Fire at Blue Lake
15" x 21" pastel on paper
© 2003
I created this image one evening after working a shift at the Historic
Taos Inn. A crazy Russian woman had come in and began ranting
about how the medicine wheel at the Taos Pueblo was out of alignment
and that no one there would listen to her. She was very distraught
and I was concerned about her well-being. I thought I should do a
protective drawing for her and saw an image in my mind's eye of a
triple flame. It was right before Summer Solstice. I drew the center
blue flame and then the rest of the drawing evolved over the weekend.
I worked intuitively to complete the composition and finished it on
the Summer Solstice. Two weeks later, on the 4th of July, three strikes
of lightning struck the side of the mountain at Taos Pueblo and set
the hillside on fire. The fire raged for days.
Within hours the fire was burning within a mile of my home. As I
packed my belongings, I came across this pastel and was suddenly
taken by the symbols I had chosen to complete the piece - the red
flames around the central blue flame were like the three strikes of
lightning that spread across the mountainside. The trees and the
blue background were like the mountain and Blue Lake, a sacred
place for the Tewa people of Taos Pueblo and the source of water
for the pueblo. It is now contaminated with fire-retardent and will
take decades if not centuries to be pure enough to drink again.
As it turns out, the 4th of July was the day that one of the legendary
early Taoseños, Arthur Manby, was found beheaded in a room next
door to the Inn. His head was missing and never found. He was a
wild, gambling man who had invested his wealth in the town and
planted the trees that created the town's first park, but was also
reviled for his unscrupulous ways. I always wondered if it was the
ghost of Manby who had sought revenge for his own murder with
the fire that began on the anniversary of his death. It would make
sense, based on his reputation of character, that he would get even
one day.
The piece also reminds me of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Patron Saint
of the Americas who first appeared as an apparition to a devoted man
in Mexico. Somewhat naive in its execution, it has the feeling of folk
art and colors of old Mexico. Perhaps there was a gift in the sacrifice by fire...
