Dispatch № 027
A new year. A new paradigm.
We've made it yet again to this cold time of the year with long dark nights. Snow some places, impossibly warm in others. This strange moment we are wandering through is something, always, something.
A walk through the winter snow. Crisp and squeaky. The tingle on the nose as it pokes out from the parka to touch first that black night of early January. Wolf moon overhead and stars so close you can touch them. The ground is so frozen it could be carved like a block of marble. This world is like our desert world only - this sand will melt when the sun returns.
There are so many memories from this last year, moments I'd like to linger with and keep just to myself. Others which I'd like to share allowing myself yet again more time to linger in their magic. But today, I look strictly forward to this new year.
We spent the last few months deeply considering just what we should do with our physical gallery, Desert Archaic, in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. We have had this space for about 10.5 years now, there was some time we took off in there and at other moments friends took the wheel and we played passenger, but for the most part we have been sharing our art to the visitors of this magical little oasis.
It is a strange business to try to sell art in a dusty little town in New Mexico and yet we have managed to keep the doors open all this time. We have shared the work of our friends, cultivating a community showcase to display the talent which surrounds us. We provided a space for music and dance, celebration and challenging ideas. These years have been amazing and we have in some ways grown up as artists together with this space: 324 Broadway St.
The motion of this space has for some time become routine and unexciting to us as is want to happen when attention is lacking. A repetition of the same script each year took hold and it became easy to coast on this path of familiarity with little deviation. This routine, for us, was no longer a space of inspiration and a change has been brewing beneath the surface for some time.
The sudden, yet seismic shift of our studios irrevocably transformed for the worse by the new house 6 ft to the east of our studio windows further shook us awake. This place where we spend almost all of our days has now lost both view and light - altered forever. It has been as though we have lost our studios and we've gone out seeking out a new solution, open fully to the whispers of the universe.
We find ourselves embarking on the next movement of so many of our projects in twenty twenty-three, with renewed vigor, attention and a desire to embrace changes fully. In twenty twenty-one we started this site to explore a more personal form of online communication, inspired by that year where we all found a new world. Twenty twenty-two in turn was a year to become grounded back to our lives and embrace both the lives we have been living and the new life we are dreaming up. It was humbling and fruitful and has ushered us to this horizon of change.
Today twenty twenty-three sits here staring at us: we find ourselves turning fully toward the sunrise of new endeavors. Eyes wide open absorbing fully all that we have crafted and built around us. Exhaling to calm our minds for a moment before diving into a new realm. Realizing we needed the jolt of upset to find new ways.
This story will continuously unfold. We leave you here, just at the moment we ourselves are poised in this liminal moment anticipating an as yet unknown future.
As Yet Unnamed
A small note about a weaving soon to be for sale. I was hoping to have it ready to be released on this full moon, but its not, so instead I'm just giving you a little heads up that it is coming soon.
The weaving is forming into a vessel of rich sensual color and softly structural shapes. It will be about 5.2 meters in length. I will be announcing about its availability through social media and our newsletter.
Whiteout
A blizzard takes hold of the mountains, flurries of snow accumulating in every corner or around every sharp edge. Those flakes which escaped ensnarement dance restlessly in seemingly every direction all at the same time. It is at this moment when the mountains are most inhospitable that I love the most to be on a skis.
The world turns white, details completely disappear and only trees mark the way forward. The senses heighten and every muscle in your body stands at the ready to react to unknown terrain. Gravity pulls you continually over. You fall, in control, but barely. Legs react automatically as your stomach turns over and over again, now a dip, now a bump, quick turn to check your speed and drop into the white which engulfs you. You follow gravity and trust you will be OK and stay in control. Smiling into the boundless white embrace.
We humans are aliens in the blizzard. We are vulnerable and week and should by all accounts not be out in this condition. This is the world of folklore, of being frozen, of death. No one but fuzzy foxes should really even think about going outside at times like these, let alone standing on the top of a mountain at 11,570 feet (3526 meters).
I cherish these torrents in the mountains as they remind me how small and inconsequential our human lives are. I linger for a few hours until the sun somewhere way above the clouds gets low in the sky and I know it's time to return to the safety of our human nests. Skis gliding over the ethereal wonderland of snow covering immense distances almost effortlessly arriving back to warmth and civilization knowing the best world was left out there under flakes drifting from the heavens.
As always, thank you for your support of our work. We look forward to a new year full of deepened understandings and ambitious endeavors.
Wishing you all the best for this new year ahead,
Jeannie & Kyle