This dog probably owned Spook’s girlfriend Linda down in Las Cruces. On my first visit to New Mexico, in March of ’77, we rendezvoused there. A gang of us were headed for the Grand Prix in Long Beach, CA. I had enchiladas (from “Gil’s”) for the first time and learned to play to play cribbage while listening to Boston’s “More Than A Feeling”. Ah, the ’70s!
Every August, Lincoln hosts a Billy the Kid pageant, the highlights of which are the parade and performances of “The Last Escape of Billy the Kid”. The play is corny and amateurish, but rings with integrity. It is actually performed by local folks in an outdoor setting mere yards from the very courthouse where the eponymous event occurred. The play has hilarious dialogue, horses and lots of gunplay. Matt, his wife Becky and probably half the populace of Lincoln have all appeared in it. For a period of years, I and my friends would turn up for Pageant and sell Billy the Kid t-shirts. Pictured is one of the designs. It is originally a linoleum print.
Lincoln hosts an annual folk pageant every August, “The Last Escape of Billy the Kid”. It is corny and amateurish, but has integrity in that it is a genuine community endeavor. Local folks play the roles in an outdoor arena a few yards
This sad little shack stood not too far from one of the several houses which Matt rented before building his own hacienda. The sketch is done in ink, marker and colored pencil. Abandoned buildings often intrigue me. I imagine the people who built them…the hopes and dreams which charged their existence…the joys and tragedies which unfolded within their walls…all of which are swept away by the march of time. Of course, this adobe was probably just a utility shed where none of that happened!
To a large extent, the town of Lincoln, NM is a museum celebrating the Old West in general and the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid in particular. Many of the oldest buildings are historical sites and any new construction has to be done in an official “frontier style”. Pictured above is a “typical Lincoln” adobe house. “Typical Lincoln” was one of Matt’s pet phrases by which he referred to the petty small-town bickering of his adopted hometown.
Speaking of my buddy Matt, this is a portrait of him, drawn from life sometime in the mid-70’s. He was a boon companion, a generous and warm-hearted soul. He carved out a successful career as a landscrape architorturer in the hostile environs of the southwest. He was a beloved husband and father, utterly devoted to his “girls” and he is sorely missed by all that had the pleasure to know him.
Being an Air Force brat, Matt and his family had lived all around the world, hence his frat nickname “Nomad”. Despite this lifestyle, he had still managed to accumulate a quantity of oddities, like this porcelain elephant from the mysterious kingdom of Siam.
Here is a pencil sketch of a vista which I have depicted in oils and marker: the north side of the valley of the Rio Bonito, setting of Lincoln, New Mexico. These are the only mountains I have ever climbed…I’ve scaled the north side with my wife and the south side with Matt, Spook, Carol and Burnsie. It took us probably a couple of hours and we used no equipment and met no disaster, so they are pretty easy mountains, I’m sure. The dark green mountains peeking behind are the Capitan Mountains. Supposedly, the Capitans are the only mountain range in North America which has an overall east-west orientation. The Capitans’ most famous inhabitant was Smokey Bear, found as a cub in a tree there in 1950 in the wake of a fire. The north face of the Capitans is the site of the fabled Roswell UFO crash. My buddy Matt, a Lincoln inhabitant, was a firm believer in the authenticity of that event. This may be because his friend Glen was the undertaker called in by the Air Force to provide child-sized coffins for the alien corpses.
Unfortunately, the flash of the camera is too intense. However, the headstock has been modified with several pieces. First I glued on some mahogany veneer. The guitar tuners weren’t quite right for the thickness of the headstock, so I ran two strips of bocote to make up the difference. The stalk of thistle, the leaves and lower part of of the flower are carved from poplar and the bristle is carved from purpleheart. I was quite surprised that when I finished the rehabilitation of this instrument, it sounded quite good…far better than my modest skills warrant.
I used the smallest guitar tuners I could find, but there are 12 of ’em and they do throw off the balance of the instrument, the body being so light. The case is maybe overkill…it is plywood all around. A cavity for the gourd-back was formed with the spray-foam “Great Stuff” and at Joann’s Fabrics I found a liner that is somewhat thistle-like. The instrument is flanked by two compartments which store strings and original unused parts.