My high school senior English professor used to wear a pith helmet. I don't remember the specific circumstances required for him to don the pith helmet, but they had something to do with intellectual pithiness. I also remember that it was rarely donned, but when it...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
dawn chandler santa fe artist
back to the high meadows of new mexico . . . .
We had been camped on the far edge of the high south meadow. The evening before we were lead up a west slope trail, where, just beyond the ridge in the blaze of sun sinking quickly before us, we stood at a fence line, and watched color radiate from a point just beyond...
revealing the open pages of my wallet
It’s all in a book, a little bigger than my palm. When I shared The Book with an acquaintance, her voice fell silent as she slowly turned and considered the pages. “I feel,” she said in a near whisper, carefully turning each page . . . ...
where art lives . . . .
What art offers is space — a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~ John Updike Who doesn’t love venturing into an artist’s studio? Even I — myself an artist — love visiting other creative’s studios. I delight in seeing the...
my hard new year heart
Walk along the Santa Fe River, and most of the year you'll be walking in dust. Either that, or on pavement. I don't know if its ever been a continually flowing stream, but I do know that human intervention has changed it considerably from what it once was. When I...
of walking meditation
Has it really been a month since I hiked off the trail? 'Seems impossible that one month ago today I was lying in a tent on a frosty morning deep in the northern Vermont woods 5 miles from Canada.... As I said, my thoughts these past four weeks...
lost and found in the [un]real world
Last year when I came crippled off my backpacking journey, I left the trail two weeks earlier than planned. The frugal thing to do would have been to change my travel plans and return promptly home to New Mexico. Fourteen days earlier and just five days into my Long...
returning to autumn in new mexico
I love Vermont and I miss it. Though not a physical resident, in the last couple of years I’ve become a resident of the soul of Vermont. I’ve so much more to reflect on and share about my long walk through the Green Mountain forests. But I am a physical and...
finishing unfinished business : hiking the last 100 miles of vermont’s long trail
Journal Entry ~ 8 September 2016 ~ evening ~ Day One Returning to a personally sacred landscape after a long hiatus is an extraordinary experience. In a way, it’s as though you never left. If you’re lucky and your sacred place has not been altered by...
painting among lovebirds, enemies & johnny depp
A week ago my pup and I hiked up to one of our favorite spots high in the forest above Santa Fe. Take one of the major thoroughfares, then turn off onto a well-used ‘unofficial’ trail; after a ways cross a meadow; make your way through the far evergreen grove and...