musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
find me now on substack
My blog has moved to Substack, where I’m continuing to share essays and reflections on painting, landscape, and the creative life.
It’s called on the camino of creativity, and I’d love to welcome you there.
You can read my posts online or subscribe to receive new ones by email.
The years of writing gathered here will remain available to explore. My website continues to be the home of my painting practice, and its “Blog” link will take you to my current writing on Substack. If you would like to explore my previous blog archive, you may find it here via WordPress.
Thank you for reading and for your interest in my work.
~ dawn
getting comfortable with discomfort ~ in the studio and beyond
Oh… how long I’ve been meaning to write here.
It’s been a strange and unusual year — Hmmm…. maybe we all can say that?
Yet for me it’s been a year of unusual uncertainty, especially in my studio. That’s wholly unfamiliar terrain for me. Which is what made it so damn uncomfortable, especially in the early months of the year. I just didn’t know where or even how to focus my artistic expression. None of my usual methods resonated. I flailed.
Maybe it had something to do with turning 60 late last December. Or spending so much of the previous two years either away or focused on “commission work.” I don’t know. But early this year, every time I attempted to start something, I felt repulsion rising up within me, as though an impudent child were saying, “No! No! No! I don’t want to do that!”
So many of my artistic efforts over the years have been focused on creating art that others might appreciate — and, hopefully, spend money on. After all, that’s how I keep a roof over my head, right?
Yet in January, every time I picked up a paint brush to paint in a familiar manner, that impudent child went into a tantrum.
As I understand it, in Buddhist tradition, suffering is endemic to existence. Any attempt to banish suffering — or “Mara,” the personification of suffering, doubt, and negative thinking — only results in more suffering. Rather, one should ‘invite Mara to tea’ — Essentially acknowledge its existence. Greet it, and perhaps even ask: What are you trying to teach me?
It took me a while to get comfortable with Mara, especially as he had pretty much moved into my studio.
I have little time today to write much more about my new studio companion. Hell, the holiday season is upon us and — UGH —
I’ve. So.
Damn. Much.
To. Do.
But I do want to write more, soon, about this compelling studio relationship. And, well, other stuff.
What I will share just now is that, while Mara seemed determined to block me from my well-worn, comfortable ways of painting, he inspired me to explore other channels of creative expression. Some were old ways I’d once loved but forgotten, and others I’d only dabbled in — like poetry.
Indeed, while Mara put a lock on my oil paints and hid the key this summer, he opened a floodgate of poetry for me.
As I log off to tackle my interminable To Do List, I’ll part, for now, with a poem of late summer, which some of you may notice quietly echos my post from a year earlier, my annual late summer ritual.
Meanwhile, blessings of Thanksgiving to you. May you have much to be grateful for. As for me, I’m gonna strive to welcome and set a place for Mara at the table.
upon deleting all data
Can’t I blame sleep deprivation,
a numbing head cold,
or the parade of distracting summer visitors?
No, I think I need to chalk it up to stupidity:
I should have snapped that
“DATA” on my new mirrorless digital camera
doesn’t just erase
the settings I had set
in a blur of incomprehension
but rather “DATA” means PHOTOS,
so when the camera asked
“DELETE ALL DATA?”
what it really meant was —
Do you want to delete
the rippling green leaves
and the white glow
of the aspen grove?
Or the verdant field vibrant
with cow pen daisies?
Or the sun-bleached logs
of the old homestead, overgrown
with summer grasses and
asters and blue chicory?
Delete these?
Do you want to delete
the Rio Chama, swollen with summer
snaking in brown curves
through the valley?
What about the slurry stains
of eroding earth,
like paint spilling
down seams of coral canyon walls?
Do you want to delete these, too?
Or Pedernal
glowing blue
on the horizon
ocher and rust buttes
seeming to vibrate
in resonant response?
Delete all of ‘O’Keeffe Country’?
And what about
the hummingbird
who sipped
a sip from your water
while you picnicked
near the Brazos cliffs?
Do you want
to delete this, too?
For surely you have no need
for these; there’s already
so much ‘data’ in the world.
—
On this one day each summer —
this annual, near-holy date with myself —
to travel alone, silently,
mile after New Mexico mile
to reflect on loss
and love
and capture
with camera in hand
all these visions
of this sacred day —
maybe what my camera really
was asking of me,
when my misunderstanding
wiped away
the ‘data’ of the day,
was: do I want to delete
my dependence on this
all-too-easy crutch for recall,
or instead,
etch this near-perfect day
into the mirrored depths
of my memory
Thanks for finding your way here and for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. If you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for TuesdayDawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Buen Camino
~ Dawn Chandler
Painting, writing, photographing, hiking, noticing and breathing deeply in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“this is the camino; miracles happen all the time.”
“This is the Camino. Miracles happen all the time.”*
I smiled to myself when I watched and heard him say this. I smiled because I know his statement to be true. And when someone in our audience asked for a show of hands of who among us has walked the Camino, with my heart pounding I raised my hand.
Before first light on September 19, 2024, I, along with my long time friend, Mariah, set out from St Jean Pied-de-Port, France to walk westward. Eight-hundred kilometers and 40 days later we walked in to Santiago de Compostella, Spain.
I have not yet written here about my journey because I have been lost as to where to even begin to write about it. All these weeks later I feel like I still haven’t had time and space enough to process the experience of my pilgrimage. The one thing that I’m sure of is that the processes of processing will take the remainder of my life.
Yet I am keen to jot down something here, especially after being reminded once again of the angels of my journey.
Psychologist Dacher Keltner, in his book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life tells us that there are eight key ways that we humans experience awe. “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.”
I, being an avid outdoorswoman, would have guessed that the number one way people feel awe is by experiencing Nature, especially vast landscapes like the Grand Canyon, or a massive weather event. Yet while Nature is, indeed, one of the eight key ways we experience awe, it ranks number three on the list.
Out-ranking Nature, and number two on the list, is “collective effervescence” — those moving experiences that a gathering of people share together: A group of fans watching a sports event; people participating in a local parade; a band or choir creating music together. As Keltner describes it, collective effervescence is when “we feel like we are buzzing and crackling with some life force that merges people into a collective self, a tribe, an oceanic ‘we.’ Across the twenty-six cultures [researched], people told stories of collective effervescence at weddings, christenings, quinceañeras, bar and bat mitzvahs, graduations, sports celebrations, funerals, family reunions, and political rallies.”
Crowning the list of ways we experience awe is “moral beauty”: The witnessing of “other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming. Around the world, we are most likely to feel awe when moved by moral beauty…. Exceptional physical beauty, from faces to landscapes, has long been a fascination of the arts and sciences, and moves us to feelings of infatuation, affection, and, on occasion, desire. Exceptional virtue, character, and ability—moral beauty—operate according to a different aesthetic, one marked by a purity and goodness of intention and action, and moves us to awe. [Included in] moral beauty is the courage that others show when encountering suffering.”
I attest.
For the Camino is nothing if not an 800k artery of collective effervescence and moral beauty.
A 500-mile conduit of awe.
For me, collective effervescence of the Camino is the moving — physically and emotionally — of the mass of pilgrims all walking in the same direction. Each is there for their own reason, yet all share the vision and desire of progressing westward with countless others along the sacred path. We experience together the sunshine and rain, the wind and mud, the nighttime dormitory snorers and farters, the gratitude of finding an open cafe after hours of early a.m. walking; that first sip of a hot coffee or a cold cerveza. The tears. The laughter.
What makes the Camino extraordinary from other long distance trails is not only its centuries-old history, but that its pilgrims are from all over the world. And by that I mean everywhere. Every day I heard all around me a marvelous array of languages. Ahead of me might be pilgrims speaking Swedish, and ahead of them those speaking French, and ahead of them pilgrims speaking Dutch and Hungarian. Behind me might be pilgrims speaking Korean and behind them, Portuguese followed by Taiwanese and German and Finnish and Hebrew. The shared language of all was English, often broken and heavily accented. But the one Spanish phrase that everyone uttered well and uttered countless times daily to one another was “Buen Camino” — “Good Way,” a blessing and desire for each other to travel well.
And then there was the moral beauty.
Each day I struggled not to wince too much from the relentless pain in my knee — a crippling condition that began on day one and endured the rest of my journey (and which even now, I am working to heal). Yet every day I was lifted out of my suffering by the kindness of strangers and acquaintances: A pilgrim offering me at seat at his table; a barista comping me a cup of coffee; a shop owner expressing concern about my footwear as I headed out in sandals into the mud; an innkeeper who, seeing my limp and exhaustion, insisted on carrying my pack to my room; innumerable kind words of encouragement and questions of concern, “are you OK?” from pilgrims hiking past. These kind souls were my angels — my daily messengers of moral beauty.
One angel in particular I will never forget:
One grueling long hot day on the Maseta, I was limping badly, when a pilgrim I had never seen before rushed up to me with concern on his face. In broken English he asked where I was in pain. I pointed to my knee. He then gestured for me to stop and take several deep breaths. As I did this, he knelt down and whispered in a foreign tongue a blessing, as he slowly moved his hand round and round over my knee.
Several long moments passed.
Then he rose up, put his hands together in prayer, bowed, and, looking directly into my eyes, wished me, “Buen Camino.”
He walked on.
I never saw him again.
I walked the remainder of that day — at least three more miles — without pain.
“This is the Camino. Miracles happen all the time.”
They do, indeed.
*”This is the Camino. Miracles happen all the time” is a line from the soon-to-be-released film “The Way, My Way,” about the Camino. The film is directed by Bill Bennett, an Australian writer and filmmaker who first walked the Camino in 2013 and whose memoir of it shares the title of and inspired the film. I was lucky to score two tickets to the sold-out premier of the film & Q&A with Bennett in Santa Fe this week. The film is a joy — as is the book!
p.s.: I wrote my previous post just days before leaving for the Camino. In response to that post, many of you wrote to me with such lovely, heartfelt comments. It was my great intention to reply to each of your messages, however time conspired against me. Please know that your comments were read, reflected upon, and deeply appreciated. Thank you. ✨
Thanks for finding your way here and for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. If you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for TuesdayDawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Buen Camino
~ Dawn Chandler
Painting, writing, photographing, hiking, noticing and breathing deeply in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Free from social media since 2020
my annual late summer ritual
I have a ritual that I perform every August 26. It began four years ago on the day I had to put down my sweet old dog Wilson. Earlier that week I had the staggering realization that the time had come for her life to end. On the 25th I called our vet in Taos and, choking my words, made the appointment for Thursday afternoon, August 26th. The question then became how the hell to spend that morning leading up to our appointment.
I don’t know how the idea came to me but before first light on Thursday morning I transformed the back of my car into a huge bed of pillows and flannel and fleece. I then lifted my old girl into the back, and off we rode. For hours we drove all over Northern New Mexico, visiting our favorite haunts: Across the Rio Grande… Up to the aspens high above Taos… On up around to Red River, over Bobcat Pass and down through the Moreno Valley… Often I just pulled over in a shady spot to lie beside my pup in our makeshift bed and breathe in her scent. Come afternoon we drove up and over Palo Flechado Pass, then down down down through Taos Canyon past the home where she and I shared the first years of our life together.
Later that day she died cradled in my arms in the back of our car.
When I returned that night to our empty home I had driven some 300 miles.
A year later on August 26th I decided to make the drive again. This time I took my camera. My phone remained turned off, locked away in the glove compartment of my car. The day was beautiful – as it so often is this time of year.
I drove and drove and drove, lost in memories and the beauty of the late summer New Mexico landscape.
A year later I did it again.
And this year, yet again….
Three years out and the day rarely involves tears anymore. Rather than being about mourning my sweet old dog, my annual August 26th “Wilson Tribute Drive” has become more about simply taking a day to immerse myself in the beauty of Northern New Mexico and to reflect. Reflect on death and life and family and friendship. On memories and regrets and hopes and plans. Though this drive for me is rooted in sadness, with each passing year it evolves a little bit more into a day of joy. Three years ago I couldn’t have imagined the 26th of August would become one of my favorite days of the year.
Maybe one of these years when I make my annual ritual drive, I’ll have a new pup to accompany me in paying tribute to the land and sky and life and love.
And to, of course, my Sweet Wilson.
Thanks for finding your way here and for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. If you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for TuesdayDawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Be kind. Notice what you notice.
~ Dawn Chandler
Painting, writing, photographing, hiking, noticing and breathing deeply in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Free from social media since 2020
the very large triptych, part 9 ~ reflection
“How long did that take you?” is a question I’m asked often about my paintings, though rarely by other painters. That’s because they understand that the creation of a painting involves far more than simply applying paint to canvas.
And maybe that’s the key point I’ve sought to illuminate here in sharing the story of the Very Large Triptych: Applying the paint to the canvases was the least time-consuming part of creating the Very Large Triptych. If you were to add up all of the hours I spent with my paintbrush literally on canvas, it would probably add up to less than a day’s worth of hours; two entire days would be a stretch. Yet this painting consumed my time, focus, and creative energy — as well as my home — for nearly a whole year.
Was it worth it?
Absolutely. I wouldn’t have accepted the commission if I didn’t think it would be an enjoyable, positively challenging experience. Nor would I have agreed to do it if the other people involved were not a pleasure to work with.
RAS & TAC treated me with warmth, kindness and trust. They valued my thoughts and gave me plenty of space and time to do what I needed to do. They respected me, and that was vital.
Respect emanated from my family and friends as well. They accepted my need for privacy when I didn’t want to share photos of the painting process, and understood if I didn’t invite them in when they stopped by.
Especially respectful was My Good Man [MGM], who supported and encouraged me from day one. He assisted me anytime I requested help, and never balked when I needed more solitude than usual to focus on the Very Large Triptych. The support, interest in and enthusiasm that I received from friends and family for this project has been invaluable.
I once knew a gallerist who, whenever someone asked him how long it took an artist to create a particular work of art, he responded, “Their whole life.” Meaning that all of the artist’s lived experience — every painting they made before this one, every drawing, every photograph, every time they’d noticed shapes and colors and textures, every moment of being awestruck by a dramatic sky or dapple of light — ALL of it, had led to their experience and time creating that painting.
How long did it take me to paint the Very Large Triptych?
It took me my whole life.
Sangre de Cristo Sunrise ~ Peaceful Magnificence by Dawn Chandler
(The Very Large Triptych/VLT) ~ oil on canvas ~ 45″ x 162″
the very large triptych, part one ~ the request
the very large triptych, part two ~ the proposal
the very large triptych, part three ~ discovering the landscape
the very large triptych, part four ~ experiencing sky
the very large triptych, part five ~ painting the studies
the very large triptych, part six ~ new studio & first strokes
the very large triptych, part seven ~ the big reveal
the very large triptych, part eight ~ delivery & installation
the very large triptych, part nine — reflection*
Thanks for finding your way here and for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. If you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for TuesdayDawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Be kind. Notice what you notice.
~ Dawn Chandler
Painting, writing, photographing, hiking, noticing and breathing deeply in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Free from social media since 2020