In recent travels with my parents, I
experienced more of the great state of New Mexico—the state which
looks and feels like the set of a science fiction movie. I'll have
more to say about the otherworldly frontiers of the land of
enchantment soon. For now, I'll share a piece of my own science
fiction art, inspired by New Mexican artifacts.
At
Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, near
to Alamogordo, the rocky hills are docrated with more than 21,000
glyphs, chiseled into stone by the
Jornada Mogollon people, between
600 and 1100 years ago. The images feature birds, insects, mammals,
humans, circular symbols, abstract geometric patterns, and animals
with geometric patterns on their bodies. A trail winds through the
gallery of stones, and gives us a rare and up close view of the
mysterious artwork. So many centuries hence, it is hard to know the
meanings of images—archeologists and others can make but educated
guesses.
We observed a bug-eyed creature, etched
in the stone. We speculated that it was a record of humankind's
first contact with aliens, centuries before the
Roswell incident. I
imagined what such an event might look like, and recorded this dream
in my sketchbook.
UPDATE on
previous post: After the
rainstorm, the mighty thunderhead of bats rose from the cave.
Evidently, the rains brought out more insects, and brought more bats
from other regions for a stay over in our bat cave, just as the inns
in Portland become crowded with travellers when a convention on local
organic food takes place. Unfortunately for us, the additional bats
didn't stay at our cave for long, and we have returned to a small but
captivating nightly exodus of bats.
Topmost photo by © Susan Moyle Studlar
