The Cracks

 Thank you Mother Earth; for your powerful vegetal tenaciousness; Thou Hast Not Forsaken Me! The adventure for this Mother's Day; seemed tame enough; go up the back road to Aspen Meadows and eventually Hyde Park, park in the usual pull off area off this remote gravel road, step over the two low strands of rusty barbed wire, find the ancient road, go northwest across the extremely diverse natural display of many stones of wide disparity in color, shape, texture, this setting the stage for a truly fractured scree. It was Mother's Day and seemed like an adventure was appropriate. We crossed a few more rusted barbed wire, trapsed down a calm ancient trail to the valley floor below that was very narrow and graced with a small burbling, gurgling, susurrus creek with a trail heading up river.  We were hoping to venture to the top of the valley, which turned into a gorge, then some cascading waterfalls that  fell many feet and down to the base of the this crack of a place. After ducking limbs, brushing past stray chokecherry bushes in bloom; finally at the base of the falls.  Two drops were defined in the slit of this gorge, each drop being roughly 13 feet and looked like a pretty scary rock climb up the second step next to the top fall; the creek navigating a magnificent slit in the canyon hundreds of feet tall on both sides. It looked doable yet scary. I opted against it. Too much smooth rock scaling. Instead, we headed back, bushwacking through again. I saw a break in the cliff faces above and concieved that we could perhaps go up that way as an easy way out without backtracking through the valley.  We headed up through larger stones and boulders and, visually, to me, it seemed pretty doable.  The avalanche-ish area was strewn with loose stones, scree and various hazards. We progressed fairly well, noting loose and unstable stones and avoiding them. The way became increasingly more difficult and treacherous and yet we persevered,  me warning of hazards to Sunny a distance below.  Then the seemingly not too hard slope began to show signs of being scary and handholds more risky.  I worried about Sunny; being below me and in the line of anything I might dislodge as well as her skill level, which had not been tested by me.  I said I thought maybe we should quit and go down and she seemed to think not, perhaps correctly as descending is more dangerous than ascending, for a number of reasons, so we persisted. I had, amazingly and coincidentally, noticed when I  found a backpack in the car earlier; that it had a good length of strong but lightweight rope in one of the pockets and decided to leave it in there; first thinking it unnecessary and then just thought it somehow useful, maybe and, ‘why not’, so it stayed in.  As it turned out, i was so frightened of a slippage up there, I remembered the rope and took it out, figured a way to make a loop big enough to slip over Sunny's shoulders and around her waist so we did that and i just looped it randomly around my shoulder and held it with my hand, loosely.  We proceeded with me getting increasingly nervous and then, eventually fearful.  Sunny seemed composed and not as fearful as me, yet clearly alerted to the hazards.  We continued inching up until it looked more and more grim and scary. I had to stop just to rest my heart and find a place in my being that had more clarity and less fear.  It was quite the meditation. I was mostly afraid I would inadvertantly dislodge a stone that would crash down and injure Sunny. We continued slowly.  Very frightening.  I found a tenacious bush in the scree, the only one right there and wound the rope for an anchor and proceeded looking for safe stone outcrop handholds that were not like ‘loose teeth’.  Each step was carefully considered as if life and death. Sunny made it to the bush and painstakingly unwound it and we found a way to pull the slack up. I was very concerned.  The handholds became more uncertain and the scree was now more loose sand and gravel, loose stones.  I clawed and removed stones to create little hand and kneeholds and crept forward.  Saw three more smaller bushes, half dead, traumatized by the fickle years of drought, yet still clinging, as I was, them in slow slow almost geological time.  I scrutinized their strengths, testing each in turn and returned to each several times and decided which to try to trust and wrapped the rope again and Sunny followed using the rope again, never slipping, never faltering, never complaining. I was groaning and swearing some, yet continued up somehow, finally using another anchor shrub and then another, finally a strong, but thinish piñon tree root and we belayed her all the way to that point and then grabbed a solid juniper branch and … was up near the top and safe at last,  then Sunny the same. We were elated and amazed and talked about it on the trail, in the car,  at her house; mulling over the many facets, no pun intended. What I want to notice in the larger, poetic and very real details; in a way that brings the frightening details to face the immense realities we live with; is this: mother earth has many details and physical features that we have, as organs and aspects of nature ourselves; being an integral part if not continuous wholeness reality -  of life or ‘existence’ too; that we have certain features that bear witness to the powers involved and one of them is cracks and crevases. It comes to my mind powerfully that the iconic image of a person, having slipped or fallen off of a cliff and is clinging to a tree for dear life; the last thread of hope for survival is very very real; that the cracks and crevices created by the shifting of mother earth's skin as she tosses and turns in her bedding and clothing, each tiny defect being extremely unique in properties and that becomes the milieu of the planet itself as it soars through space at tremendous speeds; each attribute becomes a handhold for existence in this body, so the decomposing, fractured granite cracks along its certain matrix lines,  and the rains and snows seep into the cracks, also dissolving the stone into sands, then soil, like the ‘soul’ of the ‘earth’; the frozen nights and days expand as water does as it becomes ice and fractures the stone more, allowing soil to build and a seed to fall or some fugitive root to find refuge, as it tries to escape the dry air, germinates and/or survives to do what evolution dictates; to grow and cling in this crackiness, corroborating with the elements and, over time, becoming well anchored to support the ravages of time and the fickleness of weather and anchor itself, becoming, in turn an anchor for more than just it, harboring bacteria, creating shade and holding places for nests and the insects and butterflies and birds that  sip the nectar of its flowers, most all plants being ‘flowering’ and so it is with this ecosystem and system and organism and creature we are all a piece of; mother nature. So it is this shrub tenaciously anchored in a crack on a scree that becomes the cleat we clung to; for dear life, all happening, coincidentally on Mother's  Day 2024 and there it was, a sort of umbilical cord, poetically, too. And a powerful 68 year old mother clinging in love onto her 72 year old lover; both bewildered and in awe, observing all this. It has been suggested by some advanced thinking moderns, like Bayo Akomolafe, who also feed from the indigenous and their ancestors; that, perhaps, we find refuge in ‘the cracks’ and such as we find ways to survive our cultural follies and find some other places to be fugitives together, grasping for alternatives to activisms that may need other forms to cling to - to survive and plant some seeds in that new soil, heeding, always; the specific and stunningly unique natures of the materials we all are part of and need to understand, as ourselves, in fact; belonging here, sprung from the earth itself,  just as much as each other, as we are, in fact; integrated and fugitives in and from; the cracks and crookednesses, a refuge from the rectilinear paradigms. We cling on  the scary slopes, not always onto a bronze rod but living shrubs that are our saviors today, now and forever. Lovetangles.    

Tribute to Bonze and Cast Iron

 Especially to David as he Retires:

Around the turn of the century, I put some barkless, sun grayed, weathered twisting character sticks together into a rather amazing figure with a ‘walking stick’, that could be described as either walking one way or another; both sides compelling the eye to view it in either pose. It was remarkable enough to stimulate me to think of doing something to immortalize it. It was a break from my fine and custom furniture making 

business and other custom building, although I was veering more and more toward natural materials along with the hardwoods and the like.

Through a series of queries, my step-daughter, Corey Ponder, heard about my queries around and she had a student aid job of helping out the head of a college woodworking shop or some such at UNM and he knew a man named David Lobdell,who was the head of a foundry course at Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He gave me a phone number, I called David and set up an appointment to meet him. He said I could make molds, then bronze cast them or even make them into cast iron. This led to me driving down as many as 3 days a week the first year and doing the course for two years or so, making rubber molds of the original 3 sticks, then, eventually, a few more for other ‘stick guys’ I made and then making waxes, then investing the wax with a high tech ceramic mold, then burning out the wax and making bronze bronze castings and then, eventually, joined in on pouring cast iron, then being a member of the ‘Iron Tribe’, then a member of the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance, traveling to Denver, Missoula, Laramie and Las Vegas. This became a big part of my life, leading to me setting up my own bronze foundry at my ‘ranch’, Adventure Trails Ranch in Spirit Valley, Lower Cañoncito, where I cast, with the help of Ben Remmers and others. Including generous gifts of a wonderful furnace and numerous materials and bronze from Harry Leippe, the retired former director and original person to set up and run the Highland's foundry many years ago.

He often said that he was amazed at my castings, which he did not think would ‘work’ or come out as successfully as they did. I then was in a gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe and also cast a rather amazing large project making a bronze balustrade for a helical staircase at a house known as the Crescent House on Santa Fe, also the reason for building a foundry. I even wrote a piece called ‘The 51 Steps to Make a Bronze’, the last step being lugging the piece back from the gallery. 

Years have gone by and I have, to my knowledge, been the ‘oldest’ person in these circles of men and women who learned to do cast iron, in particular, using no cranes; hand carrying and pouring ladles of molten Iron into multiple molds in large production settings. Needless to say; it is very dangerous work, requiring great attention to safety and protocol.

I am now 72 years old and still climbing ladders (I have a 30’ tall water pumping windmill to maintain and welding, building things, operating my backhoe, dump truck and tractor, log splitter, etc., with some trepidation, cutting and pruning trees with only occasional ‘dread’; stopping me in my tracks). In short, I operate a 40 acre ranchito/homestead doing all that is necessary, despite my age. I am, though, taking more precautions because of my age.

The subject is on the table and so now I want to address it realistically based on my actual realities.  

Last spring, I guess it was, I went to Las Vegas for an Iron pour with the Iron Tribe. I had donated a large amount of cast iron earlier and came down to join in. I had often played my guitar and sang, etc , for parts of the Iron pours for all these years, becoming sort of a ‘thing’ for the pours; suited up, pouring (including my sometimes bizarre ‘outsider’ reactive molds with buffalo gourds.

The iron work, in particular, is great ‘therapy’ for such as me who has been married to a tape measure and more or less meticulous woodcraft and furniture; with the buffalo gourds and natural forms, I could throw away the tape, make very rough textured pieces with no endless sanding and finishing, so I grew to love that style, despite the obvious crudeness and bizarre aspects.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/art/from-buffalo-gourds-to-cast-iron-pours-artist-thor-sigstedt-finds-inspiration-in-nature/article_2495a29e-a64a-59d6-abb1-6e3f79e51806.html

then grabbing my guitar and sort of entertaining over or under the roars of the blowers and furnaces; sometimes acoustic, often electric. Not sure many really liked my country/folk/rock/blues; mostly folksy stuff, yet I played alone or with others who might want to join in or go solo, too, for a while. Anyway, I am known for it.  

This time, as I was decked out in my leathers and was wielding large steel breaking bars and sledges; busting the old cast iron heaters and other scraps, like sinks and tubs, etc; busting them up with great vigor and aplomb, David walked up and suggested that perhaps I shouldn't pour this time; just play music for us. I was floored, astonished and baffled, not that visibly angry, yet disturbed and managed to blurt out more or less calmly, “David, I am still viable!”.

This has stuck with me ever since and then there is an upcoming WCIAA pour and activities in El Cajon in a few weeks and I have a few more days to make up my mind to get a refund for my prepaid enrollment or bow out. I am also an incurable couples dancer and have this inability to just listen to music, a concert, etc and not being able to dance is a form of torture for me. It is a real thing 

So now I am thinking that just watching others pour, standing totally on the sidelines and …. watching…. could also be torture! Like the piece I got juried into the show in El Cajon, I am hands on and my piece of art is meant to be touched!

Now David may know something that I don't or have an age limit in mind and wants to be careful that he or he through me or me through him; do not endanger others. I respect that. Harry came to my foundry to help and we had to slowly realize it was best he not be a direct part of the pour; even operating the ‘buttons’. So, this is a real thing and, ironically, I am in the process of making molds and waxes; quite a few, and cranking up my own foundry right now, so this is all very interesting to me how things are evolving and the kinds of decisions this old man is faced with…..

In solidarity and with deep memories of staring into the twinkling unimaginably hot ladles of molten iron; like staring into a volcano and god and all the rest of the processes that we alone know as our profound experiences in working together as members of the ‘Iron Tribe’!

Hmmm…..   

Thor Sigstedt

82 Spirit Valley

Santa Fe, NM 87508

adventuretrails@gmail.com

Note:

I also wish to honor David Lobdell for his truly amazing many years of the work of teaching and supporting the efforts of students, including myself, and comrades; to do foundry work of all sorts. His impact on so many will ripple out into the future in an amazing way! I honor this man for that and his one of a kind personality that honors creation and art in his own powerful, special way which is, along with the other disciplines; hands on, hands on, hands on!! You are The Man!

Buffalo gourds

 

 

Buffalo Gourds; A Fresh Look at an Ancient Plant

 

If one sees a metate and the mono that goes with it, it is possibly 12,000 years old (plus the millions of years of age of the stone itself), give or take a few millennia.  If it was carried from Beringia (the strip of land that once connected Asia and what’s now Alaska), which is a colorfully absurd thought then it might be 25,000 years old because the Beringians lived there, possibly, for 10,000 years; waiting for the ice to melt and forcing them to mosey down to The Land of Enchantment, perhaps looking for and finding ‘greener pastures’.  As they did not yet invent fry bread or even have white or whole wheat flour (as the major grains were brought over by the Europeans by way of the Steppes) and corn was still in South America, then the question becomes: what did they eat?  And, especially, as the centuries wore on and droughts came and went, leaving ancient tree rings proving drought; what did they rely on during those times?  The piñon bumper harvest happens every now and then, so one can’t wait for that, really.  Amaranth wasn’t even around.  There were lots of grasses and because of that there were lots of ‘bison’, or what I think of as ‘buffalo”.  So there was meat.  What about tubers and seeds?  They had a metate and needed something to grind up with it.  I honestly (this time) think it was what scientists call Cucurbita foetidissima or Buffalo Gourd, the common name that mysteriously first appeared in print in 1948 and took.

  I have seen my donkeys occasionally eat the ‘disgusting smelling’ leaves (and then walk up to me and exhale on me, almost rendering me unconscious), so they and just a handful of people sort of like the smell; nonetheless it is called, roughly translated from the Latin, ‘stinking squash’.   Well, lots of plants are named ‘stinking’ this and ‘stinking ‘ that  but some observant person(s) decided on ‘Buffalo Gourds’;  a very powerful thing like a buffalo (…… I am not sure but curious about what a buffalo smells like….aren’t you?) and as the bison tended to roll around on the ground and on their backs and make huge semi-permanent ‘wallows’ of bare ground that, fascinatingly, almost nothing grows on after they are done….except, let’s say, the buffalo gourd which has a huge tuber for a root; sometimes the size and shape! of a human being and  is very capable of surviving almost anything, and I am wondering if, by chance, buffalos liked to roll in the stinking leaves for the special insect and fly repelling properties (one of the uses people are looking into as I write) and maybe the side benefit of it being a cow aphrodisiac or medication (think ‘zoopharmacology’; not my term but perhaps coined by my brother!);  they grew on afterwards, and as the gourds have a distinct resemblance to a bull buffalo piece of anatomy anyway  and so some observant person(s) back in the day decided to call this amazing plant “buffalo gourd”!

 I recently encountered a petroglyph that puzzled me until I ‘realized’ that I probably knew what it was:

 

 

   

The triangle shapes on the left side of the ‘gourd’ circles are the basic shape of the leaves; in fact the rock art clearly, in my mind, celebrates buffalo gourds….and why shouldn’t it because it was a main staple of the native diet; the seeds and hull ground up by the metate into a fine flour to make a tasty sun-baked-on-the back-of-a-rock (or metate) flat bread!

The point is that the buffalo gourd plant, what with its high protein/oil seeds, huge tuber, extreme drought tolerance, insect repellent and medicinal properties and its myriad other colorful aspects ( and great for batting practice!);  I bet a nickel it’ll save the world!

 

 

 

 

 

Controlled Burn Dude

Imagine a person who got up out of his bed that morning

With a slight hangover and late for work again

And he drives his wife’s car to the office, cause his broke down last week

He likes his job but hates his bosses and he is glad to get out in the fresh air

Today and loves the breeze that appears to be whipping up, cause it makes

Him feel alive and alert, like a horse in that cool spring air;

Ready for the world and to dance across the field

Today is a big day, cause it’s time for the controlled burn

And he gets to be the big star as he was chosen by the office

To be the one to light the match; well, lighter, then weed burning torch

He fumbles with the tank, forgetting that to attach the torch you have to turn it “leftie tightie”

And he looks around once through his sunglasses and hesitates

Feeling like something is wrong, but not sure, too vague a feeling

Oh well, what the hell; everything will be just fine and that coffee has got me crankin.

…in the old days, in the dream days, when the summer heat and the cottonwoods along the creek have dropped their leaves and the deer rustle the dry leaves and begin to browse on them, making little crunching sounds after having waited these months to feel that taste again that they love so much and there was no breeze at all today as if the great spirit were holding its breath and the insects had hidden some as the frosts had come and, today, there coating from past day’s snow gift was still on the moss side of the trees and under the leaves and the sky was rich with more snow….coming.  The sacred day had arrived at last when the elders had gathered and prayed and talked and chose him, a great honor, to strike the flint on the milkweek pod unravelings and the time is just right, we are sure, to light the fire that will bring health again to our beloved forest…….

It does matter whether we are in tune with the forest or not, as the art of tending the forest is just that; an art, pure and simple and no one who is not attuned to nature can do any good at all, ever.