SOUTHWEST

There is an acceptation to the desert…

“There is a part of me that is called to the scarcity of life, a solitary pilgrim awash on the hot sand of the inordinate day. There are two significant periods where I lived in the desert. Once alone, once with another I called the desert my home. The ghosts and the cowboy dreams, the giant sky at night and the endless wandering. All the times I slept in tents and lay on my back on the ground staring at the stars, Orion, Valhalla, the end of time they are always with me…”

Rancho de las Lomas

TUCSON ARIZONA

“Situated on a ninety acre tract of rolling foothills in the Tucson Mountains, surrounded by untouched Sonoran Desert and centuries-old saguaros, stands Rancho de las Lomas, a surviving iconic example of Guest Ranch architecture and the most important design achievement of one of America’s first female architects, Margaret Fulton Spencer. Arriving in Tucson in 1938, Margaret purchased a 190-acre former chicken farm at the edge of the Tucson Mountains. Over the next several years, Spencer designed and oversaw the construction of Rancho de las Lomas. The design and construction was in the architectural tradition of Mary Jane Colter, whose work at the Grand Canyon for the Fred Harvey Company had helped define the regional architecture of the Southwest.

After rambling around the west for awhile we rented a small stone house at Rancho De Las Lamos and I set up a studio in the extra room off the living room. There was a small window covered in vines, I would set on the stone floor and paint watching small lizards scurry across the vines basking in the morning sun. Long walks in the desert under the saguaro, dodging rattlesnakes and watching the javelinas—grilling shark at night on our little bucket grill over mesquite.

The stars…”

TUCSON ARIZONA

“I’d just hit town and my throat was was dry, moving down the street with a watercolor book under my arm and briefcase. I walked into the gallery and demanded an audience with the curator. I’d like to say I was hungry but I wasn’t instead I was cocky. After spending many days in the desert I had the watercolor book full of new pieces, that as per the course I thought were the best I had ever created. After displaying the watercolors the gallery curator began walking away less than impressed when I said wait I can show you my available pieces from theartofmann.com. The homepage loaded and it was all over except for the crying. Leaving the gallery I went to the local St. Vincent DePual and asked for all of the old newspaper, magazines, books, religious tracts they had and started creating collages for El Ojito Springs.”

GHOST ranch

ABIQUE NEW MEXICO

“The first time I had went out West wandering on a ‘Fools Journey’ I was living in a van traveling slowly and contently through the southern states headed to Diamond Mountain, Buddhist retreat and once Holy place of Geronimo. I rambled further from Santa Fe to Saltillo Mexico and found my way through the Apache National Forest to Ghost Ranch. Spending my time painting, living in my van and exploring the cliffs.
Ghost Ranch is a 21,000-acre retreat and education center located close to the village of Abiquiu in Rio Arriba County north central New Mexico, United States. It was the home and studio of Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as the subject of many of her paintings.
Ghost Ranch is also known for a remarkable concentration of fossils, most notably that of the theropod dinosaur Coelophysis, of which it has been estimated that nearly a thousand individuals have been preserved in a quarry at Ghost Ranch.”

October 2006

I found my way to Ghost Ranch by accident but was looking for a place to set up a temporary studio, the location was perfect. I set up shop under a lean-to with a grill and an outlet, sleeping in my van and finding water at the community shower, laundry and washrooms. I painted 23 24” x 24” pieces on panel.