NIGHT WAGON, TAOS

Oil on Masonite / 18" x 36"

circa 1975

(Detail)

(Detail)

In the 1970s, while living along the Verde River near Cottonwood, Arizona, I kept an old Navajo Wagon in the yard, outside my studio. Many nights, after a long painting session, I would pass this wagon on my way from the studio to the house. On full moon nights, I enjoyed pausing to study the effect of moonlight on the wagon, and was reminded of the wagons that surrounded a Navajo Fire Dance I had attended in the foothills of the Lukachukai Mountains while on a painting sponsorship at Greasewood Trading Post, where I had formerly worked as a trader.

The result was a series of small paintings of Night Wagons. These paintings were so popular, and sold so fast, that I stopped doing them for fear of being trapped in an easy subject. But after a couple of years ,and having done three or four paintings based on the fire Dance, I realized I still needed to do a larger, developed piece to round out the theme and complete the series.

On another occasion, while visiting Northern New Mexico with my friend and fellow artist, Earl Carpenter, we blundered into the Taos Pueblo plaza after dark, and started across the log bridge from the North Plaza to the South Plaza. We were met by spectral figures swathed in white blankets, and informed in no uncertain terms that outsiders were not allowed in the area at night, and escorted out. But the vision of the North Pueblo in moonlight stayed with me over the years, and I promised myself that I would someday do a painting based on that memory.

1974 saw the release of Harold McCracken’s Frank Tenney Johnson book. Johnson's excellent night scenes influenced me greatly at the time, as they did many artists. At about the same time, I was privileged to see a large collection of Frederick Remington paintings on display at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, including a couple of his nocturnes. And in Tucson's Arizona Bank, there was N. C. Wyeth's The Plains Herder, which I visited whenever I was in town.

FRANK TENNEY JOHNSON (1874-1939)

The Homecoming (1934)

oil on canvas

18 x 24 inches

Sold at Auction: $212,800

Combining these three influences, then, I created the painting Taos Night Wagon. It tells the story of a Navajo family who have traveled for days from the Navajo Reservation in the Four Corners Region to Taos to celebrate the ages old San Geronimo Feast Day festival and trade fair. While the father takes care of last minute trading, his wife and daughter wait in the wagon. A young Taos man, standing in a dark doorway, takes this last opportunity to flirt playfully with the beautiful young Navajo girl before the family leaves on its long journey home.

NIGHT SENTINEL

Frederick Remington

The Plains Herder

N. C. Wyeth

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