For the entire month of November, 2009, I will be showing pieces of various subjects, sizes and prices.
I have always been pleased to work with the homeless shelter here in Alamosa as far as my work goes, and 10% of anything which I sell from this venue will go directly to Milagros, which helps support the homeless shelter.
Although I did this piece back in 2000 when the Great Sand Dunes Nationa’l Monument became a full-fledged National Park, and it has been hanging in the visitors center there since; it was chosen to be included in work displayed at DIA in the show, “Art of the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve” on concourse A.
It will be on display there until late January 2010.
On September 26th, 2009, the installation and unveiling took place at the visitor’s center with a crowd-filled lobby. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar pulled the coverings from the panels and spoke a few words in honor of “Public Lands Day”. Park superintendent Art Hutchison spoke as well and introduced me to talk about the project and my relationship to the Sand Dunes.
I was also honored by the park staff and the “Friends of the Dunes” with a reception for my friends and family after the unveiling.
The first time I visited the dunes was as a young girl on a Scouting trip. Little could I know that someday I would be honored to have such a piece of my work displayed in this park. Since coming to the valley in 1969 as a college student, and later marrying and raising my family here, I have been to the dunes numerous times to camp and hike.
Thus things have come full circle.
In this, the largest and final piece of the Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve project, is found the high mountain area of the environment. Here dwells the big-horn sheep, with a bald eagle soaring overhead. Ponderosa pine and greenery in fall colors cover much of the rocky landscape where also bloom Indian paintbrush and the Colorado state flower, the blue and white columbine.
This panels shows additional dunes fieldd, contrasted with the snowy spires of the Crestone Needles towering into the Colorado sky. Fall colors are visible in the distant landscape and more golden aspen frame one side. The Medano rushes by a mother brown bear and her cub, and on the far right is a ponderosa pine with a portion of the bark peeled off for medicinal purposes by Native American people. In the lower left corner is a cut-throat trout, found in the brooks and streams of the area and the lower right corner depicts the vibrant color of the mountain bluebird.
