One of the advantages of being Artist in Residence is that I get access to areas not open to the public. The arsenal was built at a safe distance from the fort. I guess that was if the place blew up, the rest of the fort would remain intact.

Rock from this limestone quarry was used for foundations and in the case of the guard house, for the entire building. It is beyond the arsenal, back up in the hills. The fort isn’t visible in this view. The ranch house where the cattle manager lives is in the middle distance.

I’m not sure if this is the remains of a steer or an elk. The contrasts of light and dark, black and white, life and death, bone and grass, spoke to me. To my eye, old bones are as much still life as they are natural history studies.

Each time I drive to and from Santa Fe, I pass an exit called Canoncito, Apache Pass.  This is the place where the New Mexicans planned to resist the American invasion during the 1846 war. The defense was unsuccessful and Santa Fe was taken without firing a shot. The little chapel is by the roadside there. It is Nuestra Senora de la Luz, Our Lady of the Light. The church was built in 1880, so it’s history is not tied to the Mexican American War.

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