Out in the Redrock Desert

Equinox sunset, Hell’s Backbone, 09/22/2014

Tomorrow, I compete in a paint-out in Utah, where I’ll have about five hours to complete a painting somewhere along Hell’s Backbone Loop. I’ve done this sort of competition before in my hometown; doing it in an unfamiliar place is extra challenging. Earlier this evening, I read an essay called America’s Redrock Wilderness by Terry Tempest Williams. It is an inspiring essay on why wilderness is important for Americans, and it reminds me why painting landscapes is so important for me. Here are some excerpts from that essay:

Wilderness is not a belief. It is a place. And in Utah, we know these places by name: [Here, Williams lists about 100 or more place names in Utah, delicious names like House Range, Goose Creek, The Blues, Harmony Flat, Mary Jane Canyon, Moonshine Draw, and Moon-Eyed Horse Canyon]

What do these places have to say to us as human beings at this point in time? What do they have to say about life during the Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic eras? What do they have to say to us about the erosion and uplift of our souls and imagination?

What voices are being carried inside the canyons by the salamanders, toads, and tree frogs? Or the species of turtles, lizards, and snakes who are also living on the Colorado Plateau?

A rattlesnake coiled and hissing is exposed on the slick-rock.

Think about the hundreds of species of birds and mammals on the plateau: white-throated swifts, violet-green swallows, ravens, coyote, mountain lion, and mule deer. We may see them, we may not. Always, they are watching. Turkey vultures are watching.

And what kind of standing do the hundreds of species of plants have in the desert, especially forty-two threatened species, the sand poppy among them?

There are songs still being sung and stories still being told in the places where people lived thousands of years ago, places that braid the Colorado Plateau together. In so many ways, the Anasazi have never left. Handprints on redrock walls. Anasazi applause.

These wildlands are alive. When one of us says, “Look, there’s nothing out there,” what we are really saying is, “I cannot see.”

The Colorado Plateau is wild. There is still wilderness here, big wilderness. Wilderness holds an original presence giving expression to that which we lack, the losses we long to recover , the absences we seek to fill. Wilderness revives the memory of unity. Through its protection, we can find faith in our humanity.

We have a history in this country of environmental courage, and its roots are found in direct contact with the beauty of the natural world that sustains us. The sacred heart of this continent beats in the unagitated and free landscapes of North America….

… Public lands within the Colorado Plateau possess spiritual values that cannot be measured in economic terms. They dare us to think in geologic terms: Kayenta, Moenavi, Chinle, Shinarump, Toroweep, Coconino, and Supai. We are absorbed into a rich, vibrant narrative of vertical time and horizontal space.

We can learn something from this redrock country as we stand on its edge, looking in. We can learn humility in the face of Creation, reverence in the presence of God, and faith in one another for exercising restraint in the name of what lands should be developed and what lands should be preserved.

This country’s wisdom still resides in its populace, in the pragmatic and generous spirit of everyday citizens who have not forgotten their kinship with nature. They are individuals who will forever hold the standard of the wild high, knowing in their hearts that natural engagement is not an interlude but a daily practice, a commitment each generation must renew in the name of the land. If we listen to our politicians we must ask some serious questions. Who is speaking on the side of time? Deep time. And who is considering the soulful existence of other creatures?

What we have witnessed in the ongoing struggle to protect America’s Redrock Wilderness is that responsive citizenship matters. Individual voices are heard, and when collectively spoken they reverberate on canyon walls. The passion for the wild endures and can lead to social change long after a specific piece of legislation has been forgotten.

The Hopi Elders have told us, it is time for healing. A healing must begin within our communities, within ourselves, regarding our relationship to the Earth, Wild Earth, we are in the process of becoming Earth.

We are not separate.

We belong to a much larger community than we know.

We are here because of love.

ringing

this silence

This silence–                                –is the bedrock of

our

democracy.

-Terry Tempest Williams

Thanks for reading.

Utah: Looking Back, Moving Forward

La Sals from Pack Creek Ranch, watercolor on paper, Meg G. Freyermuth ©2009. 

The paintings shown in this post were painted in 2009 during my first trip to southern Utah as an adult. My family and I stayed at Pack Creek Ranch for a family reunion in September 2009, right as summer turned into fall according to our calendars. Our first reunion outing was to Arches National Park, where I bought Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire in the gift shop after I had spent the first night at the ranch reading the copy that was in the “cabin” we stayed in. I came to find out the next day that the owner of Pack Creek Ranch was Ken Sleight, a friend of Ed Abbey’s and the inspiration for Abbey’s famous Monkey-Wrench Gang character Seldom Seen Smith. I hadn’t yet read The Monkey-Wrench Gang but I was aware of it. In the meantime, I soaked in the beautiful Utah desert and Abbey’s tales of staying in Arches National Park in the 60’s, before all the roads were paved. He used to stay at Pack Creek Ranch, maybe slept in the bed I slept in, where I read his words and painted these paintings and wrote my own thoughts on the Utah desert.

Where the Seldom Seen Sun Last Sets, watercolor on paper, Meg G. Freyermuth ©2009

Mt. Tukuhnikivatz can be seen clearly from Pack Creek Ranch, from the back of the cabin we stayed in, where you can feed apples to the horses, paint, and play guitar in the presence of this beautiful peak whose name means “Where the Sun Last Sets” in the Ute language. This peak has left a lasting effect on me ever since I first noticed it in 2009. Every time I drive to Moab now, I can’t help staring at Tukuhnikivatz, gloriously shining in the sun. When I look at this peak, I think of Ed Abbey and other writers and artists and activists who have fought to protect these lands, going against all expectations of Western development and growth.

“We are at the crucial moment in the commission of a crime. Our hand is on the knife, the knife is at the victim’s throat. We are trained to kill. We are trained to turn the earth to account, to use it, market it, make money off it. To take it for granted. Logically, we will never be able to reverse this part of our culture in enough time to stop that knife in our hand. But that is the task at hand — to cease this act of violence.” -Chuck Bowden

Charles Bowden (known as Chuck) passed away recently, and it has affected me greatly. I’ve been reading his words, as well as those of many other activist writers of the southwestern US, writers who have known each other and inspired each other and fought for wilderness; writers like Abbey, like Rebecca Solnit, like Terry Tempest Williams; writers who have inspired me to paint and write and fight for the wild lands that so many don’t seem to care about. It is some of the best research I’ve ever done for my painting, to read about the importance of this wilderness from such great minds.

For Abbey, watercolor on paper, Meg G. Freyermuth ©2009

As I prepare to head to southern Utah next week for the Escalante Canyons Art Festival and plein air competition, I am remembering that 2009 trip and the powerful, naked feeling of being surrounded by red rock desert and some of the most intense canyons and mountains in the world. Utah’s landscape, like most deserts, is humbling and sublime and not to be taken for granted. I have been back several times since 2009, but this time I go for the sole purpose of painting as much as I can in celebration of Everett Ruess (the festival is also called the Everett Ruess Days) and Ed Abbey and Chuck Bowden and Rebecca Solnit and Georgia O’Keeffe and Terry Tempest Williams and hundreds of other artists and writers who felt what I feel in the American southwest, who fell head-over-heels in love with this wild land. I’m overwhelmed with excitement at painting in one of my favorite places in honor of my favorite people during my favorite time of year.

 

Pack Creek Cottonwood, watercolor on paper, Meg G. Freyermuth ©2009

Note: All of the paintings shown here have been sold. There is one painting left from this series of watercolors from my 2009 trip to Utah, and it is not pictured here.

A Spokesperson for Nature

A quick follow-up to my last post on plein air painting:

I paint landscapes and nature not just because I love it, but also because I believe people who are passionate about nature need to speak up for it any way they can. Personally, I think nature does speak for itself: who’d want to destroy places like this??—

 

 

Yet, somehow, there are many people in the world who don’t give a shit about nature or protecting beautiful places like these. So, those of us who care need to constantly speak up for it. I feel that plein air painting is one of the more scientific endeavors an artist can make: studying one spot intently, making note of changes in weather and light. It’s difficult, and requires lots of focus and physical energy. Activities like this get me really excited about the connections between artists and scientists. It’s no wonder that most of the books I read are about science and environmental history: I am conducting my own scientific experiments every time I paint outside, and they inform the viewer on the importance of wild spaces.