old gasoline pumps in them. It is located in Embudo. Part of the criteria was to plan the drive so that the late afternoon sun would be on the pumps for ideal lighting.

I never noticed the name of the 'street' that this place was at: Gasoline Alley. When we stopped, I never realized what a huge collection of old gas pumps, cars, memorabilia, etc. was actually on the premises!

There was a sign the said, "museum" so, that seemed like a good enough invitation and I took as many pictures as I could without being too much of a 'trespasser' since it became obvious that the owner wasn't there. I also wanted to make sure that when we came back down that way on Sunday, that it would be durning the time of day that the owner would be there. I felt like I had to meet the person that had such a committment to collect all these old and wonderful things. We did get to meet him and Mark had a great chat with him while I took more pictures to my heart's content. Although he collects all these old things, he will sell them! In his vast collection, he has (of course) gas pumps, signs, oil cans, maps, globes, soda signs, clocks, neon, thermometers (this is what is listed on his card). If you would like to contact him, his name is Johnnie Meier and his email is: johnniev@roadsideculture.com. He is a very kind and gracious person! Thanks, Johnnie for letting me take photos! I think I easily took about 200 or more photos at this stop.

If you want a larger view of each image, just click on it (it's like a thumbnail).

The last shot in this group is the roadside view of the Rio Grande River which is right across the street from Johhnie's museum. There will be more of this fall eye candy to come in several more postings! Stayed tuned!

IF: Open

At the last moment, I decided to submit something for this week's Illustration Friday challenge, which is "open".

This is a mixed media piece since it is photo/digital/colored pencil.

The lotus flower is symbolic of so many things, but I think here, in the concept of 'open'; of being open to things, to possiblilites. The flower opening up its petals being akin to keeping the mind open. That is when we are in full bloom...

IMT: Birds....

This one is for the current Inspire Me Thrusday prompt, which is "birds". I think the directions were to have a "bird" phrase to go with it (you know, bird brained, birds of a feather, etc.). Instead, I call this one, "Waiting".

These were young fledglings up in a tree in the parking lot of a resort hotel here. There are four baby Scott Orioles and for the life of us, we couldn't figure out HOW those four birds fit in the nest! Anyway, they were as cute as can be waitng for their mama to come back with food.