Paintings—Oils

I must have been thinking of O Keeffe, because I drove up to Ghost Ranch one day. Like many, I simply looked around and began to walk. Finally I sat down to eat my lunch and discovered that my hard-boiled egg was less than hard. Dismayed, I stared at the soft yolk- and then at the earth pigments all around me. Slowly I began to mix them in my palm- ochre, violet, dark red- and the golden yolk. Slowly I smeared the paste on my face. Seeking an initiation that would join me to this place and even transform me, this seemed a clumsy gesture, and yet it was eloquent. Marking my face committed me in the most basic way to the sight and insight of becoming an artist. It also joined me to the land with a touch as tender and as primitive as making love.

When I returned to New York, my work changed. I drew on sheets of paper that seemed to me like rock surfaces, or like skins stretched on my loft walls. I was more aware of the power in making a mark. I drew with pastels that remembered their earth pigment nature. The shapes I drew were organic and geologic, as though I were exploring valleys, dry river beds, hills, feeling the imagined topography under my smudged fingers.

Page Allen, We Came to Santa Fe, Pennywhistle Press, 2008