Santa Fe

Ack is in Santa Fe at a NASA planning meeting about a future satellite mission. I took a longer lunch and visited the New Mexico Museum of Art. One art work I found very interesting was The Springtime Rainbow by Jozef G. Bakos. It captures the regional weather accurately and pictorially. Yesterday, late afternoon, several of us stood outside the meeting room drinking coffee under the sun. The conversation was interpreted by the roar of thunder and to our left was a dark sky and bolts of lightning. This is seen the painting. To the upper left is a storm cloud, but part of the landscape is illuminated by the sun. Rays of sunlight slash trough the canvas like the scattered showers of this region. While we didn’t see a rainbow this day, I suspect rainbows are common in this area as the sky is big and showers scattered providing opportune conditions to view a rainbow. I actually saw a full sky rainbow after a short shower during dinner.

Having left the museum I entered the city Plaza and window-shopped. This is a tourist trap: many stores and many tourists and much fake Native American art. Fake pottery, fake carvings, fake spices, fake jewelry, fake everything. I suspect there were some quality stores but I got a bit depressed and decided to head back to the hotel, reflecting on the price of our newly painted ceiling. I passed through a public park and suddenly became aware of lots of public art – real art, real sculptures. Our hotel in infused with sculptures in the gardens and pathways. They were visually appealing and mentally relaxing. It was nice to have this feeling given the recent painting of our house. Real painting. Expensive, yes – perhaps too much, but should we not surround ourselves with artwork and color, and the positive visual stimulation that it has?