Museum – Erin Penn's Second Base

Carlsbad Caverns

October 30, 2025October 30, 2025 Erin Penn 1 Comment

Back in May, I took a road trip with my mom so she could visit family members. Since she is unable to sit for long periods of time, we broke up some of the longer legs of the drive with visits to museums. I previously covered the TTU Museum in my blog with its quilt, watercolor, and borderland art exhibits. We also swung by the Roswell International Museum, which is mostly a reading experience. Taking pictures of large chunks of texts only works if you are going to turn some of them into stories (yes, I took some photos there too).

To break up the ten-hour trip back (before stops to eat are counted), we took a small side trip to Carlsbad Caverns since it was at the half-way point. (Well, more like 40-60, but better than a full drive in one day, which mom cannot do anymore.) She stayed above ground, visited the exhibit in the air-conditioned visitor center for the park, and watched a movie about the caves. I went below ground.

And I decided to do it the hard way. Yes, they have an elevator for the 750 foot descent and return. But I felt the need to “earn” the right to see the beautiful caves, despite having an arthritic hip. I came prepared with a cane, camera, and jacket (the caves hover at about 52 degrees F). During the ranger indoctrination of the “NO TOUCHIE!!!” speech (things that takes tens of thousands of years to form cannot handle tens of thousands of people touching them every year), the speaker directed the “please don’t go down the 20 degree, over a mile long path, with switchbacks and uneven footing if you have ANY walking issues” to me, sitting on the bench in the instruction area, and the man beside me with a prothesis for a leg. I don’t know if he did the walk or decided the elevator route; the 20 degree incline could be an issue. I hope he did what he needed to do to best enjoy the caves.

The first three pictures describe the descent, shows the opening of the cave system, and the holes just inside the cave opening where the cave sparrows live. The opening walk is covered in bird droppings (as opposed to bat droppings out of at the bat cave entrance).

Seven hundred and fifty feet down is a killer on the calves. My legs were shaking after 0.4 miles – only 0.85 miles to go!!! (And then another 1.25 miles for the Big Cave on “level” “ground”.) Most of the descent is ramps; there is one area of steps. The slippery areas where the water is still dripping and forming stalagmites on the floor, also made gripping the handrails harder. And because of the constant switchbacks, the handrails alternated sides, making using the cane challenging as I constantly changed the hand gripping the cane and the hand on the rail.

It’s impossible to appreciate just how VAST the caverns are and how big the formations. The first formation in the above picture is larger than my house. Thirty or forty feet high and nearly as wide. Created one drip at a time. The second picture is of soda straws and other stalactites structures. Depending on how much minerals there are and how fast the drip dries, the cave formations vary between smooth to popcorn-texture like that captured in the third above photo. There is one scenic-overlook that lets one view nearly half a mile of the Big Room in one shot.

The mountain is hollow, your brain thinks. How can something so infinite be empty and full at the same time. Again there is no way to capture the feeling or the features of the cave. The dim light challenged my camera. These few pictures are the best ones I took and the one on the right here is from my camera-phone, which I took so I could do a quick post on Facebook when I came out of the cave.

Well, that is it for the cave pictures, but I also got a good group of pictures of desert flowers and planets. Spring time in New Mexico is beautiful both under and above ground. I found the Ocotillo especially colorful.

The desert was so green and alive with dozens of different plants.

Finally, the architecture of the park administrative buildings fit in well with the landscape and made me want to grab paints. I am not a landscape painter, but for Carlsbad National Park, I might become so.

Museum Visits

Museum Visit: Borderlands

July 31, 2025October 30, 2025 Erin Penn Leave a comment

Third episode of the Museum of Texas Tech University visit from a spring-time trip. Here are the pictures I took of the “Icon and Symbols of the Borderland” exhibit showing until August 17, 2025, plus things from the main exhibit which caught my eye.

First let me mention, the sculptures from mesquite wood are mindbending in their craftmanship. The mesquite tree is not in any shape or form “straight” wood. I didn’t take pictures of them because the sculptures just wouldn’t have come out well, but I highly recommend going in person (if you are traveling through Lubbock, Texas).

Onward into the Borderlands. Two artists worked with metallic labels to create collages. I took pictures of one of Cesar Martinez’s collages and two from Diana Molina. The use of trash to create Borderland art is, well, shiny.

The museum card reads: Cesar Martinez “Cabeza de Vaca Stele”, 2013 (Collage – on loan from the artist)

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1490-1560) was a Spanish explorer and one of four survivors of the 1527 Panfilio de Narvaez expedition that reached Tampa Bay, Florida, a year later. Marooned on the Texas coast, he wrote an account of his eight-year trek across the American Southwest to reunite with his Spanish countrymen in what is now the northwest Mexican state of Sinaloa. In “Naufragios y commentarios” (Shipwrecks and Commentaries) originally published in 1542, Cabeza de Vaca documented detailed descriptions of the many Native American tribes he encountered.

About the icons and symbols in this collage, the artist explains they “are inspired by the Native American rock paintings, petroglyphs, and Mesoamerican visual representations that de Vaca may have seen during his travels.”

Diana Molina “Serape Tecate”, 2013 (Paper collage – on loan from the artist): Depicted here is an iconic trademark symbol of a popular beer brand of the region. The discarded wrappings of contemporary Mexican American consumption form the palette of representation of consumer culture along the borderline. Molina is “drawn to recycle post-consumer wrappings to create work that reflects the cultural heritage, environment, and commercial intake of a binational landscape.”

Diana Molina “Agave”, 2014 (Paper collage – on loan from the artist): The agave epitomized Molina’s passion for the Chihuahuan Desert landscape. Also called mescal, its use is a long-standing tradition among native cultures of the Southwest. Mother of tequila and provider of sweet nectar, the slow-growing desert plant stores water in its thick leaves and produces one magnificent bloom before dying.

Next is a painting of a horse, but the details fascinated me. Do you remember doing doodles in school, then drawing lines around them, expanding out like ripples to fill the space? I did a lot of them; still do if a meeting get boring enough. This reminds me of that, only 10,000 times better and more meaningful.

Richard Armendariz “Tlazoltleotl as a Horse”, 2013 (Oil on carved plywood – on loan from the artist): This work is inspired by the Mesoamerican deity Tlazolteotl. Armendariz describes her as “the goddess of midwives depicted with a black mouth because she eats filth or disease so that the mother can give birth to a healthy child. In my painting, I depict a horse as the midwife deity ingesting drones and missiles on a dystopian future border.”

The rest of the photos are from items in the TTU museum’s permanent exhibit. Let’s start with the beadwork. This exquisite piece was worked on deerskin. I’ve done a lot of beadwork over the years (see The Coif Continues 12/31/2019 for one example), and, let me tell you, working on leather rather than cloth is another level of crazy. You see with cloth, the hole formed by a needle is temporary … with leather, you got a hole for the rest of eternity. You put a bead in the wrong place while sewing on leather, there is no plan B.

“1870 / 1970” by Teri Greeves (born 1970), 2006 (Beads on deer hide)

While I have attempted a couple rounds of basket-making, I have never worked with pine needles, although one of my friends have. Basket weaving, with the constant wet hands, isn’t for me, especially if I want to work embroidery with silk thread. But I do have enough background to appreciate the precision crafting of this piece.

“Untitled basket” by Fran Kraynek-Prince (born 1943), 1979 (Pine needles)

I love woodcrafting, though I haven’t worked in wood in decades.

“Puzzle” by Michael Pat Butler (active 1970-1995), 1974 (Painted wood)

The balance of the photos are works in glass. The delicate shaping while working with high heat items is something I have admired and researched, but never personally attempted. The first picture is a typical multi-color vase, followed by a ceramic sculpture in a mostly traditional manner, and finally some painted abstract clouds.

“Untitled vase” by Kent Ipsen (born 1933), 1976 (Glass)

“Hummer 1” by Annette Corcoran (born 1930), 1999 (Ceramic)

Taking photos of sculptures rarely can capture the complex beauty of the three-dimensional object. Pictures are just not good enough. Nearly always with museum art pieces, I want to take them home (or just make them myself). On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to have this delicate piece in my house. Not with Space-X eighteen miles away regularly shaking the foundation with rocket testing.

“Bountiful Flying Art Clouds” by Ginny Ruffner (born 1952), 1999 (Glass, painter)

Museum Visits

Museum Visit: Watercolors and Paintings

May 29, 2025October 30, 2025 Erin Penn 2 Comments

Last month, in the post Y is for Yesteryear, I mentioned visiting the Museum of Texas Tech University. In that post, I went on and on about Quilts. Today, I am going to wax poetic on the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies 50th Anniversary Exhibition (which ran from February 5th to May 4th, 2025).

I make a goal of attending four Museum or Museum-like things a year. I meet this goal about half the time, but this year I blew it out of the water with heavy beginning-of-the-year group of opportunities. I caught the glass exhibit at Texas A&M when I attended AggieCon in February. Then on a trip in end-of-April/start-of-May, I swung by the previously mentioned TTU Museum, visited the Roswell International UFO Museum (no pictures, but may result in some stories), and walked through Carlsbad Caverns. There may be a few more Museums this year, but that is a good group of very different experiences.

TTU had four exhibits I explored. The first was the quilts, Treads of Tradition, second is the Watercolors (shown below), a small gallery showed the Sacagawea Dollar (closes September 2025) which isn’t full of cool pictures but did have cool information, and fourth is “Icon and Symbols of the Borderland” showing until August 17, 2025. I may drop the Borderland pictures later this year.

But today I am sharing the watercolors. I will start with my least favorite and go to my most favorite; these are the ones I took pictures of – I liked all of them enough to take pictures, download them from my camera, resize them for computer upload, write up the description and upload them. The “big” pictures should be great to expand out, even though I chopped them from 4 megs to 250 K. If you would like any of these for study, drop me a comment and I will forward them to you. It is true for pretty much all the work I post, unless copyright restrictions exist, I am willing to share.

“Moonblind” by John James is a mixed watermedia (San Diego Watercolor Society). A lot of my friends are into collage work, so this is more a picture for my friends than for me personally but moonscapes always capture my eye.

“South Fork of the Salmon at Stolle Meadows” by Renee Galligher is watercolor (Idaho Watercolor Society), and more about inspiration than just standing in awe at the creation. I think this, or something like this, is within my capabilities. I always mean to paint more, and I would love to paint river scenes.

Next on the docket are two bird paintings and one fish painting. All are beautiful and showcase the power of the watercolor medium well: “Ponderosa Raven” by Lauralee Stenzel is watercolor and gouache (Arizona Watercolor Association); “Rooftop Spies” by Lou Sosalla is watercolor on Yupo (Colorado Watercolor Society); and “Old Friends” by Annie Strack is watercolor (Arizona Watercolor Association).

“Nested” by Rene Eisenbart is watermedia (Watercolor Society of Oregon). Last of the pictures I have of the watercolors and, by far, my favorite. The raised golden sticks in the nest, the hummingbirds, the beauty of the person’s face, all of it is gorgeous.

One oil painting from the permanent exhibit also caught my eye (and the photos came out). “Autumn Landscape” by Henriette Wyeth (born 1907, died 1997) , circa 1935 (oil on canvas) falls into the same category as “South Fork” above in that … I can make that, maybe, someday.

I will close out this post with the two pictures of the cool information I found in the “Sacagawea Dollar 25th Anniversary” exhibit (and the transcripts).

Sacagawea

A Shoshone woman born in the late 1700s near present day Montana, taken captive and removed from her family at age 11, and won in a bet by a French-Canadian who made her one of his several wives, Sacagawea served as an interpreter on the U.S. expedition on the potential trade-routes led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the early 1800s.

Having just given birth to her son, Jean Baptiste, the 16-year old Sacagawea accompanied her husband over 3000 miles as a vital partner in his ability to accomplish the role for which he was hired. Sacagawea spoke with her native Shoshone people and translated the Hidata(missing letters) Chabonneau, who translated in French to another member of the party, who then translated in English to Lewis and Clark.

On the journey for which Sacagawea is known, a river was named after her, and she showed fortitude, calm, and resolution. She is described in the expedition’s journal as a “slave, one of only two in the party, … the only Indian, the only mother, the only woman, [and] the only teen-aged person.” The National Park Service, musing why Sacagawea is so remembered suggest that “unlike other indigenous women, White men wrote about her, and those works lived on in print.”

Second Picture

Did you know that the Sacagawea Dollar has 17 stars on the reverse side? Typically most U.S. coins have 13 stars representing the 13 original colonies; however the 17 stars on the Sacagawean Dollar represent the number of states in the Union during the Lewis and Clark expedition in which Sacagawea took part.

Museum Visits