April 21, 2009
Got home from our plein air art trip last night about 6:30. We covered over a thousand miles and really saw some great country. In fact, that's what we're kind of thinking about naming our art show in October: Capturing Billy the Kid Country.

Here's a shot from the road near Lincoln, New Mexico:

I believe that's Capitan Gap in the background. It was quite cold along the Mogollon Rim, with snow on the ground at Heber and Overgard. And we drove through several snow flurries on the Plains of San Augustine and near the Trinity Site east of San Antonio, New Mexico. Of course we had to stop every ten minutes to take photos of great scenery like this classic old adobe:

And, of course, once we got to Lincoln, I took Ed and Gary on a walking tour of the town and they photographed almost every inch of the historic village where Billy the Kid made history:

Including each other:

Many of the towns we passed through along the way looked a tad peaked, especially Hillsboro, New Mexico, which is one of my favorite Old West towns in the Black Range. We got there on Saturday afternoon at about three and there wasn't a place open and half the stores were closed or for sale. The last time I was through there the streets were jammed with tourists. We didn't even stop.

After a great stay in Billy's hometown of Silver City we took off for Cliff, Mangas, Buckhorn, Gila and Glenwood. Two of the cowboy cafes I remembered in Cliff were boarded up. So we pushed on to Glenwood, and after breakfast at the Golden Girl's Cafe, we walked up the street to The Los Olmos Resort, a classic old school lodge with great cabins. Kathy and I and the kids have stayed at the lodge going back twenty years. A couple years ago it was turned into a boarding school, but after a scandal (the director allegedly skimmed several million out of the operation) the property went back on the market and along came Brian and Holly Boland, formerly of Mancos, Colorado, who are intent on returning the lodge to its former glory:

Word quickly circulated through the small village that we were in town and by the time we set up our first plein air scene out on the highway to Mogollon we were sitting ducks (for people driving by and yelling):

Ed Mell (center) and Gary Ernest Smith (at right) painted in oils while I did my usual gouache approach, plus my sketchbook sketches:

Plus I did a couple pen and inks which were more successful:

Monk Maxwell, the last of the wild cow catching cowboys, tomorrow.

"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun."
—Pablo Picasso