Poetry: Thin The Silence

Thin The Silence

Copy my heartbeat.

Sway easily in this moment,

your unconfined faith is necessary.

Today I am quiet inside, unmoved by physical translation.

Underneath somewhere, in the far away, silent speech tickles tired wings.

Outside, perception goes beyond performance,and will bend to my will.

Unruly,and uninhibited, progression wakes to consistent denial.

Costume changes unravel restraint -

slowly it slips into unconsciousness.

I AM suffocating slowly between panes of glass.

Emotion destroyed – shy memory pleads convergence.

Pleads...oh Please...

Inside gestures shock contrived obligation.

Allowed deeper, pulled by ancient currents.

Whirlpool proof of power.

This is where time stops:

Right above my left breast -

beneath my collarbone.

The only place.

Resistance underplayed in electromagnetic expression.

Violent echoes breathe reflex impatience,

as meditative lies – thin the silence.

Twisting in midair, permission shifts illumination.

Intent is whispered hard,as sharp blades carve promises in souls.

Secrets are slowly buried in skin.

This is where lust hides – in the curve of teardrops.

Elusive, and slippery this feeling.

Never to be trusted.

-Heather Smith-Gearns

THE WALK Part 7

Adam and I enter the little plaza adjacent to the Santuario. The lights are brighter here chasing the remnants of the yellow orbs of the candles of the altar from our sight. There are about twenty people standing, sitting around talking and resting. Walkers? Maybe. But it is almost Good Friday Eve and the locals will be coming at all hours now to hear mass.

I see the little cafe on the edge of the plaza is open. Offering coffee, hot chocolate and food for sale to the people. We head to the front of the church. I limp along even though I have my cane. We stand at the main entrance. I see canes and walking sticks leaning against the wall by the front door.  Not sure what this means. Are people with walking problems to be healed? Or is it bad form to take a stick inside? I keep mine so I can make it down the wide flagstone steps that lead to the main sanctuary. The darkness outside is soon eclipsed by the bright, warm, yellowness of the interior.

Crude wooden pews line either side of the aisle many of them filled up with people here for the mass. The ceiling above us is almost two stories high with dark, wooden beams supporting it. Primitive images of saints on wooden placards form the altar and accentuate the walls. This church has been here in one form or another since 1810. You can feel the history sink into you. I find it impossible that anyone being here could fail to be affected by the mystery of this place.

There are statues of saints hidden in niches. Red, black and white, and the dark color of the wood, is the color scheme. A medium sized crucifix hangs central above the altar a few feet up. It is a broken Christ figure. He sags more than hangs upon the cross. His flesh darkened by the smoke from many candles.
This smoke carries the prayers of the faithful, the hopeful, the needy, upwards. Adam and I scoot into
an unoccupied pew. I struggle. My legs don't want to work. We sit down and now see the priest whose voice we heard amplified outside. He is sitting down up near the altar table. He holds a microphone. He speaks with a spanish accent that is formal and classical in its sound. He leads the congregation in the prayer "...Hail Mary, full of grace....." repeating it over and over again. I keep hearing the phrase "...now and at the hour of our death...". Adam and I sit and pray, heads bowed for a few minutes. We look up and gently, quietly, stand to take our leave. Although this has always been a most welcoming place, we are still strangers in a way.

It is an international shrine but this church belongs to the people who live here in Chimayo. For in spite of the presence of such sacredness this village has a lot of troubles. Drugs mostly. They have been sold hereabouts for decades. There has been violence and death from the wars fought over the drug trade. Yet this church still stands as a symbol of that which transcends the flesh.

Now Adam and I make our way to the front, heads bowed, and walk through the little doorway that leads to a side room. It is here where the miraculous resides. There are homemade shrines to El Nino. The child Christ. People leave baby shoes for him as offerings and gifts.  The walls are covered in the photos of loved ones but also in discarded crutches and canes hung neatly on horizontal wooden rods. They offer testament to a faith I cannot begin to fathom. Do all of these crutches represent a healing of failing flesh? I don't know.

Adam and I wait now outside an even smaller doorway inside this room. It leads to a tiny room where El Pocito is. The "little well". Pilgrims wait their turn to enter to be where the holy dirt is kept. We squeeze inside when our turn comes. The room is about five feet by five feet in size. There are some altar shelves, more religious images, and a few candles that light and heat the room with their little flames. People are kneeling and gathering a brown, fine, silt like soil from a frisbee sized hole in the crude concrete floor. Ziploc bags and baby food jars are filled with the dirt. It has, according to belief, curative powers. Rub it on an affected body part and be healed. I have read of those who make it into a mud poultice to apply and still others who eat small amounts of it for its power. Whatever it does or doesn't do, this ritual always moves me. In the end it is about faith in a thing larger than ourselves and this world. It is a symbol of a mystery.

Adam and I make our way outside into the cool darkness. We don't talk much. We are still taking in the meaning of this wonderful, mysterious thing we will never understand.

Now we go into the little cafe. Besides fresh hot food and drinks, they sell small bags of Chimayo's famous, red, chile powder. I buy some to give to friends at home. Adam tosses a small hand wrapped cellophane package of biscochitos (cookies) onto my pile. The young girl behind the counter rings up our purchase. I gaze at the images hanging around the cafe. Then Adam says "Dad. Quick buy something else. Anything." I turn to look at the total listed in black and white numbers in the window of the old cash register. It reads 6.66. I grab another package of bisochitos and the chicana, oblivious to our alarm, rings it all up.
Wow. Satan's number. What did that mean? An odd, darkly poetic, coincidence? I have no idea but Adam and I laugh about it as we walk back down into the darkness to our car. There are more pilgrims arriving now. It is past midnight. The stars turn above us. The creek talks. We are both weary, but happy, in this moment. Soon this place will be the center of the world.
Quietus.

-Jeff Falk

Notes From the Studio - Ergonomics

I learned the hard way standing on concrete floors for extended periods of time is not a good thing-and I still have an occasionally aching knee to prove it. Now I stand on a thick rubber mat while painting-it's actually a re-adapted door mat.

-Richard Bledsoe

Artists: George Condo

George Condo "Tell Her or the Terror Will Tear Her"

"I like people to walk into one of my exhibitions and say 'What happened?'"
-George Condo

Artwork: Steve Gompf

Steve Gompf "French Televisor"

THE WALK Part 6

PART 6
Now our final lap. Adam and I have been walking about an hour since we took the turnoff. We can see the lights of the homes in the village of Chimayo just below us. From here on out the rest of the walk seems to fall away. The details of it not as clear as all those leading up to these last moments. It is because we are tired but also excited by the fact we have reached our destination. It is just before midnight New Mexico time.

Through the darkness we see the outline of the Santuario ahead a few yards. It has a few lights on but its presence is made known to us more because of an antumbral effect. Its dark mass is outlined in a halo from the lights of the plaza on its north side.

We begin walking a steeper way down as we enter the little road that takes us into the parking lot on the south side of the church. There are many cars there. But the lot is nowhere near as full as it will be by Good Friday dawn which will be here in about six hours. We hear dogs barking somewhere. The marvelous singing sound of the creek that runs north to south along the east side of the church property can be heard. Besides its gurgling it makes you can actually smell
the water. An unseen coolness creeps up to welcome and surround us. My arthritic limbs balk at this intrusion. I have still not worn my coat. But now I will put it on.

There is the smell of plants and growing vegetation around us. Spring is coming to this place. In the dark Adam and walk along towards our car. We will leave some of our burdens in it. Our water bottles, fanny pack. I'll keep the cane.  And now as we head towards the church we see the outline of two large television trucks ahead of us. The crews are working slow but sure, walking and carrying lengths of black cable and extra light sources. The news people want to be ready for the dawn. Ready to interview members of the steady stream of pilgrims as they enter the gateway of the little garden at the front of the Santuario. They do this every year.

Adam and I high five in the darkness as our footsteps crunch on the gravel of the parking lot. He says something and then we hug. We made it! With each step up the walk that borders the east side of the church it is getting a little brighter. More lights.

The concrete walkway is delineated by a chain link fence. It holds several crude, wooden, crosses that people have made from the small pieces of cottonwood branches they find on the grounds. You can take two sticks and wedge them into a cruciform shape in the chain link. Simple enough. But when there are hundreds of crosses in the net of the fence the effect is very dramatic. I think I know what these crosses are. They are prayers.

Now we smell food cooking. There are a few pilgrims gathered around a crude little food stand to our left. It is selling some kind of homemade spicy food served in large styrofoam cups. I bet it is spiced with good Chimayo chile. The stand sells hot coffee and soda pop too.  Smells good but we keep walking up to the plaza. Now we hear an amplified voice reciting. There is a speaker mounted up under the eaves of the east side of the church. Is it a recording or live? It is an eloquent voice. Sounds like a prayer or scripture being read. At the top of the walkway to the right we now see the lights of many candles burning in the stone shrine there. I see photographs of what I assume are loved ones propped up against the glasses of many of the candles. Rosaries and religious scapulars are hung, draped among these offerings.

I see an image of Saint Michael in the shrine. He's my saint. I pray to him a lot. Can't hurt. He's the big kahuna of angels. He is an archangel and his legend can be found in Jewish, Christian and Islamic teachings. This is a big deal. He is the saint of protection for soldiers and policemen. He also protects all against darker, unseen more esoteric forces. You don't have to be a solider or a cop to make requests of him. Though a protector, Michael is also seen as a "psychopomp", a strange word, it means "conductor for the souls of the dead". Like a Walmart greeter for the afterlife I guess. The "Michael" named in the old folk song "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" is purported to be him. He is rowing to shore to gather souls.

Now we are almost at our destination.

NEXT: Quietus

-Jeff Falk

From the Archives: Jornada Del Muerto 2008

Since our founding, each year Jeff Falk assembles an altar in the tradition of Day of the Dead commemorations. This is the altar from 2008. Patrons were invited to add their own contributions. 

Artwork: Heather Smith-Gearns

Heather Smith-Gearns "Fiction" acrylic on canvas

Artists: Malcolm Morley

Malcolm Morley "Dawn Patrol" oil on canvas 75" x 104 1/2 "

"The idea is to have no idea. Get lost. Get lost in the landscape."

-Malcolm Morley

Article: Annie Lopez

From Phoenix writer and curator Robrt Pela's blog-Deus Ex Machina's Annie Lopez receives an award from the Phoenix Art Museum's Contemporary Forum.

Annie Lopez Mid-Career Artist Award

THE WALK Part 5

PART 5

Adam and I approach the north turn in the road that will take us down into Chimayo. Its hard to miss tonight. There is a very bright floodlight, with a generator running, on a tall steel pole lighting up the landscape for several yards all around. The rabbit brush and juniper clumps throw strange, angular, shadows in all directions.

The New Mexico authorities go to a lot of trouble to do what they can to help make the walk safe at night with patrols, signs and lights like this. While this light clearly marks the turn off for the pilgrims it is blinding. Seems to take away some of the, I don't know, sacredness of it all.
Then again a light is just a light.

Adam and I cut the corner on the left side of the turnoff. Instead of following the paved road we walk off onto the west sandy shoulder. We pass through a cattle gate, or stile, entrance through the livestock fence. Its a narrow opening, slightly angled, to prevent cows from walking through.
We make it through and begin the last leg of our trip.

Normally this portion of the road can be quite rigorous. Car traffic picks up the closer you get to the Santuario. Walkers are forced to edge along the uneven rocky shoulder to stay out of the way of approaching headlights. But this year the state has paved a wide shoulder to the left of the road. New guardrails have been installed as well. Man this is easy walking! Like our own personal freeway. But now we head downhill. Shins and calves begin earnest aching. No matter. We are almost there.

I have used a wooden cane as a support and aid all along this trek. I feel like a wuss. But on a hike like this arthritis in my knees, hips and legs gets nasty and uncooperative for steady movement. I understand why walking staffs have been in use since past centuries. The stick can help you move along at a brisker pace. You can cheat and make your joints and muscles behave in more of a way you want them to. Over the years I have seen walkers who seemed barely able to stand upright let alone walk. And as if walking alone isn't enough to challenge you I have witnessed pilgrims carrying full sized wooden crosses on their shoulders while others have large effigies of saints literally strapped to their backs. Burdens of choice I suppose. Those people are strong beyond my comprehension.

Adam and I trudge on through the darkness sometimes passing other walkers who are either slowing down or are taking their time valuing this experience step by step. Sometimes walkers breeze past us, their steps quickened by the knowledge that they are almost to their destination.  We pass walkers sitting on the new guardrail taking a break. They are silhouettes to us for now the moon is obscured by clouds again. We nod or whisper words of encouragement to them as we walk by.

As usual I can't let the simplicity of this walk be. I have always wondered what is it that compels human beings to do it. Not just to be moving on just this particular path but to walk pilgrimage trails all over the world.  Over the ages mainly religious motivations I guess. The annual thousand year old holy Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca, and even Chaucer's edgy Canterbury Tales, remind us that walking is the one thing we can do that no one can take away from us.

I think the Buddhists call it kinhin. Walking meditation. But you don't have to believe in anything to make a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage doesn't have to be done as an offering to God or to an ideal. So there the mystery begins. The act of pilgrimage seems like a wavelength that human bodies and souls can plug in to and share.

For myself an important defining meaning to a pilgrimage, for whatever reason it is undertaken, seems to be the fact that it is a voluntary act. Its a personal choice. If your walk takes you where you want to go, or ends badly, fulfills some inner need or not, it is/was your choice to make. It is a way of saying "Whatever may come I have chosen to do this." Lets face it, for many people, there are little or no choices they get to make in their lives.  Some folks have it made. Others never win.

The strange inequities of this life seem to sweep us all along in directions we would not wish to go.

But on a pilgrimage the pilgrim makes the choice to do it. Its freeing in that it feels as if, for once, we get to choose our direction on the big path of reality.

I'll shut up now.

NEXT: ARRIVAL

Artwork: Dain Quentin Gore

Dain Quentin Gore "The Yosis" oil on linen 24" x 30"

Music Review: Rudimentary Peni "Cacophony"

Nick Blinko cover artwork of "Cacophony" CD

Rudimentary Peni-Cacophony 1989

                                 Outer Himalayan Records

And then the matter of that phonograph record…It must mean something; whether animal noises deceptively like human speech, or the speech of some hidden, night-haunting human being decayed to a state not much above that of lower animals.

                                                                                                -H. P. Lovecraft

Does genius lead to madness, or is the other way around? Mental illness in reality is usually a drab and frustrating situation. The romantic cliché of the brilliant lunatic persists though, supported by the occasional rise and fall of some inspired martyr; there is some truth to the template. When an inventive mind gets caught up in a wave of mania, astonishing creations can occur.

The Rudimentary Peni album Cacophony feels maniacal, as if it were recorded at the height of some delusional frenzy. A rare hardcore punk concept album, an obsessive riff on horror pulp author H.P. Lovecraft, it captures that writer’s atmosphere of melodramatic creepiness. The recording seems like an organic whole; songs blend into one another, connected by snippets of dialogue and sound effects, racing along at breakneck speed. It is one of those records to be played in its entirety, to better appreciate the story arc.

Rudimentary Peni (named for a biology class definition of clitorises) grew out of the busy London anarcho-punk scene nurtured by the musical collective Crass. RP’s front man Nick Blinko is the songwriter, guitarist and singer; he also produces the horror vacui outsider art that illustrates the albums-teeming landscapes of grimacing faces, skulls and religious icons. Blinko could be a character out of a Lovecraft work-a talented outsider whose mind was broken by the pursuit of arcane knowledge. Diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, Blinko has spent some time institutionalized for his condition.

Despite the burdens of Blinko’s mental state, and all the growling death rock themes explored, Cacophony is a rollicking, playful album, bursting with excitement at its own inventiveness. The lyrics echo Lovecraft’s quaint verbose style in a manner that is both tribute and satire. The content veers between Lovecraft’s biography, his works, and more oblique rants. The original vinyl fortunately came with a 6 page lyric sheet, because the elaborate, articulate poetry Blinko wrote is often buried in layers of distortion and noise, or is barely intelligible. Blinko produces literally dozens of accents in his vocals-he chants, mutters, shrieks, hisses, croons and babbles; it’s an amazing theatrical performance. “Things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl,” he croaks in one interlude. Some pieces are nothing but sounds-chattering teeth, rude squishy noises, wheezing or screaming.; others are little collages of tombstone inscriptions or buzzing alien voices.

The music swings between tight little punk gems and ominous droning soundscapes. The catchy hardcore passages throughout the album suggest Zen Arcade vintage Husker Du. In “The Only Child, ” about a bad seed murderous little girl, the delivery is a snarling Exploited style stomp; “Arkham Hearse” swings with a Sex Pistols sneer. “Dream City” warbles like the Buzzcocks: “The weedy old spires like veins in marble/The old gold domes/were just ancestral homes/The citadels of yore with their broken bronze bells/ tottering towers/shadowy staircases/spiral like ammonites…”

Rudimentary Peni, despite some hiatuses, continue to release albums, though nothing has ever topped this perfect storm of cult influences. Cacophony works on many levels-it ranges from being sinister and aggressive to being literate and tongue in cheek. It presents horror with mighty impact but doesn’t take itself too seriously. This highly personal and entertaining experimental album is a neglected masterpiece. 

-Richard Bledsoe

Originally published in "AZKAOS" zine

Commentary: Slaying the Shibboleth

 Richard Bledsoe "Hapless Scrivener (Make With The Word)" oil on canvas 48" x 36"

Post Modernism had a profoundly negative impact on contemporary art, which is why it needs to be strongly repudiated. It attempted to substitute a simulation of art, a Mobius strip of relativistic theories propped up by sophistry and hypocrisy, in place of the actual human processes of creation, discovery and self knowledge. Post Modernism looked like it had significance because its domination in the media, academia, and the cultural institutions. But it fails to speak to or for the vast majority of people in this world.

What is pandering these days is to go along with the art establishment-to keep producing junk with a sociology lesson attached, instead of really exploring yourself and your medium. The medium is irrelevant-art can be made out of anything. The power of art comes from the artist's ability to capture a visionary moment of truth in tangible form-that place where the specific leads to the eternal. 

Our society has suffered because for awhile artists stopped reaching towards eternal values.  Post modernism said there are no values-it's all the same, just a matter of taste, no one can say what is good and what is not. In fact, PoMO says, the worse something seems the better it is, and the average person is just too dumb or backwards to get it. But the elite get it. It's a way prove membership as one of the anointed-embrace the nonsense. We've had decades of fawning over the emperor's nonexistent clothes. 

Well, no more. The culture elites have run the train off the tracks and the damage they've caused needs to be repaired. If we are going to come through these turbulent times intact, artists must stop supporting the establishment's status quo.

Conflict is unavoidable, because incompatible world views are in competition. Remodernism presents the return of art as a revelation-an inclusive, spiritual activity. The elites encourage art as a wedge, a status symbol; they use the debasement of art to enforce their positions of power and influence. There can be no compromise with those who seek to use the holy practice of art to to undermine the human spirit.

-Richard Bledsoe

THE WALK PART 4

We had been walking for over two and a half hours. The road was flat enough to enjoy now.
A steady pace achieved with less effort. The moon shined down upon us in longer intervals. The clouds seemed to fly north towards our destination. The town of Chimayo where the Santuario is. A two hundred year old plus church with many legends about it. It has been called "the Lourdes of America" for its native, silt like, dirt that can be found inside an uneven concrete hole in the little room adjacent to the main chapel.
In other words Lourdes offers holy water to its pilgrims. This high desert sanctuary has holy dirt. And like the water of Lourdes this dirt supposedly has curative powers. More on this a little later.

We set a good rhythm now. Adam and I seem to walk in unison. I say a few prayers to remind myself why
we do this. Usually I have a reason or a cause to dedicate the walk to. A cure for a friend's illness. World peace. That the mystery of this strange experience called life, or the world, might be revealed.

I feel like a faker in that so many others walk this road for days. Some coming from Albuquerque, a hundred miles away, or even farther. They start a few days in advance of Good Friday. These are the real pilgrims. Compelled by faith, or the lack thereof, that they walk to gain spiritual knowledge, or a blessing, seems to me a sacred undertaking. Name a religion that now exists. It will have pilgrimage as part of its history. Its a universal, human phenomenon.

It is said this pilgrimage thing was begun in 1945 by the survivors of the Bataan Death March. Another story says it was started by the mothers of servicemen in the war then. To intensify their requests/prayers to God for their loved ones safe return home.

And here we are stumbling through the darkness, amateurs. But it is beautiful. The night. The walk. We are lucky to be here. Very lucky. We see the landscape illuminated by moonlight far off to the north ahead of us. Adam tells me he thinks he can see the turnoff to Chimayo over the next set of hills. This is the last leg to the chapel. Its a few miles long. It has a lot of ups and downs offering a compact, intensified, short distance very challenging to weary legs. I tell him we have been this way before and to remember its always further than it looks.

I glance to the west and see the sparkling lights of the place called Los Alamos. This "city" was created in WWII. Made up mostly of barracks then, it was built to house the scientists who came there to develop the first atomic weapons ever used in wartime. The output of their efforts was used to make two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  They still do a lot of weapons research there to this day for the U.S. government. I ponder the strange juxtaposition of it all. That this intensely spiritual land is home to both faith and fury. It all has a mythlike, darkly poetic, symmetry. I don't know what else to think about it.
It doesn't matter for now we walk. Thanks be.

NEXT: ARRIVAL

Artwork: Jeff Falk

Jeff Falk "Leave"

Commentary: Bafflement of the Public

"The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public." -Henry Geldzahler

Accurate summation by a notable curator, historian, and critic. As artists we have become guilty by association with a lot a meaningless dreck being passed off as art. That's why the audience is baffled, they know intuitively art has gone wrong. It's time to stop all the relativism. There is Truth, there is Beauty, there is Quality. Artists above all need to commit to higher standards for themselves and the works of their peers. 

-Richard Bledsoe

Video: First Friday 5/4/2012

Video by Greg Roberts-the music of Last Wave, including images of artwork from Deus Ex Machina and our gallery neighbors The Sagrado

Last Wave And First Friday Art

Notes From the Studio: The Entryway

The door to the gallery-and the sandwich board we set outside during our openings/events.

THE WALK Part 3

Now Adam and I are walking up on a fairly flat straight a way of the road. A relief I tell you. Though we have only been an hour and a half my hips were beginning to yell at me. No matter how far we walk on this pilgrimage it always seems to tire us out significantly. Mainly blisters and bone aches. Limping for a few days afterwards is par for the course. We think its because we're flat landers. The elevation here is 6000 ft. High enough to notice in our breathing as we walk.
Maybe that's what tires us out. At this point in the journey we are good to go. Its early.

Darkness all around. The breeze continues but I still haven't put on my coat. Walking keeps me warm. Up ahead a few yards on the opposite side of the road from us we see bare bulbs lit edging a temporary tent infringing on the dark. Another pilgrim stop.

The beautiful moon exposes itself occasionally. The clouds are blown away from its face flooding silver light almost bright enough to read by upon us. I notice the distances on either side of the road and see crouching blue dark shapes. Clusters of pinon or juniper. The gray of rabbit brush clumps. It feels like walking in an O'Keefe painting. If she had made one about the night.

There are automobiles that do travel this road during the pilgrimage. At all hours. They are the locals or the curious coming and going. Orange reflective signs that read WALKERS AHEAD are at several points along the way warning the drivers to keep an eye out. Nevertheless there are accidents. Some pilgrim is struck by a car. Usually minimal injuries. But still. Emergency vehicles patrol this roadway all night. Their bright read and blue lights encroach upon our walking revery. We ignore the lights mostly.

Now Adam and I need something to drink. I could sure use a coffee. We look up the road and see no lights coming and we scramble across to the pilgrim stop. Nice people again. Coffee, tea and hot cider urns sit on a table. We grab steaming cups and move on thanking them as we leave.  Now we settle into a good pace again. Adam announces "We have walked 10,000 steps so far" as he reads his electronic pedometer.  I smile to myself recalling the familiar buddhist bromide about the beginning first step of any journey.

This is a good thing. I am alive. It is so wonderful to be here. The world falls away. I am not an artist. I am not an employee of anyone. I have no citizenship anywhere. I am walking. A simple thing done by all people for a million years. Thats what people do. We walk. Each life is a journey.

NEXT: LIGHTS ON THE ROAD

Artwork: Annie Lopez

Annie Lopez "Lillian, A Sculptress" toned cyanotype

Artists: Paul Klee

Paul Klee "Dream City"

"Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible." 

-Paul Klee

From the Archives: First Opening 12/7/2007

Sherry Weiss with Michele Bledsoe's Artwork

Steve Gompf, Jeff Falk, and Richard Bledsoe in the background

 

Small works wall 

 Michele Bledsoe, Sherry Weiss, and patrons 

Deus Ex Machina held its original First Friday opening on December 7, 2007.

THE WALK 2

As the sun continued setting Adam and I walked up the road from the creek.
The main road that goes through the village was just ahead of us a few feet.
Usually, from where we had just walked, we would have encountered other pilgrims.
But not yet. That would change soon.

It is Thursday afternoon. Good Friday Eve. The big crowds start at dawn on Friday.
We walked with the early birds. We got on the main road and made a mental note to be aware
of the cars coming and going. The walk is safe if you follow basic precautions. Bright colored clothes.
A flashlight. And stay to the right of the road. Or the left depending on how you were traveling.
Sometimes this means walking off the paved shoulder of the road into a runoff ditch. Not bad but uneven
and its tiring to the feet and you could sprain an ankle.  We were warming up now and tried to set a pace.
We began to see other walkers ahead of us. And we heard voices trailing behind.

I wore long pants and a t shirt, I carried a cane which came in handy hours later,
and a coat slung over my shoulder. Adam wore long pants and a sweat shirt.
The cool air was invigorating. Not cold enough yet for the coat.
But with each moment of failing sunlight the temperature around us seemed to drop a few degrees.

Now we both had the same idea. We looked across the road to one of the first rest stops offered to walkers. A church on the north side of the road. Some of its members sitting at long tables out front of the church. They freely gave coffee, hot chocolate, water, snacks. Very kind of them. Our sights were on their blue port o potties. After we visited these and began to head back to the road they called out to us and we waved back thanking them for their hospitality.

Now we began to pace again. We walked past several houses done in various New Mexico styles. Rancho, territorial, pueblo. whatever. Each in various stages of good or bad. Some looking much older than the others. Farm like these homes could have gardens or horses, even goats or sheep, we could see from the road. But as in years past the real surprise was still the peacocks. We heard them before we saw them. The high pitched squeal of their call. At first it sounds like a child crying out or maybe a cat being throttled. Its unsettling until you realize what you're hearing.
Weird.

Soon we saw them strutting through their yard. There coronas of feathers were down dragging through the cottonwood leaves.  There were six that I counted. As we looked down on them from the road they seemed to follow us keeping our pace as they walked in the confines of their big yard. Elsewhere in the town we heard a rooster crowing away the day. But he could not out crow the peacocks. Finally he seemed to give up.

The road began to rise now. And an illusion of this land is that it is flat. But if your eyes don't tell you about a change in walk elevation your legs do. A slight strain is noticed in our thighs of calves. Ahead a hairpin turn north as we finally reach the outskirts of the village.

It was getting dark now and we could see candles burning at another hospitality stand along the route up at the turn. As we reached it women's voices called out to us "Coffee, tea, hot chocolate. Come on and get some. We have fresh zucchini bread too!" It was all offered free and although we did not stop, as we walked by we thanked them for being there and for their kindness. These offerings by strangers always touch Adam and I. They don't know us.  But they share whatever it is we are trying to do.

Now we headed due north. The Santuario still miles away. The moon was full but shrouded by storybook clouds. Its luminescence shined through the edges of the slow moving clouds. A slight breeze began. Cool but refreshing. The sun was still fighting to stay above the western horizon wanting to outshine the moon but it was losing the contest quickly.

A dark blue sameness like a fog of approaching night seemed to settle on the land. It welcomed us as we walked. Enfolding us in its blessed blue black poetry.

NEXT: STEP BY STEP

Artwork: Richard Bledsoe

Richard Bledsoe "The Bear That Ate The Stars" oil on canvas 30" x 36"