ghosts of four corners

63 x 33 oily canvas

 

my travels often

start with a hint or a nagging curiosity

about a place or a story

last month this intuition led

myself and dreamr

to Hovenweep

which straddles the line

between colorado and utah

just west of the sleeping Ute mountain range

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

hovenweep has come

to be known

as a last stand for some ancestoral pueblo people

of the 4 corners area

during the messy upheaval of the

13-14th centuries

when violence and draught wrackd the region

 

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

 

the T shaped window is a reminder

that these people and their buildings

prolly moved south

(possibly to Casas Grandes or Paquimé in Mexico)

and north from Chaco Canyon

where the T shaped window

may have originated

 

 

 

 

Wolf

 

Anasazi is a Navajo word that means

"enemy ancestors"

but was given cover by white folks mostly

the Hopi refer to these ancient ancestrals

as the Hisatsinom

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

this boulder house

at hovenweep

is an example of the creative

and at times desperate world

world these people

sometimes lived in

 

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

the people of Hovenweep

may well have been refugees or outcast

from the Chaos of that day and time

and theres no evidence to support

the fact that thay outran the violence

even though most of the site

is obviously set up

as a defensive position

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

 

after leaving Hovenweep

we headed south towards Monument valley

prolly in a bit of a daze from what we experienced

so we took a smaller more scenic route

where suddenly we drove up to

the overlook to the

Valley of the Gods

in souther Utah

near Mexican Hat

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

Elroy paused his truck

at the innersection

where we had stoppd

he sat there with half a case of budweiser

and watchd us for 15 minutes or so

his truck idling on the highway

just us three

in some sort of  bizarre moment

that only happens

in the middle of the desert

 

 

 

fotos by dreamr

 

 

 

 

fotos at hovenweep by dreamr

 

monument valley