Penasco Blanco

32 x 44

Penasco Blanco refers to a white-colored rocky high point, the literal Spanish translation, and also to a Chaco greathouse that sits on the eastern edge of the main Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. This is a fanciful reconstruction of a ruin that is a heap of stones today.

I went back in time 900 years (how, is a secret!) when the pueblo was inhabited and maintained. To achieve this painting I incorporated one of my other obsessions, Native American archaeology. I consulted floorplans, read dialogue and reference material, took photos of the site, did preliminary sketches and a smaller painting study and used current pueblo photos for ideas on how the ruin might have looked in its prime. In spite of these efforts, I eventually had to on my artists' intuition to finalize a painting that could be not only a historical rendering but an art piece that stimulates as well. So I did alter the "spatial facts" somewhat.

For one thing, the view to the river below is much more dynamic in the painting. The butte top is much larger than I rendered it so that I could augment the spatial affect I wanted. Other inaccuracies abound--I have no idea if the Penascoans tilled fields where I show them, or if the trash mound is where I placed it.

I did make a point of including a Chaco road that ran into the pueblo from Pueblo Bonito and then continued on to the west although my spatial manipulations moved it around a little. All-in-all a very challenging and fulfilling project. To see such a marvelous building in its prime!