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In
the 1970s, while living along the Verde River near Cottonwood, Arizona,
I kept an old Navajo Wagon in the yard, outside my studio. Many nights,
after a long painting session, I would pass this wagon on my way from
the studio to the house. On full moon nights, I enjoyed pausing to study
the effect of moonlight on the wagon, and was reminded of the wagons
that surrounded a Navajo Fire Dance I had attended in the foothills of
the Lukachukai Mountains while on a painting
sponsorship at
Greasewood Trading Post, where I had formerly worked as a
trader.
The result was a series of small paintings of Night Wagons. These
paintings were so popular, and sold so fast, that I stopped doing them
for fear of being trapped in an easy subject. But after a couple of
years ,and having done three or four paintings based on the fire Dance,
I realized I still needed to do a larger, developed piece to round out
the theme and complete the series.
On
another occasion, while visiting Northern New Mexico with my friend and
fellow artist, Earl Carpenter, we blundered into the Taos Pueblo plaza
after dark, and started across the log bridge from the North Plaza to
the South Plaza. We were met by spectral figures swathed in white
blankets, and informed in no uncertain terms that outsiders were not
allowed in the area at night, and escorted out. But the vision of the
North Pueblo in moonlight stayed with me over the years, and I promised
myself that I would someday do a painting based on that memory.
1974 saw the
release of Harold McCrackens' Frank Tenney Johnson book. Johnson's
excellent night scenes influenced me greatly at the time, as they did
many artists. At about the same time, I was privileged to see a large
collection of Frederick Remington paintings on display at the Lovelace
Clinic in Albuquerque, including a couple of his nocturnes. And in
Tucson's Arizona Bank, there was N. C. Wyeth's The Plains Herder, which
I visited whenever I was in town. |
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Combining these three influences, then, I created the painting Taos
Night Wagon. It tells the story of a Navajo family who have traveled for
days from the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners Region to Taos to
celebrate the ages old San Geronimo Feast Day festival and trade fair.
While the father takes care of last minute trading, his wife and
daughter wait in the wagon. A young Taos man, standing in a dark
doorway, takes this last opportunity to flirt playfully with the
beautiful young Navajo girl before the family leaves on its long journey
home. |
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