In the winter of 1996, I embarked on a pilgrimage to the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, and the place where I was born.
I stood in the world’s largest gypsum sand field, where the dunes drift over 275 square miles, creating massive hills sculpted by the wind’s hand: smooth on one side, ridged like waves on the other. Tall clusters of creamy flowers, encircled by the spiked yucca leaves, poked the cobalt sky. In between the mounds, troughs and indentations called “slacks” create an other-worldly landscape. White Sands National Park seemed like a sacred portal, so I went there to pray.

I shimmied down into a 15-foot slack and lay my body against the cool sand. My plea was for help to become an artist, which ordinarily is not a mystery—paint and sell is basically how it goes. Of course I did not want to be a regular artist. I wanted my paintings to be like a prayer, a thread connecting the seen and the unseen worlds.  I wanted to infuse them with a sacredness, like old-ways medicine or magic, to be a milestone on someone’s life journey.

Admittedly, saying prayers in a slack is not considered the most direct route to becoming an artist.

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