Journals from the Malpais #3
Mixed media construction
Artist Statement
‘Bad Country’–Coronado’s expeditionary report title to his Spanish king. Uniting two words into a single descriptor, he summed up the landscape and its people during his travels the uncharted southwest of what is n ow the US and northern Mexico: harsh and unforgiving. The US retains a landscape preserve still identified as ‘Malpais’. This is one of many reflections on what it must have been for Conquistadores as they travelled the canyons, deserts and mountains unprepared for the land and the native peoples who sensed the danger the incursion would bring. The Spanish found themselves strangers in a strange land.
I construct art. History, mystery, objects and concepts trigger ideas. Ideas then become problems to solve; the problematics beg to be solved. Process and solution then trigger new ideas with new problematics, ad infinitum. Often old work becomes the new problem to be re-worked into a new and better solution. If there is no problem then it is incumbent to invent one.
Links
Email: pdemo@msn.com
Website: pamdemo.com
