GREASEWOOD

(Trading Post, Greasewood Springs, Arizona)

Acrylic on Paper / 9 1/2" x 13 1/2" / NFS

© John Farnsworth

This is the trading post at Greasewood Springs, where I started my painting career, in 1968, and where I had previously worked as a trader to the Navajo.  I hope you'll come back soon, and meet some of my old friends, Clarence, Johnson, Peacho, Lucy and others, as I'll be adding more paintings, sketches, and stories from that period soon.

While camped at Greasewood on my sponsorship, I spent my days sketching in the Trading Post, or out among the people gathered to visit and gossip in the clearing out to the west of the store. (The left side of the foreground in the painting above.) Some days, I would climb to the top of the small mesa behind the store, or the hill in front of the store. On others, I would take my home-made version of a French easel, and either ride Johnson James' horse or hike out into the surrounding landscape, to paint the washes, arroyos, mesas, trees and mountains.

Here's a painting from one of those walks. It depicts the Greasewood Wash, which ran from the Lukachukais down past the rear of the store. I walked up the wash until I saw this Juniper tree, silhouetted against the sky and background of the Lukachukai Mountains. and sat down on my folding stool in the middle of the chamisa filled wash, to paint it, and the side and bottom of the wash.

The Spanish Conquistadores brought horses, cattle, goats and sheep into the Southwest, and the Navajo, through raids and trading, quickly learned to herd and tend flocks of the sheep and goats, which provided a ready source of meat, lessening the need to hunt. The herds soon became the Navajos' main source of food, clothing, wool, for their rugs, and a source of wealth and standing in the community. Eventually, however, overgrazing by the sheep, and to a lesser extent, the cattle and horses, resulted in wide spread and devastating erosion. The federal government stepped in and drastically reduced the size of the Navajo herds during the 1930's, slaughtering 80% of the stock, to the dismay of the owners. The government continues, still, to impose limits on the numbers of sheep the People are allowed to own.

The deep arroyos caused by the erosion provide picturesque and visually exciting subject matter for painters, while serving as a reminder of the history of the region.

Here are some Greasewood paintings from the collection of Fran Elliot, Sedona, Arizona:

This was the Post Office in the Greasewood Springs Trading Post when I worked there, in 1966-8

A. Yazzie's young sons herding sheep in the snow near the store at Greasewood Springs.

Peacho Begay and John Farnsworth at Upper Greasewood Trading Post, 1967

PEACHO'S

SADDLE

Oil on Panel

20" x 16"

Sold

Collection:

Arizona Bank

Phoenix, Arizona

Greasewood Wash

oil on canvas

16 x 12 inches

© John Farnsworth 1968

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