Goodbye Corrales, Hello Vietnam

It’s that time again. The harvest is winding down. Jim bought a small basket of red and green chile so we can roast, peel, and freeze a few baggies to pull out in the middle of winter, when our bodies crave the chemical capsaicin (which produces the heat in chile). The air conditioner is closed up, and the heater turned on.

But it’s also time for one of my frequent journeys to Vietnam. I’ve stopped counting how many this makes — surely I’ve used up the fingers on both hands and am now onto my toes. I can tell you that each time I prepare for another trip, I go through the same bizarre process of mental gyrations.








Roma’s Five Stages of Travel Preparation


Stage One: Avoidance. As soon as I know I have to go on a long trip abroad, I put it out of my mind. After all, the trip is weeks, maybe months away. I sometimes neglect to tell even my family; I don’t want them to fret any earlier than necessary. Although I’ve gotten better about this, it would not have been unusual a few years back to hear the following conversation in my household:

ME: Hey, Jim, I did tell you that I’m leaving on Monday to (fill-in-the-blank-country)?

JIM: What?? No, I had no idea.

ME: Oh, I’m sorry. It was spur-of-the-moment.

JIM: You mean, they only gave you four days’ notice?

Stage Two: Nostalgia. I walk around my house, the patio, my yard, the girls’ rooms with a sweeping sense of loss and dread. How can I leave all this? I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go!!




Corrales Growers Market with the iPhone, all photos © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.




Stage Three: Guilt. Surely my children will be damaged by all my globe-trotting. Don’t people ask me every time I tell them I’m off again, “What about the girls?” I rush around like a crazy woman, trying to make my absence more bearable. I take Em’s Halloween outfit to the seamstress so it will be ready by the time I return. I hang up Dee’s clothes in her closet so she could find them easily while getting ready for school. Jim gets a homemade apple pie–his favorite. So this is what inspired Superwoman, I think.



Stage Four: Panic. This is the frenzied state I find myself in the day before I leave, my suitcase still not packed. I am relieved to find that my multientry visa is still valid. Whew! It would have been disastrous had it expired. (Been there, done that.) At 8 pm, the hour I should be hitting the sack given that I have to wake up at 3:45 am, I start flinging clothes into my suitcase. It’s cool in Hanoi, hot in the south. Whatever I forget to pack, I’ll just have to buy there. Hmmm, was that a goosebump I just felt?









Stage Five: Calm. Bags are checked, boarding passes in hand. I got an upgrade on the leg from ABQ to SFO. Wandering through airport stores, it dawns on me that I forgot to pack my neck pillow. Pick up a super soft one to add to our collection back home. Also picked up two books I’ve been wanting to read: lit by Mary Karr and Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves. Between the books, my writing and doodle journals, plus a presentation and a bit of writing for work, I will make good use of my alone time. I’m ready for this. Let the fun begin!









A Sampling of (Recent) Vietnam Posts

• Vietnam As Destination, Vietnam As Muse
• The Mekong Delta Through A New Set Of Eyes
• Children In Vietnam
• On Being A Mother Who Travels (Or A Traveling Mother)
• Local Color — My Favorite Shots From Ha Long Bay
• Vietnam — On The Road To Change
• Vietnamese Painter Pham Luc & The Gift Of Happiness
• Burro On An Airplane

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Corrales Art Studio Tour (aka John Toomey, Mary Hobbs, And Me)

The first weekend of May is a special time in the sleepy village where I live.

(A side note on villages: Aren’t they always sleepy? That’s what makes them villages. Not cities; not even towns. Ours truly is a village, incorporated as such in 1971. Hence, it is known as The Village of Corrales, and there has been since I can recall a sign that says something to the effect of “Drive slow and see our animals, drive fast and see our judge.” I know, it’s not the most grammatically correct sign. But what do you expect from a village?)

May 1 and 2 are the days when many of the artists and craftspeople who call Corrales “home” open up their studios and galleries and invite the public to visit.

Corrales Art Studio Tour, poster © 2010 by Krysteen Wazask. All rights reserved.

I am participating in the Corrales Art Studio Tour with two other artists, in a centuries-old former dance hall — now a creative space called Movement Studios — that sits in the center of Corrales.

(A side note on the center of Corrales: You know you’re there when you see a road sign warning Congested Area. Whenever Jim and I approach the sign he coughs and sniffles, at which point I, having forgotten that he does this every time we drive through the village, ask, “Something wrong?” He points to the sign, clears his throat, and says, “Congested Area.”)

Although I am quietly panicking over the fact that I’m behind on making art, I am deeply grateful to be spending the weekend with two talented artists who are also kind and lovely individuals. I’ve known them for only a short while yet I am honored to share this experience with them both.

(A side note on artists: I stand in awe of most simply because I’m blown away by their talent. But not all artists are likable, and there are some I probably wouldn’t choose to get to know. Well, these two artists are people I want to know better. Seeing their art and learning what moves them makes me want to know more about their lives, past and present. They are creative and authentic. Buena gente, as we say in Spanish.)

Here is a bit about them, starting with the one I met first.



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john toomey

Working Memory-Resurrection-Fern and Working Memory-Hymn-Recording, 30″ x 24″ mixed media paintings, images © 2010 by John Toomey. All rights reserved.

My art is communion with natural form. My imagery, which stems from both observation and improvisation, is born from dreaming upon the horizon, both drifting towards sky and descending into soil. My work is a contemplation of forces that shape, veil, reveal, and reshape forms of nature. It is a dialogue between abstraction and representation, cause and effect, growth and decay.

WORKING MEMORY

I am an artist, arts educator, and twenty-year resident of New Mexico. I teach art to pre-school and elementary aged children at Cottonwood School in Corrales. I make landscape-based abstractions, mostly mixed media paintings on paper. And although I have a profound love for my New Mexico home, it is the landscape of rural west Tennessee that set me on a path towards becoming an artist.

I spent most of my childhood outdoors, roaming and exploring the fields and woods that surrounded my home. As a teen I began to realize an interest for drawing and painting, finding my primary source of inspiration and imagery out in those familiar places. In those fields I dug a well that continues to provide, regardless of where I put down roots.

This is especially true with respect to my current body of work entitled “Working Memory,” a series of paintings in progress that return me to home and deal with the loss of that home. These are mixed-media works on paper, made with acrylic, pastel, watercolor, and bits of organic debris, pressed flowers, leaves, and soil. Most importantly though, this series deals with the ever so gradual loss of my mother as a result of Alzheimer’s disease.

My mom’s greatest love was taking care of our home, gardening and tending to the flowers, trees, and birds. I know her greatest desire was to live out her days in that beautiful place, but sadly she no longer recognizes her family or remembers her flowers.

“Working Memory” is about a boy paying homage to his mother, remembering the gifts that she instilled within him — a deep love of nature and a purposeful connection to place.

I dedicate this work to my mom but also to all who have experienced loss as a result of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.



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mary hobbs

Bahamas, photo © 2010 by Mary Hobbs. All rights reserved.

I carry my camera with me all the time, photographing my young children and their friends at the grocery store, dentist’s office, just before bed. Watching them at play or in repose, I am compelled to take pictures. This practice is a way for me to discover something profound in everyday mundaneness, to recall events from my own past and explore a child’s emotional landscapes.

I am especially intrigued by how our psychological world can be so different from the physical space we inhabit, how different each child’s experience can be in the same moment — one joyful, the other stressed, another bored.

In a poolside snapshot of a little girl, the traditional touchstones of a carefree childhood — a Popsicle on a sunny day, being wrapped in a warm towel after exiting the pool — are missing. Instead she is surrounded by oversized sneakers, a barrel trash can and rough blades of brass. This image is not so much a photograph of a happy child at the pool, but something more complicated. It is this complication, this juxtaposition of objects in a child’s physical space and the child’s response to this juxtaposition that fascinates me.



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I hope you will come and visit with us on May 1 and 2, in the center of the sleepy village of Corrales. Our address is 4605 Corrales Road (#25, #26, and #27 on the studio tour map). You can see more of John’s and Mary’s art, and my own. You can learn about Movement Studios and the classes that happen there when we’re not inhabiting the space.

We’d love to see friends and strangers, talk about coyotes and snakes and the trials and tribulations of making art and making a living. And just hang. And, well, maybe sell a piece or two.

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This Time Of Year

This time of year in the Rio Grande Valley makes me think of:

 

The bluest skies,
misty mornings,
apples,
hot air balloons,
and days that make you sweat.


 
 

Unexpected rain.
Ditches running with muddy-brown water.
The most intense colors.
Light that makes everything look crisp.





Did I say apples?
And still mornings, the most brilliant skies.
Smells. I should mention smells.
(Green chile roasting, and hay warmed by the sun.)
The best yard sales.
Sweaters in the morning.
The color yellow, and green turning to yellow.
Not quite pumpkins. But definitely apples.

What does autumn make you think about?



This Morning, photos taken in the early days of October by ybonesy
and her Farmer Jonesimbonesy, © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

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Irrigation Day In The Rio Grande Valley

Today was irrigation day. Jim calls the Ditch Rider early in the morning to see if it’s OK to irrigate. We have to coordinate with other properties that draw from the same ditch. If everyone irrigates at once, the water level will drop and no one will be able to get water.

But today, a Thursday after good rains up north, the water comes fast out of the gate. It flows from a larger ditch, one of many that run throughout the Rio Grande Valley, into smaller acequias. Ours is lined with concrete, technology from decades ago.

It’s not an efficient way to water. It’s ancient, flood irrigation. It’s cultural. We are slow to change. Jim wants to participate in the latest water conservation methods, but we can’t do anything until after the season. The trees are full of apples, and we have to use what tools we have.

It’s labor intensive, too, working the land. Not many people do it any longer. We know old-time farming families in our community. The men and women, both, get hunched over. They look like they are walking sitting. They work harder than anyone I know. Their lives seem romantic. It’s the land. The land is beautiful, but its beauty (if it’s a farm) is often directly proportional to the amount of bend in its farmer’s back.

We’re not real farmers. Well, I’m not a real farmer. Jim is close. He works hard every day outside. He works with his hands. I tell people that if we both worked on computers, our lives would be sad.

Jim took these shots today with my camera. I loaded them into my Flickr account, just to save space on WordPress. I feel weird having them there. But he’d never create his own account. He just comes to where I’m working, shows me his shots on the small screen on the Canon. Then says, “OK,” when I ask him if he wants me to load them onto my computer. I look at them and realize, artists aren’t the only ones who see things a certain way.

Right now we grow apples. Some pears, too. And grass that can be turned into hay. We talk about farming. It’s true we might do it. A little patch, anyway. We’ll have to see. That’s what my mom always used to say. We’ll have to see.

I wouldn’t mind if we stick with pasture grass and the orchard. We could do so much more, I know. But we could do a lot less, too.


 
 

 

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