musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
my greatest joy today
You would have thought my greatest joy today was spending 3+ hours in my studio painting. Especially doing so while listening to a conversation with a wholly inspiring mastermind of creativity. Or signing my name, finally, to a painting I’ve been working on for weeks.
But no. My greatest joy today came this afternoon, when working on my computer and suddenly a flash of movement outside the window caught my eye.
It was a tiny wren — a Bewick’s Wren.
Wren to my mind, is one of the most beautiful words in the English language, and denotes one of Earth’s loveliest beings. Sadly wren is also one of the Lost Words like magpie and clover the Oxford Junior Dictionary removed in 2007 to clear way for words like voicemail, celebrity and MP3 player.* Of all the birds she fed and observed out our kitchen window, my mother’s face seemed to light up most when a wren appeared.
I am the same.
My mother’s mother fed birds, too, though she lacked the animal whisperer sense that coursed through my mother’s veins. I remember that Gram, too, enjoyed seeing wrens, but that she very definitely didn’t like bluejays. When I asked her why she said “because they kill other birds’ eggs.” Evidently she didn’t know that wrens do that, too; I’m not sure if my mother was even aware of the wren’s jay-like murderous instinct. I doubt that it would have mattered much to her if she had.
What charmed my mother about the wren, I think, is how chipper and cheerful their twitchy movements and melodious song seem to be.
Who knows if they even posses the capacity to be “cheerful”?
But certainly they make me so.
*I don’t know if the OJD has brought back wren and the other lost words in more recent editions, but I hope they have.
Thank you for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. And if you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for Tuesday Dawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Thanks for finding your way here.
Stay safe. Be kind.
~ Dawn Chandler
Santa Fe , New Mexico
Free from social media since 2020
history and mystery in the new mexico landscape
My friend was incredulous. You’ve never been to La Cieneguilla?
No, I replied. I’d never even heard of it.
I can’t believe you’ve never been there!
Two months later I had a similar exchange with another friend.
You’ve never been to La Cieneguilla?! Oh my God, DAWN! I can’t believe that!
My reputation of being an aware outdoorswoman made it inconceivable that La Cieneguilla wasn’t on my radar.
A few months ago when I finally did get there, my reaction was the same as my friends: I can’t believe I’ve never been here!
For, in the nearly three decades that I’ve lived in New Mexico, I’d driven by La Cieneguilla hundreds of times. Yet I was utterly oblivious to the trove of history and mystery hidden before me. That’s because from the distance and whiz of nearby roads, the area of La Cieneguilla seemed to me an inhospitable landscape: Barren, desolate mesa country, jagged with brown rock and sun-bleached grasses and juniper — like so many New Mexico hills. Remarkably unremarkable. Nothing about it beckoned to me or even hinted that there might be something extraordinary hiding there. Always I sped by on my way to somewhere else.
Oh, but what I’d missed all those years zooming by.
La Cieneguilla is part of a larger area known as the Caja — the Caja del Rio plateau, an area that stretches from La Bajada in the south, Santa Fe to the east, Bandelier to the west, and Pojoaque to the north — some 100,000+ acres between the Rio Grande and Santa Fe River. From I-25 it’s that area to the northwest of La Bajada Hill that to my naive eye always seemed uninteresting and void of life.
I was completely ignorant of the Truth of this land. That in reality not only is it an area exquisite in its ecological variety, but one which for centuries has been a critical thoroughfare for beings of all kinds. Peruse the rocks at La Cieneguilla and this becomes clear. For in the jumble of geology is story upon story of long ago humans and animals passing through the Caja. Their stories are etched in the most tremendous and vivid array of petroglyphs I think I’ve ever seen. My friends told me the carvings were incredible in their volume and variety, but I couldn’t grasp the awe in their telling until I saw the petroglyphs for myself. As I scrambled along the rocks, I was blown over by the sheer number of etched snakes, birds, fish and deer, handprints and human forms, masks and swirls and mysterious symbols that cover the rocks. Every turn in the trail reveals yet more carvings peering out from the shadows and sunlight. And all of this just a few minutes from my front door!
The ease of access to this storied land is an extraordinary and unique gift to those of us who live nearby. But it turns out it’s also a problem: Poaching, indiscriminate shooting, illegal dumping and vandalism are frequent abuses on the Caja. I was heartbroken upon my initial visit to see an assault of purple paint sprayed across a rock face like a violent wound — the result of a graffiti attack from earlier this year, when swastikas and other ugly symbols were found on the petroglyphs. I learned that this was the third defacement in 12 months. Currently care of the Caja is shared by the Santa Fe National Forest and BLM, yet they are too thinly stretched in resources to protect the area well.
I’m therefore relieved to learn that there’s a growing coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to securing better protection of the Caja. Among them county, city, tribal, cultural, environmental and community entities have passed resent resolutions in support of protecting the Caja. Hope now is that with their support the Caja will gain further federal protection and funding, perhaps through the America the Beautiful initiative.
My first visit to the Caja was in June when one of those friends who had been shocked by my ignorance of the Caja invited me to tag along on an Audubon tour of the petroglyphs. The group’s guide, Andrew Black, was such an eloquent, bright and powerful speaker, that I felt compelled to tell him afterward how much I valued his knowledge and how impressed I was by his public speaking skills. Only later did I learn that not only is he is a Santa Fe native and local pastor with a law degree, but he’s also the National Wildlife Federation’s public lands field director. No wonder he speaks well! Good thing, too, for the Caja needs as many eloquent, persuasive voices as it can get. In Black’s own words,
I have seen how our public lands not only drive our economy, bring diverse communities together, and provide critical wildlife habitat, but also how they ground our sacred traditions and lend depth and meaning to America’s rich cultural heritage…. As a spiritual leader, I have also seen how our public lands offer healing and transformation, and I recognize that we have a sacred duty to be good stewards of these lands for future generations.
I’m humbled to realize that this landscape that once seemed so unremarkable is now filled with allure for me. It makes me wonder how many other landscapes rich in history and mystery have I overlooked? Even one is too many. Yet from the first moment I looked up and saw a wall of beautiful centuries-old silent voices whispering from the rocks of the Caja, I knew that my perception of this land — and I along with it — had been forever transformed.
For more information explore these links:
Momentum Grows for Permanent Protections for Caja Del Rio — US News & World Report
Petroglyphs defaced outside of Santa Fe — Albuquerque Journal
Thank you for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. And if you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for Tuesday Dawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Thanks for finding your way here.
Stay safe. Be kind.
Peace on Earth.
~ Dawn Chandler
Santa Fe , New Mexico
Free from social media since 2020
a benediction
nature does not hurry,
yet everything is accomplished
~ Lao Tzu ~
I’d been feeling nervous about an upcoming backpacking trip. Though overall I’m in good shape (thank you Peloton), I hadn’t put in a whole lot of high-altitude hiking miles this season. My “hiking legs” weren’t well developed yet. Problem was that getting to my favorite hiking trails involves at least an hour round-trip drive, and I was short on time with a long “To Do” list weighing on me. But I also knew that early morning hiking nourishes my mental well-being as much as my physical health, and my head was begging for some woodland solace.
Which is why I decided on a whim one recent early morning to load my pack with weight, fill a thermos with tea, grab a snack and my sketchbook and head for the mountains before sunrise.
Forty minutes after changing out of my pajamas I was at the trailhead. Now the question was how far to push myself. The trail I chose is extremely steep the first half mile, when it levels out through a magical aspen forest and then courses up through a high meadow. At the far end of the meadow the trail enters deep forest and gets steep again.
From there it climbs up, up, up, eventually gaining altitude by way of eroded switchbacks, and then pops you out of the dense forest onto a clearing high above Santa Fe.
To hike that far would be a terrific workout, but it would also mean that this whole excursion would consume most of my morning. I could push myself further physically to train more for my backpacking trip….But…..Ohhhhh ….that would leave me no time for stillness.
This mental debate of how hard to push myself nagged at me as I hiked through the lower forest, across the meadow, and back into the woods. A few more minutes of climbing the slope and I began to scan the land in search of a level area. Just up ahead I spotted one on the south side of the trail. I turned off the path, brushing branches and leaves aside as I cut through the trees to where the ground leveled off. I then found a downed aspen and, with a long exhale, took a seat. “This is good enough. You can get in an intense workout another day,” I thought to myself, attempting to quell the guilt for not pushing myself more rigorously up the mountainside.
I pulled out my thermos, opened my sketchbook, and began to draw there in the flickering aspen light. All was silent.
I don’t know how long I sat there in stillness consumed with my drawing. But my sketch was nearly finished when I put down my pen and reached over absentmindedly to grab my thermos. Suddenly there was a thunderous eruption to my right. My eyes jolted up to see a deer just a few feet from me. In that instant she sprang up, twisted in midair and bounded away. Just as quickly as she’d jumped, she stopped and turned to look at me.
We stared at each other. Surely her heart was hammering as hard as mine.
After a few breaths, with eyes locked, I ever so slowly stood up, hoping for a better view of her.
To my surprise she permitted me this; I felt the flush of approval.
A few more breaths and the pounding in my chest subdued.
She turned her gaze and slowly, silently moved down-slope through the trees.
There, following behind her, was a yearling.
I lowered myself back down to my log and watched them weave gracefully through the aspens. Sunlight painted bright light across their sienna coats, amidst a mosaic of white tree trunks, lime-green leaves, dancing wildflowers and grasses.
I zoomed in my camera and — what’s that? — there was another deer — a young buck. He seemed to greet them, as though he’d been waiting for them. Had he strolled past me earlier, both of us unaware of each other in our silence?
A friend once told me about an encounter he’d had on a trail in the foothills high above Albuquerque. He was riding his mountain bike and just starting to descend when he spotted a trail runner coming up trail toward him. All of sudden a deer sprang out on the trail between them. Cyclist and biker stopped in the their tracks as the deer made its way across their path. The runner made a motion of rapidly scooping air with his hand and pulling it toward his face, inhaling deeply. “Deer energy. Breathe it in!”
My deer family grazed easily, unperturbed, till eventually they disappeared through shimmering stripes of aspen light.
I took a deep breath.
Benediction. That’s what a friend in Maine calls it whenever she has a chance encounter with wildlife.
A Benediction.
Feeling radiant, I packed up my things, and made my way back to the trail, grateful that I chose stillness over pushing myself this day.
Thank you for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. And if you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for Tuesday Dawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me via my connect page.
Thanks for finding your way here.
Stay safe. Be kind.
Peace on Earth.
~ Dawn Chandler
Santa Fe , New Mexico
Free from social media since 2020
we all made it ~ painting auction fundraiser for philmont’s rayado women scholarship fund
I am so pleased to offer my painting We All Made It for auction to raise money for Philmont’s incredible Rayado Women program.
BOOM! We are LIVE! Find the auction here.
If you have the interest and the means, please bid to help raise funds for this great cause. If you aren’t able to bid, please then share the link with others who may be interested. Thank you!
Meanwhile, here are the details of We All Made It, the story behind the painting, and Philmont’s Rayado program. Thanks for your interest — and special thanks if you bid on the painting!
RAYADO
2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Women Rangers at Philmont. As part of that celebration I — a Ranger alumna — am auctioning my painting We All Made It to raise money for scholarships for Philmont’s Rayado Women program.
Rayado is Philmont’s equivalent of OutwardBound and NOLS. It’s an intense two-three week backpacking adventure for older teenagers, with the purpose of challenging and inspiring participants to push themselves beyond their perceived physical and mental boundaries. Both of my brothers had been Rayado Men as well as Rayado Rangers. Inspired by their experiences and example, I became a Rayado Woman in 1982 and was fortunate to be chosen to be a Rayado Ranger in 1984. Rayado remains one of the most challenging, positively transformative experiences of my and countless others’ lives.
100% of the proceeds from the auction will be donated to Philmont’s Rayado Women Scholarships. An anonymous donor will match the winning bid to further the money raised for future Rayado Women.
WE ALL MADE IT (PHILMONT) — THE PAINTING
The Scene
The first time I ever stepped foot on Philmont I was disappointed. The place was hot, dry and dusty, with hardly any color to the landscape beyond sun-baked drab greens and browns. I was also filled with nervousness, wondering what the coming two weeks of backpacking had in store for me. I wondered if I could make it — wondered if I even wanted to.
We all know how this story ends, because you, too, may have lived this same story:
After two weeks backpacking with my crew in Philmont’s backcountry, I’d become hopelessly besotted with the place. By our last day on the trail I was already dreaming of coming back. And my crew? We all made it.
Lucky me I got to work at Philmont for several summers, first as a Ranger, then in the Backcountry. Yet it wasn’t until some 35 years after that first trek that I returned to the trail as a “camper.” Again I was nervous — only this time it was wondering if my middle-aged body could handle carrying a heavy pack on those trails. But this time I knew the beauty and comradery that the backcountry held. And I knew for sure that I wanted to be there. This time I was returning to Philmont as part of the incredible “Sole Sisters” crew of former Philmont staff women. Included in our crew were several Philmont pioneers, among them some of Philmont’s first ever Women Rangers.
Our 5-day itinerary wove through the verdant south country. We hiked along lush musical streams (Rayado…Agua Fria….), across meadows spangled with wildflowers (Apache Springs…. Carson Meadows….) through cheerful aspen forests (near Beaubien…. Bonita….). We watched the sunset and sunrise over the Sangres, and sang along with the raucous campfires at Beaubien and Crater.
On our last morning the Tooth of Time was our constant companion as we hiked down through towering ponderosas, eventually to Lovers Leap, and from there to the turn-around.
This painting is based on a photo I took that last morning. There’s a bit of wistfulness knowing our journey together on these trails will soon end. But there’s also joy and deep, deep satisfaction at having backpacked together at Philmont.
That is, of course, the Tooth straight ahead. As soon as we got to the road, we hung a right, walked through through the gate and formed a pack-line under the scrub oak. There we waited for our bus to transport us back to hot showers and “real” food. We were grubby, we stank, and we were feeling not a few aches and pains. But we were positively radiant knowing We All Made It.
If you appreciate this painting and have the means, please bid on it! And if it’s beyond your means but you’d like to support future Rayado Women, please help spread the word and encourage others to bid.
Thank you!
The Details
Title: We All Made It (Philmont)
Artist: Dawn Chandler
Kind: Original, one of a kind painting
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 11″ x 14″
Frame: Unframed*
Normal Painting Price: $725.00
Matching gift: The final selling price will be matched by an anonymous donor, to double the funds raised for Rayado Women scholarships.
Starting Bid: $0.99 cents with no reserve.
Shipping: Via insured UPS or USPS; signature required.
Start: Thursday 18 August 2022 at 8:00pm New Mexico/MT time.
Duration/Ends: 3 days, ending at 8:00pm MT/New Mexico time Sunday 21 August 2022.
*Note that the photos of the painting framed are digital mock-ups to give a sense of what the painting looks like framed; the painting is unframed.
ABOUT ARTIST DAWN CHANDLER
New Mexico artist Dawn Chandler first visited the Land of Enchantment as a teenager on a backpacking trek at Philmont Scout Ranch. She later returned to Philmont and New Mexico for many more summers to teach backpacking and camping skills to Scouts. She became a landscape painter in college, when her homesickness for New Mexico ached so badly it drove her to pick up her paintbrush and, through art, attempt to transport herself back to the Southwest.
Dawn has pursued painting ever since, and holds a BFA in painting from Miami University of Ohio and an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. A resident of New Mexico for 25+ years, Dawn supports herself as a full-time artist, striving to transport people to the Land of Enchantment through her traditional and abstract landscape paintings.
First-year Ranger Dawn Chandler atop the Tooth of Time, Philmont, New Mexico. c 1983
we need to talk: a word, a tattoo and a conversation
Image by Vitalii Bashkatov
A year ago I got a tattoo. It’s my second, my first one having been inked in 1983, when I was 18.
Now I’m nearly 60.
I’d been thinking about a new tattoo since listening to the audio of Celeste Headlee’s book We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations that Matter. I first listened to it on a road trip to Wisconsin, and kept having to pull over to jot down notes. Once the book concluded, I started it again.
The book catapulted me into self-reflection. It lead me to ink a Word on my skin. I took out a Sharpie and printed the Word on my wrist.
After a few days the ink faded, and I rewrote it.
Fade. Rewrite.
Fade. Rewrite.
Finally I ordered a custom bracelet from Etsy with the Word engraved on a band of silver. It was pretty. The problem was the font was small and I couldn’t really see the engraved Word at a glance. And being cuff-style the bracelet kept twisting oddly or snagging on clothes. My Word just wasn’t permanent enough.
Then one day last year I realized I desperately needed a permanent reminder of that Word. I needed it as a reminder for when I engage with myself, but especially when I engage with others. Too many times without that Word I had jumped to conclusions; I had miscalculated; I had misunderstood. I had missed. So much. So much of what my gut was trying to tell me, what my better angels were trying to tell me. And, most especially, what friends and family were trying to convey to me.
I needed that Word.
This spring I took my Word on a camping road trip. ‘Drove from New Mexico to West Virginia and back. Solo outbound, then picked up My Good Man in Harper’s Ferry and turned around and drove back together. Saw some beautiful, beautiful country greening up with springtime. During our drive he thoughtfully asked me: “What was the best part of your solo trip?”
“The conversations.”
There were many of them. But one in particular stood out.
It was the second night of my journey, when I camped in Osage Hills State Park in northeastern Oklahoma. That evening after supper, as I walked the campground loop, a big brown lab barked and barreled over to me. As I got the Big Lean from him, one of his owners called out to me from her folding chair by their campfire, ‘I love your tent!” Mine was the only rooftop tent in the campground, and she and her husband had a good view of it from their camper.
“Thanks! It’s pretty cool!,” I replied, as I scratched their pup behind the ears. We continued to converse, when her husband asked me if I’d like a glass of wine and a seat by their campfire. I paused for a moment, thinking of my journal and watercolors sitting on the picnic table back at my campsite, and my earlier decision to paint and write that evening.
But this is why you’re here.
Appreciating the spontaneous graciousness of their invitation, I accepted. They gave me their best chair and handed me a large glass of red wine. “Aren’t you going to have wine, too?” I asked, seeing they were empty handed. “We’ve already had ours, but you go ahead.” I gratefully raised my glass to them, taking note of my new tattoo on my wrist, and settled in beside their campfire.
Next thing we knew, three hours had passed. Over the course of that evening we had shared stories. We’d shared insights. We shared book recommendations, and most enjoyable of all we shared light-hearted laughter.
Here we were three people — three souls — enjoying the joy of good conversation.
In real time.
Eye to eye.
Fully present.
And what I loved most about it is that, based on a few subtle indicators, I suspect that when it comes to political views, we’re likely opposites.
It just didn’t matter. Nor does it. Nor should it.
Yet how often do we do this anymore? Lightheartedly and respectfully converse with complete strangers? Especially those who may have ideas and opinions completely different from our own?
This was one of the motivations for me in making this trip: To talk with people. With friends and family of course. But maybe even more so with strangers. Engage with them. Seek out their stories, their humanity. To…
Listen.
Thank you for reading my musings. If you think others might appreciate them, feel free to share this post. And if you’d like to read more of my musings please consider subscribing to this, my blog.
Meanwhile, find more of my stories, insights and art here on my website, www.taosdawn.com. Shop my art via my Etsy shop. And please consider joining me for Tuesday Dawnings, my weekly deep breath of uplift, insight, contemplation & creativity. Find other ways to keep tabs on me here.
Thanks for finding your way here.
Stay safe. Be kind.
Peace on Earth.
~ Dawn Chandler
Santa Fe , New Mexico
Free from social media since 2020