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,...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
reflections on art and life
go ahead, walk through it
Thirty minutes ago I emerged from the mall where my PO box is. I had just dumped my massive annual springtime greeting card mailing at the post office and was feeling a bit jubilant. Thirty minutes before that, an all-day soaking spring rain (a rarity out here)...
if expletives are uttered in a forest and no one hears them, do they make a sound?
This is a 'creepy' forest tale that happened to me late June 2019. And it might have repeated itself this year of 2020, had I not learned my lesson! (More about that soon....) My 'Tuesday Revelers' may recognize this tale, as I shared a version of it last year in...
why I’m leaving ~ tell me what else I should have done?
Tell me what else I should have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me what it is you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? These words of Mary Oliver's have been swimming around in my mind and on my tongue of late. So much so that they've...
what bloomed for me in the shadow of sadness
The lilac are blooming. And they're taking me back again to a May morning some thirteen years ago when a light went out in my life and the long shadow of sorrow moved in. It was the Thursday before Mother’s Day, 2007. As the first of the sun's rays broke over the...
the moreno valley & me – part two
[This the second of a two-part series. Read the moreno valley & me, part one here.] When my friend Carol asked me to paint their view of Baldy from the Moreno Valley, it was not the seemingly obvious view from the meadow near the main cabin that I and others had...
the moreno valley & me, part one
The first time I entered and crossed the Moreno Valley was in July, 1982. I had just completed a Rayado Trek at Philmont. My brothers were both working as Rangers at Philmont that summer along with some other Scouting friends from back home. My parents and another...
how vermont trees lead back to new mexico sky
When I set out last year to walk across Vermont, one of my plans was to create a body of paintings based on my hike. They would be in the style of my “textual landscapes’ where I combine language (text) with semi-abstract landscape elements. The text might come from...