Art in process

Today I am sharing the making process of my 'Pueblo Bonito' painting. 
Pueblo Bonito is located in Chaco Canyon* in the remote high desert of New Mexico. This massive multi-story pueblo was built by ancestral Puebloans and occupied between 850 and 1250 AD. It housed approximately 800 rooms (!).  The canyon is a prime location for day time and night time sky watching. Many of the pueblos in the canyon are oriented in alignment with sunrise and sunset on seasonal solstices, marking important dates and seasonal shifts.  I visited Chaco Canyon in 2001, spending 2 nights in the park's primitive campground. The days were filled with hiking the trails inside the canyon, wandering inside the ruined pueblos (!), discovering and admiring the petroglyphs and exploring some of the outlying pueblos connected by roads that stretch into the San Juan Basin. The nights were filled with skywatching and listening to the canyon's night sounds, trying to imagine what it was like to have lived there a thousand years ago. 
​You can read more here and order high quality prints here.

*Chaco Culture NHP is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
#culturalheritage #unescoworldheritagesites #chacoculture #chacocanyon #newmexico #artandarchitecture #artandarcheology #archeology #ancientcultures #pueblobonito
​