Promise Land
Travel is good for an artist’s soul. My husband and I are on the last 700 miles of a 2900-mile-road trip for my 8th Cowgirl Up show in AZ -a trip that began with a snowstorm that closed I-90 and kept us in Sheridan, and ends with another storm closing I-25 and I-80, keeping us out of Wyoming.
Travel puts ideas in my head that I can draw on later as I paint, whether it’s light, colors, textures, subjects, or a feeling. I flew to the show in 2022, and I wonder whether my lack of a major road trip last year (other than helping our daughter move to TX and 6 trips to SD) contributed to my putting painting on the back burner as I got busy with other commitments. Exploring inspires me.
Joshua chastised the children of Israel for neglecting to “take possession” of the promised land by surveying it so that portions could be given to each of the last seven tribes (Joshua 18:3). These people had been nomadic for 40 years in the wilderness; they now seemed content to live as one big group in familiar territory, rather than sending explorers into the land to map out boundaries in the place God had promised them. I can relate to the comfort of complacency, but not venturing out to see what’s around me prevents me from finding visual stories to paint. If I don’t take in the beauty of Creation, I risk not seeing, tasting, or producing the fruit of the “promised land.” I risk not taking my talent as an image maker to its fullest potential.
We traveled “off the beaten path” in western Colorado, through a canyon where the remains of a hanging flume protrude from giant peachy-pink rock walls. A gold-fevered engineering marvel, the flume carried water via gravity to mines and sluicing contraptions in the 1890’s. The remaining beams and the drilled holes many have fallen from remind me of tales left in Morse code by these men. Not complacent, they were out to get all they could from their promised land.
The story of Dead Horse Point in Utah touched my heart as much as the serene beauty of the red canyon around it moved me. Many years ago, those thirsty wild horses could see their promise land: freedom and the water of the Colorado River 2000 feet below, but trapped on the high walled peninsula of the great canyon, they couldn’t get to it. They died of thirst.
Heavy winter rains left the Arizona desert aglow in wildflowers: blue-violet, orange, yellow, peach and bits of red. We had to get off the main highway and explore to see the best of it; their beauty at 75 mph is nothing like experiencing them up close.
When artists gathered at the show, we talked about wildflowers and the dramatic clouds from the evening before. I remarked, “How can anyone look at the wonders of the desert in springtime and not believe in a Creator?” Whether one believes or not, or portrays it aesthetically, I think creative people are drawn to explore & need to “take part” in paint, clay, words, music, etc.
New Mexico offered golden prairie grasses and falling-down homesteads that made me wonder about the people who claimed it as their promised land and settled, who’d unloaded their wagons and built log barns, homes, and lives long-abandoned.
With Wyoming “closed,” we toured the mountains of Colorado, where we saw a Gelbvieh- colored calf with its head covered in hay. He looked like a lion. These are things that fuel stories I can tell with paint or words. Travel helps me fully utilize my talent: to survey, live in and give thanks for the “promised land,” and to find my place and purpose in it. 4/5/2023
Travel is fun but there's no place like home.