News and Notes

I'm almost ready to start painting again. I mean "art" rather than painting the house or something like that.

I gave it up a couple of years ago due to joint pain that made it so difficult to do much of anything.

But I've been re-animated thanks to being almost pain free almost all the time now (how amazing is that?)  and since I've been able to get around better, I've been going to exhibits that I couldn't do before.

The New Mexico Museum of Art celebrated its 100th Anniversary the other week and we went amidst crowds and crowds of mostly elderly people who wanted to enjoy the festivities before they shuffled off their Mortal Coils. Well, I understand. Believe me.

I also understand that many were disappointed as we were.

The Museum has an extraordinary collection of Santa Fe and Taos Colony art as well as a Contemporary art collection that can be mind-blowing, some of which was on display, but a lot of it must have been still in storage or on loan to some other museum. There were few pieces on display that everyone hadn't seen before... many times. And taken as a whole, the 100th Anniversary exhibition was ... sparse.

The greatest disappointment was in the contemporary gallery where few things stood out or even held any interest. And there wasn't much anyway. A stack of Horizon magazines was momentarily intriguing, but you have to be Of a Certain Age to even know what they are. We have a fair-sized collection of them (as well as a larger collection of American Heritage magazines) all of which we're quite fond of but have never done anything with except keep them on the shelves and pull them out for reference now and then.

And here was an artist who had glued a dozen or so issues together and glued a magnifying glass on top of the stack and the assembly was on display at the New Mexico Museum of Art with a prominent sign reading PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH!!

OK then. Somebody's cred in the museum world must have been at stake. I dunno. Reminded me a bit of an earlier exhibit of "art" that included a couple of sawn 6x6s laid on a low platform and labeled "Wood," as well as several pages from a lined notebook each with a splotch or two of watercolor, lovingly framed, called something I don't recall because it was so... limited.

There had to be an Agnes Martin in the Contemporary gallery, and there was. In context, I rather like her minimalist pieces, but the context needs to be full in order for her stripes or boxes or whatever stand out. There was no context to the painting on exhibit. Sigh. Sadly, it was boring.

Perhaps the most annoying piece was a white wall on which the artist -- don't know who, don't care -- had drawn all over serpentine shapes that you couldn't see unless you were A) very close or B) standing at just the right angle but not too far away. Casual passers by wouldn't even know it was there...

Idiotic s putting it charitably.

Contrast that with the energetic exhibits at the Albuquerque Museum. Oh my. I'm still breathing a bit heavily.

"When Modern Was Contemporary" is a touring exhibit that's been there for a while, but I hadn't seen it yet until I decided to check in at the Museum on "doctor day," December 1, when I had a gap between the Eye Doctor and the Rheumatologist.

I happened into the exhibit while the Albuquerque curator Andrew Connors was taking some Santa Fe ladies on a tour of the exhibit, and he just added to my astonishment and joy. Andrew is quite a personality in town, and his absolute thrill at hosting this exhibit was infectious. The Santa Fe Ladies were captivated. So was I. This was a wonderful exhibit, and I'm only sorry the Museum doesn't have more of it online. Andrew mentioned that he hoped the Santa Fe Ladies would check out the "Common Ground" exhibit that he curated as well, but I somehow doubt they did.

I didn't have time that day myself, but I came back a few days later and took in "Common Ground" as well as taking another look at "When Modern was Contemporary".

Here's one of several videos of Andrew introducing the "Common Ground" exhibit:

I'd seen many of these works before, but never so many displayed in so concentrated an exhibit. It was almost overwhelming.

The contemporary selections were outstanding, and they were in context, and they were inspirational:

This is the kind of contemporary exhibit I wish the New Mexico Museum of Art had done. One of the sad things about the failure in Santa Fe was that some of the same artists were on exhibit in Albuquerque -- where in context their works shined bright.

Albuquerque is (still) considered something of a rough backwater in the Art World. Oh every now and then somebody says something nice about its "vibrancy" and whatnot, but Santa Fe and Taos are considered "serious." Albuquerque is "interesting." Sometimes.

A painting that struck home in the "Common Ground" exhibit was a portrait of Governor Bruce King at his ranch just up the road from our place. That's one aspect of our common ground. We met Governor King -- wouldn't say we knew him -- and we pass by his ranch all the time. I see a portrait of him in that landscape and feel a deep connection to these people and this place.

Another exhibit I was able to take in briefly was the collection at the Roundhouse, the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe. (Speaking of governors and such.)

It's a stunning collection both inside and outside the building.

A friend who was there at the same time as me said he'd never been there before -- like me -- and he was -- like me -- gobsmacked, never imagining there was anything like this collection in a capitol building.

I've been in quite a few state capitols, most of which have some kind of art in them, but nothing approaches the breadth and depth of the New Mexico Capitol collection.

I'll have to go back one day.

We're planning to do Christmas in Taos at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House -- let's hope the weather holds. Ms. Ché has done writing workshops there and she loves it. Mabel of course is an Icon besides.

The weather. Don't know quite what to say about it. We have not had any precipitation in two months, and November was far and away the warmest in recorded history. We were supposed to plunge into cold weather overnight, but so far, nope. Well, maybe it won't warm up much today. And we'll get a little chill, but week after week of well above average temps for November and December has discombobulated pretty much everyone.

Meanwhile, how about that Russia Thing? Why do I think it's a charade?

There's A Chill Is Coming On

We don't expect there to be a hard freeze for a while yet, but you never know. New Mexico has apparently been cited by the Weather Channel for the most extreme weather for 2013, and I'm not in a position to prognosticate. But there is a distinct chill in the mornings now, and I've even run the heater -- once -- to take the edge off and see if the dang thing still works. I took the air conditioners in the bedrooms out of the windows, too. None of the windows are left open overnight any more, either. And I thought about covering the tomato plants so the late fruit could ripen on the vine, but I didn't do it last night, so after the sun comes up, I'll take a look at how the plants held up overnight.

The tomatoes are about the only things we planted this year that actually did pretty well. Most of the rest either perished outright or came up stunted and then perished. Oh, the sunflowers were pretty productive, even though they were stunted somewhat. Some of the other flowers were attacked by bugs and withered. None of the vegetables made it. Some of the beans never even germinated.

Even most of the wild flowers and the other things that grow on their own around here were fairly stunted overall, and we really don't know why it's been that way. We planted earlier than we should have, and planted everything in pots rather than in the ground or in the raised beds we were planning on. We'd been told that planting in the ground wasn't a good idea because of the alkalinity of the soil. The planting soil we used, though, may not have been ideal, and I'm pretty sure the alkalinity of the water we were using to irrigate with was also a problem. Then, of course, I wasn't sure how quickly things would dry out in the wind. I think a lot of the plants got too dry too often in the early growing season, and that's probably the main reason why most plants either died or were so stunted.

The drought's been bad to be sure and the older trees are really showing the stress. There were also huge dust storms, one of which overwhelmed the sky, enveloping everything in brown, gritty fog. It was an unexpected and amazing experience. Right out of the Dust Bowl.

The enormous amount of rain we've received lately has helped regenerate the flora; it's surprising the amount of new growth in the last few weeks, for example. But now that it's getting colder, the leaves will fall and most of the plants will shrivel and dry up. We're happy for the Cherokee Purple heritage tomatoes; they've done very well, and we had some excellent tomatoes in our salads all summer. Yay!

And next year, we'll try again. Hopefully, we'll have raised beds built by then; we'll use a different planting soil, we'll try planting later and keeping a close watch on soil moisture so things don't dry out as much as they did this year before the rains came. I'm not sure the quality of the water is really the problem, as the farms around here irrigate with the same water and they seem to do OK. They no doubt correct the soil ph, but beyond that, probably don't do much.

The Weather Outside...

 Weather satellite images courtesy of the Earth Science Office in Huntsville, Alabama.

When we bought this place in New Mexico seven years ago, a friend in California remarked, "Oh, so you'll have a place to escape when everything goes to shit, eh?" And I said, "Yeah, pretty much." We laughed, ruefully.

Here it is, December 1, and the high desert weather we're enjoying is essentially still Indian Summer. It can get cold overnight, sometimes into the teens, but daytime temps are in the 60s, quite balmy. The skies are pristine deep blue, hardly a cloud to be seen, the nighttime skies can take your breath away with their clarity and billions and billions  of brilliant stars. There's been just a tiny bit of rain, and a tinier bit of snow, since we've been here. There is little wind -- which is unusual, as this area tends to be windblown most of the time (thus the wind-farms down in Willard, for example). The only thing about it is that it is so dry, people are once again worrying about yet another drought.

Meanwhile in California, in the area we left, The Deluge appears to have come. We lived in an area that had been reclaimed from a seasonal lakebed, and our streets would flood from time to time. We were well aware that if the levees were overtopped (which seemed unlikely, but you never knew) our area would be under several feet of water, perhaps right up to our doorstep. Given the sea-level predictions we knew about in 2005, it seemed quite possible that large areas of the Central Valley (and of Sacramento in particular) would become part of an extended San Francisco Bay sometime in the not too distant future, and there would be little that could be (or more particularly, would be)  done about it.

We didn't count on the storms accelerating the process, however, though we were aware that the storms had been turning what was historically a rather dry area into quite a wet one over the course of the previous ten years or so.

I described what was happening to central California as if the region had been shoved some 700 miles northward into the rainforest. Though that was a bit of a stretch, it was remarkable how wet the Central Valley had become. One of the consequences was a very lush urban forest. So lush, in fact, that it had become dangerous to life and limb. What to do about it was a constant worry of public officials. Trees were being uprooted regularly in the many storms, trees and limbs were crashing down all over the place -- sometimes spontaneously, without the impetus of storms --  fire hazards were developing in the summertime, and people just weren't adapting quickly enough. It was impossible to keep up.

Those who lived through the recent climate changes in Central California were aware that the area had gone from quite dry to quite wet in a very short time, but the Official Story tended to claim the changes were only very slight, hardly perceptible, and that these Wet Periods were historically common, going back hundreds of years, so there was no certainty that there was some sort of connection with the realities of Global Climate Change. Officially, the area was still in "drought" for years after the rains came. And by some accounts, it's still in drought even though average rainfall has increased rather smartly.   I never knew whether this was Official Denial or something else, but it was strange...

Here in New Mexico, we're dealing with an opposite set of circumstances, seemingly perpetual drought, or rather, droughts that persist for longer than expected,  broken briefly (large amounts of snow or rain in a short period of time), then return to critically dry conditions that seem to last much longer than before.  The weather patterns are different, leading to overall dryer conditions which in some areas are much dryer. (I intend to post a description of just where we live one day, but not quite yet.)

Where we are is in an intersection of weather patterns. It's actually -- usually -- wetter here than on the west side of the mountains along the Rio Grande. There's at least the chance of more rainfall, but the weather comes in distinct narrow bands. It can be raining hard a few miles on either side of us, but be dry as dust right where we are. Same with snow. Or conditions can reverse: much rain and snow where we are, frightfully dry on either side. It seems that conditions overall are a good deal dryer now than seven years ago, but there was an even dryer period in the interim, so from a relative standpoint, the last few years have been somewhat "wet." It's as if this area had moved some hundreds of miles south into the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico. It's not a dire situation (yet), but it's not particularly reassuring, either. So few people live in this region, however, that the human presence is not (yet) a huge stress on the land and such water as there is. People are aware that there was a lingering drought in the 1670's that caused the abandonment of the pueblos in the region, and it could happen again. We're not there yet, but it's wise to be on the alert.

In that context, the bloated size of Albuquerque is troublesome. It's New Mexico's one Big City, and from an environmental standpoint, it's way too big. Many times the size it "ought to be." It has only been able to grow as big as it is by extracting practically all the underground water and slurping up every drop it can from the Rio Grande. Realistically, it cannot grow any more, but it will try to anyway. It's the way of cities in the grip of real estate boomers and speculators. They are chock-a-block in ABQ -- and champing at the bit to make more money. The fact that Indian Pueblos border Albuquerque on the north and south and strictly limit the city's growth in those directions serves as a brake on rampant expansion and a reminder of how fragile the environment really is.

One thing that seems clear, though, is that the people in New Mexico are aware of their environmental limitations and they seem to be able to adapt reasonably well -- and reasonably quickly -- to changing conditions whereas people in California seem intent on fighting what's happening or refusing to adapt to changes.

The contrast can be striking sometimes.

We realize we have a lot of work to do on our own outlook before we can say we've adapted to conditions and changing conditions in New Mexico, and we'll make many mistakes along the way. We have a great deal to learn about the local/region environment and how best to live within it.

-21º! WTF??!

I'm planning to go to New Mexico this weekend if I feel up to it (have been feeling much better this week, thankfully), so this morning I checked the weather to see what driving conditions would be like for the trip and to see what kind of weather there would be while I was there.

-21º at our place this morning! I can't even imagine a temperature like that. And I've spent some winters in some pretty cold places like Upstate New York and Anchorage, AK. Nothing even close to a temperature like that, ever, occurred at any of them. The coldest I've experienced in NM is 13º, which is cold, certainly, but survivable. And in AK and NY temperatures in the teens and twenties were common, only once down to 3º in Anchorage and 0º once in Rochester. But apparently it's been this cold in NM for days. Only supposed to warm up -- a little -- beginning on the weekend, then get into more normal territory next week. Ie: 30's and 40's.

I expect the pipes will be frozen. They're plastic, the kind that's not supposed to break when it freezes, but I don't know whether they can withstand such low temperatures.

It occurred to me that the electric co-op isn't all that reliable, outages being frequent and all, sometimes all day, and I got to thinking that if the electricity went out when the temps were that low, we'd freeze. The main heater is gas, but without electricity, it won't work. Thermostats and all, fans, that sort of thing. The kitchen stove is gas, but it requires electricity to function as well, though it might be possible to light it with a match in a pinch. Never tried. There are electric space heaters in some of the rooms, and of course if the power is out, no heat. There is no fireplace. There was a wood stove, possibly two, at one time, the holes for the chimney pipes are still visible in the attic. But they were taken out long ago when a gas heater was installed probably in the late 30's or early 40's. It, at least, could be lit with a match. The new one we had installed can't.

So I'm thinking about alternatives.

Supplementary wood stoves? Kiva fireplaces in every room?

Of course practically everyone around us has their own generator, just in case.

I know other parts of the country have been facing fierce cold and intense blizzards pretty much all winter, but this is very unusual for New Mexico. I'm completely unused to such bitter cold, being mostly a California Boy (you should see me during a tornado warning! Even though we have them in CA, more and more lately, we never get warnings, per se. Unlike the Midwest...)

Must learn some new coping skills I guess...