Tuesday, January 27, 2009


New Mexico boasts two early art communities centred around Santa Fe and Taos. It's hard to say which members are more interesting, but since I have a background in biology/ecology, I'd have to admit to finding landscapes more to my liking.


One can find lots of names to delve into at this wikipedia page:



Three favourites are W. Herbert Dunton, Oscar E. Berninghaus and Ernest L. Blumenschein. A new biography of Blumenschein was just published which includes some of my favourite paintings. See this Denver Art Museum page for more information on the biography.


Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Monday, January 19, 2009

Chaco Canyon

Chaco Canyon, one wonders why settle here? Perhaps before 1250 the area was greener, the rain fall more plentiful, but not seemingly in this century. As one walks around the canyon and stops at Pueblo Bonito, you can't imagine how a large population could support itself here. How do you feed hundreds of people?

See: A Brief History of Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Trade routes must have fanned out with Mexico not too far south; okay the 2000 miles to Chichén Itzá in Yucatan, now that's far! But the distance didn't stop some trade in turquoise from the Cerrillos mines between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. And all this trade took place before the horse was introduced to North America.

When the horse came to play a prominent role in trade there were routes to the east and west, like the Old Spanish Trail leading to Los Angeles.

See: The Old Spanish Trail via NPS

Thursday, January 15, 2009

In August 2008 I was planning on linking up with a vertebrate paleontologist friend in New Mexico. But while doing some sit ups in Denver I pulled something in my lower back and that ended a great trip.

Weird coincidence: in the middle of Nowhere, Missouri, at a gas pump, I recognized someone.

"Hell, I know that back," I said to myself and just waited.

Yup, when the guy came back it was my paleo friend Bob Sullivan.

Our paths didn't cross in Santa Fe, but they did near Rolla, Missouri. I think we spent way too much laughing about what our aging bodies had done to us over the last two decades. In 1990 Bob and I spent time collecting vertebrate fossils in the badlands of New Mexico, close to Farmington.

Where did the years go?