"MONUMENT VALLEY"
Utah
Oil on Linen
8 x 15.25"
8 x 15.25"
$580
One day I pulled off the highway beyond a Navajo roadside stand to paint in the legendary Monument Valley. A three-legged reservation dog trotted over to mooch food, tourists stopped to snap pictures, and the hot desert sun sizzled on my skin. In the East, our understanding of what an American Indian reservation must be like is necessarily limited. You would have to be there to comprehend both the harshness and the beauty. And while I might visit for a few hours to paint, in ways I felt so out of place as to be naked. Only the Navajo can truly know the heart of their land.
One day at the rez gas station, a tall young Navajo man approached as I readied to leave. Having pulled up behind my car in a tall truck, he spotted the paintings drying in the back window. Without hesitating, he confessed his passion for painting, and lamented that he had done nothing since graduating public school years ago. Clearly, the creative spark had continued to fester inside of him and I gathered that talking here with me served to vent some of the frustration that tends to gather within the unexpressed artist.
The essential artist is defined by the way they view their world. They do not merely drive along oblivious to light and shadow, beauty and pain. Instead, the artist's eye continuously captures imagery and stores it away. Certainly this man watched the land and its ever moody horizons every day as he drove the long highways hauling hay. I offered that one day he would pick up a pencil or a brush and tell the story of his land and whatever he did, it would be beautiful beyond words. Until then, he would be painting with his heart and not to worry that time passes by. The years would only sweeten the image.
I never asked his name, but I drove away knowing a special moment had happened. Several years later I realized how truly extraordinary it was that he had spoken to me at all.
The Navajo maintain a strict solidarity against speaking to white people outside of necessity. To reveal something as personal as a hidden passion is nearly unthinkable. In that same place I’ve been waited on by Navajo women who would not engage in any way, other than to drop my change on the counter. And given the history between our cultures, I have to empathize.
Still, I have always remembered that moment and the overflowing wellspring of a dream long held in his eyes. To others, it may have appeared that a white woman and a Navajo man were talking, but I know that it was only two artists sharing a dream. I hope one day he will tell his story, as no one else can.
The essential artist is defined by the way they view their world. They do not merely drive along oblivious to light and shadow, beauty and pain. Instead, the artist's eye continuously captures imagery and stores it away. Certainly this man watched the land and its ever moody horizons every day as he drove the long highways hauling hay. I offered that one day he would pick up a pencil or a brush and tell the story of his land and whatever he did, it would be beautiful beyond words. Until then, he would be painting with his heart and not to worry that time passes by. The years would only sweeten the image.
I never asked his name, but I drove away knowing a special moment had happened. Several years later I realized how truly extraordinary it was that he had spoken to me at all.
The Navajo maintain a strict solidarity against speaking to white people outside of necessity. To reveal something as personal as a hidden passion is nearly unthinkable. In that same place I’ve been waited on by Navajo women who would not engage in any way, other than to drop my change on the counter. And given the history between our cultures, I have to empathize.
Still, I have always remembered that moment and the overflowing wellspring of a dream long held in his eyes. To others, it may have appeared that a white woman and a Navajo man were talking, but I know that it was only two artists sharing a dream. I hope one day he will tell his story, as no one else can.
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