One day while driving outside of Taos, I spotted my next landscape to paint. I parked myself about 10 feet inside the entrance of a dirt road. I quickly unloaded my painting materials and set-up my easel. After sometime, I was approached by a Pueblo police officer that demanded I get off their property. Unbeknown to me, I had wandered into private Pueblo Indian land. I apologized and quickly began to pack up my things.
In my haste to drive away, I forget to pick up my painting and left it near the front tire of my car. I had just started to drive the car when I felt it had run over something. Almost instantly, I remembered that I had not loaded the painting I’d been working on. I jumped out and saw I had indeed run over my own painting. The canvas was face down with the car tire still on it. I quickly moved the car off the painting; amazingly, the painting was still intact. I simply brushed off the dirt and gravel from the surface of the canvas and placed it inside the car. Later, I finished that painting on location but this time outside the private Indian land. I recently sold this painting, which I named “Taos Mountain” because it was a picture with great texture – lots of dirt that was embedded into the paint and power from its ordeal of being created.