Yesterday’s brutal winds and bitter cold were a stark reminder of what a harsh environment this land truly is: stark, extreme, and unforgiving. It has never been a place well-suited to the faint of heart or fragile of spirit.
One might perhaps have expected me to say that it is not a place for those vulnerable in body, but I can attest to the the manifest untruth if the notion through personal experience. It’s not a question of physical strength; merely one of respect for greater powers, of appreciation, even love for the beauty they create and the gifts they provide, and not a little common sense in how one engages with them.
In these days leading down to the end of the natural year, now only a week hence, we are bombarded here with colonial messages: traditions imposed by force from half a world away forcibly wedded to others stolen more recently from places just as far, all in a failed attempt to hybridize some colonial hodgepodge of “Indigenous” ways. It’s all nonsense, of course, but it points to a larger problem in the invasive and pervasive mindset: one that seeks control, always, rather than humility and adaptation.
Here, we take our lessons from the earth itself, from land and sky, wind and water, from our cousins the wild creatures and the trees too. In a place such as this, the trees are creators and nurturers, guardians and guides.
On this morning, just after dawn, a bright gold sun spilling across a frozen earth, the aspens outside the window are limned in a cold glowing light. They are creator spirits, too: tall, graceful trunks faded nearly white, capable of photosynthesis even on thee coldest of days; root systems that reproduce whole stands with greater efficacy than the most robust of their pollen; meristems so red and robust they look as though they are budding out, although they will not produce catkins until spring. They put me in mind of today’s featured work, one in the color of the remnant snow still scattered here and there across the surface of the earth, crisscrossed with vibrant red-orange stems ending in winter-pale blossoms. From its description in the Other Artists: Pottery gallery here on the site:
Flowers and Checkerboards Pot
Camille Bernal (Taos Pueblo) creates a masterwork that blends old traditional shapes with contemporary expressions. Checkerboard patterns in warm red ochre arise and criss-cross like ancient paths from the base of the pot, their lines growing organically into the stems of gently-blooming flowers. Flower groupings are tipped in alternating Santo Domingo White, Laguna Blue-Gray, and charcoal shades. Stands 5″ high by 5.25″ across at the widest point, with a 2-7/8″ opening across the lip (dimensions approximate). Other views shown above and below.
Tewa clay; plant-based paints
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
Requires special handling; extra shipping charges apply
The imagery on this silken pot is that of flowers — small upright blossoms like tulips, petals reaching for the light. But their soft understated beauty and pale neutral hues have always reminded me more of catkins, those velvet-clad buds whose emergence signals the return of spring, of new life amid warmer winds.
One could be forgiven for thinking, at a glance, that the aspens have already budded out, and are simply awaiting the emergence of the catkins’ velvet bodies. In truth, they simply possess unusually large bold meristems, shining crimson in the light. They remain dormant, for now — but unlike their deciduous siblings, the aspens continue to create throughout the winter, by way of root and bark. The clone systems that appear from underground are still very much alive and thriving beneath the frost line, and the bark continues its daily work, breathing new life into the winter air.
It’s difficult to credit, in such bitter cold, but this place of harsh extremes lives and breathes, births and grows the year round, unbothered by constraints of time or season, climate or weather.
It reminds us that, if we engage the world on its own terms, we can do the same.
~ Aji
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