Painting is like a parade

Natural Reflections on Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The week off from teaching art opens like showy white pelican wings, lifting my spirit with possibility. This past Friday, I took Waffles, my poodle/terrier mix, for a short bird watching trip at White Rock Lake.  We walked out onto the dock at Sunset Bay, and stood entranced by the sound of seagulls and the Calvary of coots paddling up, hopeful for breadcrumbs.  The American white pelicans, with their pterodactyl looking bodies and bills especially appeal to my sense of wonder. Why does this flock of 70 or so, stop over in Dallas on a winter vacation, when they could keep going to warmer climes?

Suddenly I am filled with gratitude for a humble scene…birds, water, wind and my dog, in a natural area only 20 minutes from my home. The pelicans traveled many miles to hunker down on White Rock Lake, and do so each year, delighting birders old, new.

     On this day, I do not have my plein air easel set up. Memory and camera record the colors and sensations of movement.  Transfixed by the scene before me, I simultaneously recall another cool day, in the high desert region of New Mexico.  In June, the little dog accompanied me to a pasture full of sagebrush, high on a hill, overlooking the splendor of the Sangre de Christo Mountains in the Wheeler Wilderness Area. Each morning, I arose with the sun, and put on my backpack filled with paints, gessoboard panels, and water bottles. I hiked a short distance looking for the best vantage spot for painting. The fleeting nature of the sunrise caused me to set up and get started quickly. With the sea of sagebrush at my feet, and the looming mountains in the distance, a color palette developed.  Brushstrokes flew quickly across the panel, forms blocked in with little hesitation.  Proceeding from one pool of paint to another, time was transfixed as the morning sun slowly warmed my skin. No mosquitoes. No city sounds of leaf blowers and sirens. Just the wind, the Western Scrub-Jay and a thought that “This too shall pass”.  For those sacred moments, in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico and the spontaneous trip to White Rock Lake, I am thankful.