Not a great picture, but the peak in the background is important to the location of the site. At the summer solstice the sun rises along the side of that peak and casts its shadow dead center on this site.
We moved a short distance to look at a site which stretches for more than a quarter of a mile along the edge of a mesa that overlooks what was an irrigated farming area 900 years ago. It was so windy along the edge that everyone was at risk of losing their hat.
After a day outside, we drove to Window Rock and the Navajo Nation Museum there. Patricia is with Aaron Anderson who is one of the artists whose exhibit opened while we were there.
As it happened, part of our tour was to visit Aaron Anderson's studio. He specializes in making tufa castings. In this picture, the mold/design iscomplete, but the stone has to be heated up before the silver can be poured in.
While the stone is heating, so is the silver.
Getting ready to pour.
The silver has been poured and is now cooling in the mold.
This seemed pretty brute force to me, but it cleaned up the piece nicely.
We lookedat some examples of Aaron's work. More examples and a little background on Aaron can be found here
Pounding the silver strip into the shape of a bracelet.
The final shape.
Another project which shows how a tufa mold is created.
A final buff wiht steel wool.
Oddly enough, this bracelet exactly fits Patricia's wrist. She had no choice but to buy it.
We took Mom and Dad to lunch on Sunday at Rancho de Chimayo. We had a very pleasant outdoor table and good food.
I have tried to capture rainbows in the sky in front of our house before. This is a double rainbow. As nice as the picture is, it does not capture the true brilliance of the color and light.
