Jessie Benton Evans paintings

Landscapes, acrylics. "One of my favorite places to paint near Santa Fe was from the Opera parking lot, overlooking the homes and farms of the village of Tesuque. The layers of land were repeated in the sky. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains in fall were a combination of dark evergreens and golden aspen. One mountain, pure aspen, centered the view like a magic mountain. Mythically, it was like a visual journey of life through the twists of arroyos, canyons, and hills, ever higher towards the golden goal of life’s quest. One day, while painting Raphael's Rainbow, the canvas propped against my van, a storm blew up and I didn't run for cover in time. The wind was so strong, when I tried to get my canvas in the van, it wrenched from my hands and tumbled down the slope, where the wind kept it pressed against a juniper tree until I could creep down the hill and rescue it. When I slid it down flat against the earth, there seemed to be little wind to lift it at ground level, so I held it there until the storm passed. The painting was just fine, not harmed at all."