My Life & Artwork - July 2019

August 28, 2019 Teressa Jackson

July began with a Fourth of July trip to Page, Arizona, and the beautiful jewel that is Lake Powell. Aaron and I swam at Lone Rock beach, kayaked into Antelope Canyon, and ventured along with the hordes of other tourists to the Horseshoe Bend overlook. It’s a beautiful part of the state and a tiny bit cooler than the Phoenix metro thanks to its elevation. Plus… water!

Monsoon season continued through July, but was largely a bust. There were a couple of minor storms in the evening, but nothing compared to last year’s sky entertainment. I believe they have received a bit more monsoon action in Tucson, but it’s been less eventful there, too. Weather does what it wants.

I worked on two larger paintings this month with exhibitions in mind. I entered “La Corona” in the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild’s Share our Walls juried exhibition and “Return to Goblin Valley” was entered into Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop’s Historias e Identidades (Histories and Identities) juried exhibition. I wrote a separate blog post about “Return to Goblin Valley,” explaining the meaning of this place to my own history and identity. Both pieces were accepted in their respective galleries. The SAWG show will run from 9/5-10/6/19, with an opening reception on 9/8 from 2-4 p.m. and the Raices Taller show runs through September 7.

Overall, I completed eight paintings in July. “Return to Goblin Valley” is currently for sale at Raices Taller and “La Corona” will be available for purchase at SAWG during their exhibition. Both galleries are located in Tucson. Five of the paintings I created, displayed at the bottom of this blog post, are all available for sale on my website as of this blog posting - starting at just $15.

I wrapped up July and began August with a change of scenery, visiting my sister’s family and my mother in Corvallis, Oregon. It was a wonderful time full of love and laughs, green scenery, a short trip to the coastal area around Yachats, and my first experience seeing Wicked the musical in Eugene. It was a good month!

Lightning I caught during an evening monsoon shower

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“La Ventana Natural Arch, El Malpais National Monument, Grants, New Mexico: 6/8/19, 15:01:39” 3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase. — “La Ventana Natural Arch, El Malpais National Monument, Grants, New Mexico: 6/8/19, 15:01:39”
3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase.

“Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico: 6/10/19, 8:22:19” 3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase. — “Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico: 6/10/19, 8:22:19”
3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase.

“Superior, Arizona: 5/10/19, 10:30:06” 3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase. — “Superior, Arizona: 5/10/19, 10:30:06”
3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase.

“Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona: 6/7/19, 12:44:05” 3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase. — “Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona: 6/7/19, 12:44:05”
3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase.

“Mesa, Arizona: 5/12/19, 10:06:30” 3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase. — “Mesa, Arizona: 5/12/19, 10:06:30”
3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase.

“Mesa, Arizona: 5/12/19, 09:21:08” 3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase. — “Mesa, Arizona: 5/12/19, 09:21:08”
3x2” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
For sale as of this blog posting - visit my online shop to purchase.

“La Corona” 20x16” watercolor on 2” cradled Aquabord Available for purchase at Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild from 9/5-10/6/19. — “La Corona”
20x16” watercolor on 2” cradled Aquabord
Available for purchase at Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild from 9/5-10/6/19.

“Return to Goblin Valley” 12x16” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper Available for purchase at Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop until 9/7/19. — “Return to Goblin Valley”
12x16” watercolor on 140 lb. watercolor paper
Available for purchase at Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop until 9/7/19.

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Return to Goblin Valley

July 28, 2019 Teressa Jackson

I am pleased to announce that my painting “Return to Goblin Valley” has been accepted for exhibition in Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery & Workshop’s “Historias e Identidades (Histories and Identities)” show. The exhibition will open with a reception on Saturday, August 3, 2019, from 6 - 9 p.m and runs through September 7, 2019. Raices Taller is located at 218 E. 6th Street in Tucson, Arizona. Unfortunately, I will be on a trip to visit family in Oregon during the opening, but I encourage anyone who is able to attend. Their receptions are always a wonderful time full of lively fun!

And now, I share a story about this painting and why a landscape scene from Utah’s Goblin Valley relates to my own personal history and identity.

“The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.”

–E. E. Cummings

Return to Goblin Valley
by Teressa L. Jackson

The photo from which I painted, taken in 2017 when I revisited Goblin Valley with my mother

We pull up to the rim and peer down at the city of bulbous creatures that awaits us. Our imaginations take off like the lawnmower our father had once used to manicure our Midwestern yard. On the dividing line between child and woman, my sister Dee and I both fall back into old familiar territory for a sweet afternoon.

There are passageways and rooms, solitary figures and looming families. “This is my house!” I shout, but I don’t mind if Dee joins me in it. We had spent nearly our entire lives in a standard white post-war Cape Cod house, but in the couple of years leading up to this day, our father’s thin, towering 6’7” frame was no longer a part of that home.

When Dad left southern Indiana in pursuit of that elusive perfect job, Dee and I remained behind, learning to navigate airports a couple times a year. In our tween years, we were young enough for these trips to be frightening and old enough to find them exhilarating. In the late 1980’s, there were no mobile phones and no internet. We were disconnected, roaming free, changing planes through O’Hare’s hurried urban masses and disembarking in his new home, the Rocky Mountain wonderland of Salt Lake City.

The first few years we made this repeated cross-country journey, we enjoyed adventures that must have seemed exotic to our friends back home. We rode snowmobiles in the Rocky Mountains, learned to ski in the powder, breathed in the Grand Canyon, and smelled the sulfur of bubbling cauldrons and steaming geysers at Yellowstone.

Soon we entered the world of high school spectacle and our gravities shifted. We traded shared vistas and road trips for landline telephone custody battles. A year apart in school, Dee’s friends were what I considered “nerdy-popular.” I hung with the skateboarders, feeling a different exhilaration at punk rock shows and along Louisville’s Bardstown Road corridor.

That day at Goblin Valley seemed distant and almost forgotten most times over the decades that followed, but occasionally still surfaced as one of my fondest memories. As age forty loomed, my childhood years spent among desert, mountains, and sweeping views beckoned to me. I needed to return to these places – to rekindle my creativity, reawaken my sense of adventure, and reconnect with my original self.

I’ve spent the last three years becoming reacquainted with that young woman who visited Goblin Valley for the first time. I’ve revisited that wonderland and met new ones across the Southwest and beyond. My father and I haven’t spoken in nearly ten years, and it’s unlikely that we will ever do so again. However, I remain grateful for the foundation he laid through those early adventures and the way those places permanently shaped me.

I am, once again, the girl I left behind in that valley.

Me at Goblin Valley in 2017 (photo credit: Susan Jackson)

Seeing Southern Utah

June 2, 2017 Teressa Jackson

I'm woefully behind on blogging again, and my travels have been jam packed with fun and adventure. Hopefully I can get caught up in the next few days. First up - my adventures across southern Utah.

On Mother's Day, I fittingly picked my lovely mother up from the Las Vegas airport. After grabbing some shuteye at a Vegas Airbnb, we took off across Utah. We couldn't help but stop at nearly every scenic viewpoint on the way, turning a 6-hour drive into a 9-hour one. We finally landed in Green River, Utah for the evening, and enjoyed a delicious meal at Tamarisk Restaurant along the river that evening.

The next morning, we were up and on the road bright and early again. We popped down to Moab, Utah, where we met up with my cousin Aaron and his wife Gina to tour Arches National Park. The park has over 2,000 natural arches slowly formed by the elements. It's a gorgeous landscape and it was also so nice to catch up with my cousin, who I hadn't seen in many years. After sharing lunch in downtown Moab, mom and I hit the back roads west.

I hadn't planned to stop in Goblin Valley State Park, but couldn't resist when I saw that we were somewhat close. This hoodoo-filled landscape is part of one of my favorite memories. As we walked to the edge of the depression that these formations call home, I hoped that I wouldn't be disappointed. Thankfully, this natural wonder was just as fantastic as I remembered it from when my father had brought my sister and me there over 25 years ago. I recall our 12 and 13-year-old selves filled with wonder, running around the valley with our imaginations going wild. I think it was an especially sweet experience because it was probably one of the last times my sister and I were more little girls than young women, free of all the pressures that inevitably descend upon one's teenage years.

Our travels continued through Utah's beautiful and formation-filled back roads to Capitol Reef National Park. I don't recall if I had ever been to this park before, but regardless, I gazed upon its beautiful formations in wonder and awe. I was also amazed that pioneers had the fortitude to establish the town of Fruita in the area. They planted orchards of fruit trees, built houses, and worked to make the harsh landscape a home. We spent the following day exploring the park, including adventuring down the bumpy and rugged Capitol Gorge Road.

After the morning at Capitol Reef, we went westward and upward to the town of Tropic, located just outside Bryce Canyon National Park. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and ascended further up to the park. The lodge was a perfect place to grab a filling dinner. I had intended for us to walk to the rim and peek at the canyon afterwards. Little did I know that we would be joined by a tiny snowstorm, not uncommon at 9,000 feet of elevation, even in mid-May. Not to be deterred, we adventured out anyway and enjoyed the canyon view in the waning light and drifting flurries.

Even though we had previewed Bryce Canyon in the snow the evening before, it was a completely different landscape the next morning. The salmon-covered hoodoos shone in the morning light, and my mother was as impressed as I had anticipated. I don't know how you could not be, as it's certainly one of the most spectacular places I've ever been. We rode the shuttle around the park's stops, ate lunch at the lodge, and then we were pleased to discover that the road leading to the highest points in the park had been opened so we explored those vistas, too.

The next morning, we were westward bound again. We made our way to Kanab, Utah, which is where many western films and television shows were filmed, including Gunsmoke, one of my mother's childhood favorites. Just outside Kanab, we spent the morning on a driving tour of Johnson Canyon Road. When we turned on the route, we found ourselves in the middle of a cattle drive, and had the interesting experience of driving through a mass of cows who weren't too happy to share the road. There were many interesting stops along the trail, including some pioneer billboards on the cliffs, the old Gunsmoke set, and lots of geological formations, including Johnson Canyon itself.

After we refueled the car and our bellies (mmm, Mexican food!), we decided that we would drive the highway through Zion National Park on our way to St. George, our next nightly stop. We wound our way through petrified sand dunes and my mother gasped in awe. I gasped in awe myself at the bighorn sheep that covered the landscape, as it was my first encounter with them and they were literally everywhere you looked. After taking more photos of them than I'd care to admit, we continued through the park. Unfortunately, we soon found ourselves stopped. Falling sand and rock had closed the route for an indefinite period of time!

We rerouted ourselves to St. George, instead traveling back through Kanab, then through Fredonia and Colorado City, Arizona. The Inn on the Cliff in St. George was a welcome oasis with a gorgeous view when we finally arrived, and we were more than happy to hop in the hot tub and relax. We enjoyed a peaceful dinner with a fantastic view at the inn's restaurant before turning in for the evening.

The next day, we closed the loop on our jaunt around southern Utah and returned to Las Vegas. I showed mom around Red Rock Canyon and we enjoyed one of our favorite cuisines - Indian food! As mom boarded her plane back to Indianapolis the following day, my car headed in a northwesterly direction...

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Return to Goblin Valleyby Teressa L. Jackson

Return to Goblin Valley
by Teressa L. Jackson