| I grew up in the north valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, among the alfalfa fields and irrigation ditches of the Rio Grande, between the Sandia Mountains to the east, the volcanoes and usually dry Rio Puerco to the west, San Ysidro and Los Alamos and Santa Fe to the north, Isleta, Belen and Socorro south. I collected a lot of rocks, found fossilized dinosaur bones, raised rabbits and chickens and goats, pruned the orchards, irrigated the gardens and the fields, loaded alfalfa bales into the back of an old blue Studebaker truck, carved cottonwood roots from the river bed, painted and repaired what needed to be done.
I began painting in the colors of the mountains and mesas, arroyos and deserts, turquoise days and deep dark starry nights in which I lived and hiked and dreamed.
Later, with children and wife, she and I made silver and turquoise jewelry as we explored and lived through adventures shared, discoveries, challenges, joys, struggles, and building a few houses of our own. I would call these fulfillments!
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