And I'll end with one of my favorite pieces.
I was working on this book, but I
wanted to give Simon Ortiz something good
for the-- he was guest editing, did guest edit last winter,
not this past winter, but the winter before,
the Kenyon Review, an Indigenous writers special issue.
And so I'd been working with this material,
and I knew that it was going to go into Turquoise Ledge,
but I got it all polished up for Simon and gave it to him.
And I had made--
well, I've started working.
I never gave up on being a visual artist.
That was what I always wanted to do.
I didn't set out to be a writer.
I wanted to be a visual artist.
I got very discouraged very fast by the University of New Mexico
art department.
They were very old fashioned in those days
and they didn't even want to admit
that there was such a thing as Jackson Pollock I don't think,
much less Indigenous art.
And so I saw that they were going to flunk me out anyway.
But I never stopped.
So I went over into the English department.
And they were a little more enlightened.
But I never gave up on it.
So when I was working on this book,
I decided that once you reached the age, you get around 60,
you better quit putting things off.
You don't know.
And so I had started doing a lot of artwork.
And so this piece that I worked out for Simon
came out of this, me doing artwork and also my poor garden
that I have.
Because you can't get anything to grow in the ground.
The indigenous things come and steal the water and food.
So everything has to be in a flower pot.
So I have sort of a garden made of mismatched pots and things.
And so this is the story here.
At the end of September, the heat began to recede
and a rainstorm revived my garden.
The pink and the white rain lilies bloomed,
and I kept watering them after the rain left
for the bees and the butterflies and for me.
One morning as I watered, I saw two large grasshoppers,
amazing in their beauty and their size.
Their outer wings were emerald green in the center
with peacock green along the edges.
The inner wings were hues of magenta red and magenta pink
with lacy leaf patterns in bright yellow.
Their faces and necks were outlined
in bright yellow on jade green and their antennae
were bright orange with bold black stripes.
They sat in the cluster of pink rain lily blossoms
they'd been eating.
They regarded me fearlessly, with great majesty.
Their bright black eyes looked intently into mine.
As soon as I saw them, I wanted to sketch the grasshoppers
in colored pencil, but I was busy and went off
to do other chores.
I worked on the manuscript.
I forgot about the grasshoppers.
The next day, I found one of the big grasshoppers
under the potted fig tree.
He walked unsteadily as if drunk or sick.
His antennae moved feebly, but he didn't seem afraid of me.
I picked him up carefully and moved him
so he wouldn't drown when I watered the fig tree.
I wondered what had happened.
Poison?
I wondered about that, because I don't use poison.
But then I remembered, his life was the length of a summer.
He was dying of old age.
Still, he was arresting in his beauty,
and his steady gaze connected with mine.
The vivid colors and intricate markings
were unlike any I'd ever seen.
I left him in the rain lilies to die in peace.
The next morning I found the grasshopper in the rain lily
leaves, dead some might say, because he didn't move anymore.
But he was still brightly colored,
so there was life in him yet.
I gently picked him up and brought him into my studio.
I needed to hold him in place somehow.
All I had was a shot glass where I stood him up
so I could see his thorax plainly.
As I sketched him, I realized he wanted a portrait
in the manner of the star being portraits I painted.
Earlier in The Turquoise Ledge I explain about these star
being portraits.
Very intimidating, these star beings and their portraits.
I realized he wanted a portrait in the manner of the star
being portraits I painted.
Later after I finished the grasshopper sketch,
I brought out a big canvas like the ones I'd used for the star
being portraits and I prepared the canvas with stucco
and left it to dry.
I was thinking about how to paint the grasshopper
face on in the manner of the star beings.
It presented a difficulty because
of the shape of the grasshopper's head,
so I didn't work on the portrait.
A few days later while I was outside
to watch the rain clouds gather from a hurricane in Mexico,
I noticed another of the big colorful grasshoppers
under the Mesquite tree by the front porch.
It looked me in the eyes and I knew it
once that this grasshopper was a messenger from Lord Chapolin.
Get back to work.
And the word chapolin is the Nahuatl word for grasshopper.
And when I was growing up around Laguna,
the Spanish speaking people, [NON-ENGLSH SPEECH] North
of Laguna, that's what they called grasshoppers, chapolin.
And I even tried to look it up to see
if in Spain, the Spanish Spanish,
had a word for grasshopper.
But it seems like in the new world, chapolin is the term.
It was a messenger from Lord Chapolin.
Get back to work.
I thought a profile was attempting variation
from the portraits I'd done.
So I got out my sketchbook and colored pencils
to attempt to sketch in profile, but I just
couldn't get it right.
Chapolin didn't want a portrait in profile.
He wanted his portrait face on, like the portraits
of the star beings.
I had to work a while to get the face on pose to look right.
At first I drew the eyes on the sides of the grasshopper's
head, but this was incorrect.
The eyes were more to the front of the face.
As I sketched, I understood Chapolin
wanted to be seen and remembered as he was on the big fiesta day
in August, when there were so many good things to eat
and he celebrated by wearing powdered turquoise all
over his head and face out of regard
for Tlaloc, Lord of the Rain, whose color is turquoise.
I relied on my colored pencil sketch
to draw the outline of Chapolin's portrait
on the canvas.
In the sketch, his buckskin leggings and moccasins
could be seen.
But on the canvas, only his head, chest, and waist fit.
I was pleased with the work I'd done,
so I left the portrait for the rest of the week
while I worked on the manuscript.
Another week or two passed.
One day I noticed one of the big painted
grasshoppers on a datura plant outside my studio window.
The grasshopper gazed in at Lord Chapolin's portrait
on the easel.
I felt uneasy, because I'd done no work on the portrait
for a long time.
Then one morning outside my studio
under the Mesquite tree, Lord Chapolin himself approached me.
He came straight toward me and climbed up
from the ground to a sandstone bench to get closer to me.
He regarded me gravely and remained motionless
on the sandstone while I looked at the hues of green,
the magenta pinks and reds, and the black and orange markings
so I'd get them right when I painted him.
Then he lost interest in me and turned his attention
to the rain lilies that stirred in the breeze.
A day or two later as I watered, I
splashed a pot of purple elysium and suddenly there
was Lord Chapolin, indignant and glaring at me.
Forget about your writing.
Complete my portrait.
That night when I went a plug in the lights
under my car to ward off the pack rats,
in the beam of the flashlight I saw
a team of brown ants struggling to carry
a dead grasshopper that resembled the others,
but this one was much smaller with lighter yellow green
hues on the outer wings and light pink on the inner wings.
The grasshoppers wouldn't last much longer.
The next morning, I hurried back to the portrait
before I forgot the pink hue, and I repainted
the dark magenta on the portrait's inner wings
with a lighter magenta pink.
The effect was a rosy magenta.
Perfect.
Exactly what Chapolin desired.
I knew what Chapolin desired because he communicated
with certain thoughts that would cross my mind,
thoughts about what he wanted for his portrait,
thoughts he sent directly to me.
At one point, I whited out a lot of dark green color
I didn't like and Chapolin's portrait looked ghostly
and I called it ghost grasshopper.
But I couldn't leave it that way.
Chapolin wanted to be portrayed as he was in life, not death.
Still, the grasshopper figure all
in white on the red background looked really cool.
Lord Chapolin is secretive and mysterious.
Those of his kind may appear only once in 84 years
while others return in cycles of 7 or 21 years.
When the portrait was finally completed
in the last week of October, I opened the front door
one morning and there was Chapolin,
warming himself in the sunlight on the top branches
of the greasewood bush that faced the studio window where
his portrait sat.
I watched him for a while to figure out
whether he liked the portrait, but I couldn't be sure.
So I turned back to paint the white flowers on his belt.
As I touched up the green on the wings,
I felt such happiness and pleasure.
Later when I looked out, he was gone.
I watched for Chapolin and the others whenever I watered.
I even looked for dead grasshoppers,
but they all were gone without a trace, carried off by the ants,
scattered by the wind.
So that'll complete it.
Thank you for leaving--
I mean, for listening.
For not leaving.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.