As we near the anniversary of the National Park Service (August 25, 1916), and August being American Artists Appreciation Month, we're revisiting select Big Blend Radio interviews with park artists-in-residence through the National Parks Arts Foundation.
This episode features Dawnja Burris - media scholar, visual and artist, and the spring of 2019 National Parks Arts Foundation (NPAF) artist-in-residence in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in Northern New Mexico. Dawnja is interested in the translation of images through diverse mediation and form. Read More and see her art: https://nationalparktraveling.com/listing/visual-artist-dawnja-burris-in-chaco-culture-nhp
This podcast also features Nathan Hatfield - Chief of Interpretation at Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Aztec Ruins National Monument, and Tanya Ortega - Founder of NPAF. Featured music is “Chaco” by the Tall Men Group.
[Music] Well on today's Big Blend Radio toast to the Arts and Parks Show. We do this every first Friday by the way everyone here on Big Blend Radio. We are going to be chatting with visual artist and media scholar Donja Berth and she is the artist in residence in Chaco. So we're getting her conversation today while she's actually there and actually she's in Aztec ruins which is a neighboring park. So she's joining us. We also have Tanya Ortega the founder of the National Parks Arts Foundation and the foundation is really awesome. What they do is they create these unique month-long artist in residency experiences within national park units like Chaco culture, National Historical Park, Aztec ruins, also Fort Union, Dry Tortugas on Lagerhead Key where you could spend a month on you know tropical island. I mean I know. Hawaii Volcanoes I mean just an amazing amazing opportunity for artists of all genres, all medium to you know go and apply to spend a month in a park to create. Also today we have Nathan Hatfield he's the chief of interpretation at Chaco culture, National Historical Park, Aztec ruins. And our friend that we met when we were at Kane River Creole National Historical Park in Louisiana. So hopefully we get to meet him soon. So everyone to go and have a look at what Chaco looks like go to nps.gov/chcu to learn more about Donja go to her website it's donjabirth.info that's d-a-w-n-j-a-b-u-r-r-i-s just proving I can spell it's rare isn't it Nancy? And then of course national parks arts foundation.org is the website you want to go to as well. So let's bring Tanya on first Tanya how are you? Good day everybody I am great. Good to have you back on the show and I always like to ask this where are you are you in a volcano are you in Santa Fe like where are you today? Today I know this is going to sound this is this is opposite of natural parks but today I am on a golf course and I am looking out over the ocean. Do you know what it's like to do plain air painting on a golf course? Well you probably do. So I am trying my hand at painting I am really really bad at it it's incredible. I love it when people come up and look and look at what I'm doing expecting some magnificent and they just kind of walk away. It's a wonderful thing it's tumbling I guess. Wow I had no idea I want to see photos on Facebook like because I know your photography I love your photography and now that you're you know now you know dipping paint brushes into paint and putting it on canvas outside on the golf course any balls coming your way that could be dangerous just want to make sure it would be if I was playing golf course. Oh yeah yeah they're moving it on purpose you know I can't blame them I'm hoping they hit this monstrosity that's on the easel and it goes down but you know I really do believe in exercising your mind and your actions and things that you know in art for example I am really bad at painting but I still need to exercise doing it to know what other people are doing and to appreciate painters and and that kind of thing. So every once in a while I'll humble myself and just make some really ugly artwork just for the exercise. It's like exercising in your physical body you know. Well I love this I love this because you know we're here in Yuma Arizona today and this is the site where Nancy and I first learned how to play golf. We had a mini golf lesson from a PGA champion mini golf lesson that we both did manage to hit the ball and do the thing. But anyway that was our first and only time so far so I'll send you the video. You know I want I want to see that and these golfers really are it's not it's a course that was made in the 80s but to tell you the truth I'm away from the beauty of nature of natural things and I'll tell you why this is so horrible but I kind of don't want to go to the park which is not that far away because I see the natural beauty of the national parks as pristine and to have do this in a pristine location would to me be blessed for me because I'm not good at it if I was good at it it would be a completely different story. I bet you're better at it than our golf course. I really have to tell you when we were in South Africa I was cutting the silhouettes for people in the supermarket and every once while somebody would come behind me and watch as I'm cutting and would say oh no her nose isn't that long and then I would just completely chop the nose off and go is that better? This is great. This is a great introduction today for today's show. Okay so I'm going to bring Nathan Hatfield back on here. Nathan how are you? I'm good. Good. Are you doing any planar painting or you know cutting people's nose off or anything up there in New Mexico? No I haven't gotten around to that yet but it sounds exciting I should take it up. No so you're today you're at Aztec ruins right and so is there a connection between Aztec and Choco is that something that people typically do when they come up to Choco? Do you both part? Well certainly there is a historical connection. Aztec ruins is considered a Choco outlier and there's some historians that believe that as the civilization began to decline in Choco as folks began to move out of the canyon that the center of power for the ancestral Pueblo community may have shifted to Aztec so there's no way we can actually prove that but there's a lot of scholars who think that might be the case and so you have that historical connection which of course leads to a modern connection for our visitors who want the entire ancestral Pueblo experience they can visit Choco and then they can drive an hour and a half to Aztec ruins and of course Mesa Verde is right up the road and there's other smaller sites that are on county property or BLM lands so a visitor who is into the ancestral Pueblo story could spend days in this four corners area and visit any number of sites to help really get a well-rounded appreciation for this history. You just extended our trip. Yeah. This is sounding good. This is sounding good. I want to bring Donja on. Donja the artist in residence who's there right now and Aztec ruins but the main residency is for Choco. Donja welcome to the show. How are you? Thank you. I'm well more than well. Super well. Super excited to have you on the show and to find out what your experience is like. You know it's reading that this isn't your first time. You were there about 20 years ago? Yes and more recently just this past August my fiancee and I drove from Brooklyn to Denver and then here and then to El Paso where my family lives and back and we incorporated the Choco trip because I had just seen and applied for this residency and was learning about the future possibility when that might happen. So I was here as recent as this past August but before that I think it was 1994 and both yeah through a lot of the four corners sites then including here including Aztec. Very cool. So does it help to go and have a little preview? Did it help you so far in your experience to kind of do you do research you know before you go to a residency to prepare? Yes absolutely it did. I mean Choco for me from that 20 years ago first experience has just remained very very viscerally in my memory you know so mentally viscerally I remember and feel the the visuals that I first saw and experienced then and I've read visited if you will you know through media films on the solstice and the area and documentaries information about the site and the the puebloan culture so I just I never lost it I kept that and I felt that the traction to the place. I know you know that a lot of people may say that for me it was the history the elusiveness the mystery and also the very physical dry hot terrain but within that ecosystem plants and animals persisting you know so all of that was with me and that that is visual for me to translate visual and then this past August it was a fly by it was two nights camping in the campground oh that's cool yeah well it wasn't cool it was cool at night I remember we arrived and had to put up the tent and stages because it was so hot oh wow but it but it was wonderful and I made imagery then that I brought with me on on this residency I I may go on too long in this search little question so I'll cut it short you can ask me more if you like but so I I have imagery within me imaginatively and embodied and now actually in transparency forms that I'm shooting through on location and creating some multi-dimensional new work. So multi-dimensional so because I know you've got such an interesting background in regards to there's photography digital media filmmaking producing and so you're putting all of that together so when I know you're doing an event as well when you think when people think about what you're creating while you're there is it and you think multimedia how is that going to look for what's the experience for the viewer? So I'm concentrating not on multimedia in the interactive sense okay not right now not within these four weeks and not necessarily in time for a discussion and presentation this coming Saturday but rather photographic imagery that like I said I kind of of course have to see this to imagine it maybe but you know I'm say I've got some black and white images of some iconographic land forms and architecture in the whole choco and fights universe park the park that's appropriate for here and I'm holding those up say a shot of fahata to fahata but maybe it's tilted a little bit and maybe its focus is skewed a little bit in order to intimate some of the original photography that's been done there from the time of what was it 1895 or 1877 when the first photographs were presumably made so I'm trying to look at create scenes that look at the sites and their features as they exist now but with kind of a layer of how they might have been photographed they might have looked previous so that's the dimensionality I'm talking about not a straight shot the combination of shots and intending to produce these outcomes on a transparency media also that maybe could be installed on a rotating basis perhaps on the windows of the visitor center it's an idea oh why brought up with Nathan we're discussing now so that's the dimensionality no this is a media this form meanwhile I am recording video vignettes say of plants moving and time lapses of clouds um and sound a little bit of soundscape um fascinated with the birds I'm not an ornithologist so I really don't know what the various sounds mean and before I really incorporate that element into say a video I would like to consult and find out you know what what the various sounds mean right now they're labeled morning and the site afternoon evening but certainly they mean different things yeah this is interesting because I know that animal behavior is very fascinating to you and with your work and I think there's so much to learn from animals I mean that's our Nancy and I our background is is definitely just really understanding animals because human beings have been copying nature for years you know I think we've always since you know the beginning of mankind and being in an ancient site like Chaco and then also Aztec ruins where you are today do you feel that the ancestral peoples also connected with animals in nature in that way in regards to life and in fact it's interesting that the element that I've been producing while here on site that directly references animals is the audible recording of the bird sound I have but my initial attraction in terms of a project here correlates with research I do on the ways in which we humans have largely especially in industrial societies distanced ourselves from contact with actual animals except of course for those that we breed and eat or keep as pets largely right so I came in with an idea that I really wanted to explore the timeline maybe and the operation now in society with our perceptions of animals and how we figure them how we create images of them right so certainly there are many examples in the pictographs and petroglyphs in the Chacoan area and I do something kind of funny maybe people react to it in different ways I photograph little toy animal figurines and I put them into natural settings in ways that they may appear to be real but there's some facet of them that gives away their plasticity their art their art their art of sociality sometimes I use them to create their shadow forms onto that and Chaco now say that the cliff faces or you know the ground and this is some work that's going to take a little longer to to you know develop and something I started to discuss though with representatives from some of the descendant communities and affiliated tribes in terms of what reception and regard these cultural beliefs hold for viewing particular animals and so far I've been surprised an example you know me being the outsider thought that the coyote for instance had perhaps some reverence and it does I've learned so far that at least in Navajo culture though there there's some reticence a very very significant reticence about viewing an actual coyote or an image of a coyote so now it takes in and others yeah in contact with people from these communities to continue this conversation and learn more I'm still making the imagery but I want to learn more that will certainly inform it and and also let me know you know to what extent should I you know kind of push it out there maybe I need to know that's interesting because it's kind of it simplifying the the animal down a bit there's there's making it more symbolic in a way I find it's interesting because when we look at how we've done you know cartoon animals over the years and how they sit with people you know but you know why are you the coyote you know things like that how it sits with us and how it's it's how human beings do look at wildlife it's a different way and you look at now and you people think of Africa where we live for so long they think of like lion king immediately and it's just these these I don't want to say simplistic or you know because it's not because you know doing any kind of animation is actually very difficult and hard work but I think it's really interesting with how you're working with that I immediately I have to say went to Gumby and Pokey in the desert you know I was just thinking that when I was a kid we had the the little plastic dinosaurs oh yeah then and you had put them all against the light and shine the shadow onto a wall and with different angles you could make a T-Rex really big and so I mean that's kind of fun I think it's going to make two early forms of communication you know and and this the shadow form especially with some movement to it I mean that's kind of early cinema one could say you know it's the moving image and what's most interesting to me working with these animals is what they intimate I have a working hypothesis in my research in my teaching a course called animals as media and that is that we as humans maintain a desire to be close to animal life yeah to lead a daily life that that is more entwined and for that reason we create accessible media forms of them you know it's not black or white yes or so all that or not but I think some of that is operative and that I'm wondering you know may that have been the case with early societies if so to what extent may that remain the case now what's the through line and then what are what are the implications you know so with the with the imagery and the plastic animals and their shapes I hope to prompt you know some thinking about this I like this this is interesting in tanya this really goes to the national parks art foundation when we talk about you know all mediums of art and in genre like whether it's music or poetry I mean this takes it to a whole new level tanya but don't just go on she's like it's all in there you know yeah and you know the interesting thing too of course we've talked about this before but when you arrive to a place and you get so inspired you know knowing who coyote is and knowing all these different things it makes your creativity evolve so all of the different media that donja is using we'll be able to connect to more people and Nathan you know with these residencies and and also chocolate is a dark sky park right Nathan that's also a big part of what happens with these residencies as photographers coming in you've got an observatory but so far since you've been in choco which you've been there what four years now in choco about three and a half years yes yeah I think when we first reconnected with you we were in yuma actually and here we are again and you've you've you know met all these different artists are you amazed that you know the different approaches that they have to interpreting the story of choco and Aztec ruins the people the land um the nature isn't it it's different each time it is and credit to the foundation they've selected a very diverse group of artists we've had sculptors photographers we had a soundscape musician come and so the variety that they've placed with us has been phenomenal and we each of these individuals come I try to meet with them early on in their residency and they talk about some ideas that they have and I just encourage them to whatever ideas you may have just go out and explore be a tourist be out in the canyon all by yourself go out there with other people go out there at night go out there early in the morning and just immerse yourself and whatever ideas you think you might have maybe you'll see or hear or do something that will allow those ideas to flourish or maybe you'll have experience that takes you in a totally different direction and I've seen it happen both ways for artists at both Aztec and Choco and it's really neat to watch these individuals who some of them unlike donja have never been there they've read about it and done their research but to see a creative person and artists come and experience a place like Choco and see what inspiration they draw from it it's been really special to be a part of that and to watch that happen so I'm glad that you know we've been able to have such a fruitful partnership with the foundation and and donja is another part of that that journey so it's been wonderful it's exciting I think I'm always curious because it's and I know that things change up and there's like oh I found this part out you know I do want to touch on Choco and also have Techwinds we can touch on too as you know for visitors exploring our national parks so you are in the northwest corner of New Mexico right when we look at the map yes we are one what's commonly known as the four corners so we're a short drive northwest of Albuquerque and the largest city in this area is is Farmington, New Mexico but yeah we are right there near the border of Colorado Arizona and Utah cool and so when people come out number one you are a UNESCO World Heritage Site which is amazing that happened in 1987 and but actually you were founded in 1907 I was reading this through the Antiquities Act right so you are one of the Antiquities monuments didn't that that happened Hewlett-Clifft dwellings I think and Casa Grande ruins I think there are also all in that group in the southwest that were like an antiquities monument before becoming a national park is that something that happened way back when Choco was designated a national monument in 1907 and then in the 1980s Choco was redesignated a national historical park and with that new designation Congress and the country and the world is realizing that the story of Choco is much more than what's in the canyon it's a story of the entire region and so that historical park designation while it you know it's just a title or a name but it does say that the story of Choco is much more than what's within the park boundary it's no widespread there's outliers all over the region and the influence not only was powerful here within the four corners but we know that there was communication and trade with Indigenous groups much further south and in what's now modern day Mexico and we found shelves that were brought to Choco from the Pacific Ocean and so the story of Choco with that 1980s designation as a national historical park is acknowledging that the influence of this place was phenomenal you also have a Solstice event coming up June 20th 21st and isn't that really connected to Choco in regards to you know all the the I'm going to say petroglyphs but there's all that that art and there's like you know the actual dwelling itself which wasn't really a dwelling you didn't didn't everyone think that they built it just for the Solstice am I getting my history right here I'm going back up here you're close so the the buildings that dot the landscape of Choco Canyon many of them contain what we call astronomical alignments so there's certain features within these buildings maybe a window maybe a wall maybe a doorway that was placed there specifically to capture the light or create some kind of phenomena on a very specific day or event and we do have alignments that are very specific to the equinox and the solstices and so for years now well for thousands of years people have been coming to Choco to most likely celebrate those key days but also to observe what was happening with these buildings and on the landscape around them and we've helped to continue those traditions coming to Choco for a solstice event today in 2019 means that you're more than likely going to be staying in our campground because there's not a lot of lodging nearby and to get out there and see these things that sunrise requires you to be out there before the sun rises so if people are out there dark and having seen a few of these myself the first few times that I've watched them you want to watch the alignment or the phenomenon but now when I go out there I just watch the visitors because I mean for a lot of folks it's been something that they've been trying to see for decades and you know I think the term bucket list gets thrown out a lot these days but I think for a lot of our visitors who come for these sunrise programs it's on their bucket list and so I just watch them and watch their faces and it's it's moments like that that really help validate one's choice to become a park ranger to right people have that type of experience it's the same as when people see a still coiatry for the first time yeah or you know that kind of amazing all those experiences that happen and you just see that like wow and it is it's humbling you know those experiences are very humbling at Tanya have you been to one of the solstice events in Choco? I have and it was and so I've been to more than one I used to go every year when I could not just solve this other alignments too and Mr. Coronacopia who is a ranger there is fantastic at getting this together and other rangers as well and I don't know if Nathan you saw Stan Honda who's a nice sky photographer his photo of the I think he was there doing solstice or anyway an event and he got wonderful photos of the alignments but he also got wonderful photos of the visitors that came and their reverence to the event and every time I went everybody was very silent very respectful and I like watching the visitors too because I like seeing their awe and their respect and and it's it's very silent beautiful thing and I hope it goes on forever I don't know that crowds will get any smaller but it you definitely need need to be reverent you want to go we'll have to go Donja do you want to go maybe another residency for you no they're not going to get rid of me at Choco I'm going to be coming back the campsites will be reservable again soon after some work that's being done and I'm making sure to stay in touch with everybody um I just wanted to say you know as I I knew about the solstice and equinox times and other times but I've learned so much more by attending a couple of the night sky programs and also reading and such but then when I go and wander the sites and the rooms and maybe especially I'll say up at Pueblo Alto now it's not so documented that that or new alto was one of the sites but I think it was happening in all of the structures the watching of the sky um I just sit there and think and it's not hard to do so what was life like without this instant always on digital communication or phone communications for that matter like we're doing now you know and how do you how did one make sense of their world and time and passage and the silence and the aliveness the slowing down that I might think at first is happening um once I sit with that and think things are trackable time is trackable just by a different conception or a conception that we don't rely upon day by day now as we look at the time on the digital readouts of our various devices you know so that's really got me thinking and some of the work actually I'm experimenting with um references this it's not direct light hitting the window or the spiral pictograph which you couldn't do anymore anyway up on fajara um but I'll share some with you it's it's some of this transparency um process is refatography process that I've you that I've been using and it's um it's working with a little blue square of sunlight coming through the windows in bonito and by positioning my transparency and the angle of my camera differently you kind of see this little square move to other locations on the wall so what I'm hoping that the reception of something like this it'll be a series obviously so you can see the displacement but it's completely inspired by this process of watching and watching the alignments and building architecture to allow for it I want to just circle back for those listening that have never been to chop up or have heard of the park um you know when you talk about fajara um and I still want to say fajita I can't help that but it was just a thing but fajara when you talk about fajara and then bonita do you want to tell everybody um what what you're talking about I'm sorry I've been talking with the resident staff who have been so helpful to me and so we've been speaking in shorthand like that so absolutely um fajara butte is I guess if not it's got to be the main land feature within the canyon um and one that for um many years I guess some time in the 70s I can't remember the woman archaeologist name but it was discovered that at the winter and spring winter saltus and spring equinox light sunlight coming through slats of three large slabs of stone at the top would shine and create a kind of growing or moving sun dagger it was called so the spike of light that just happened to go right through the middle of a spiral pictograph um and it did that in the winter and in the spring it did two there's there's differences in any case fajara butte it's the main feature you see it from a far different entrances to the canyon from the east and the north roads and I even saw it through a little um view from up on the trail to alto yesterday so it's it's a main landmark feature and then bonito is pueblo bonito um the largest site I believe among the many in the park and the one that I also believe was um explored and excavated first and many times beginning with the weather all part uh palmer party um I've been buffing up on my my history great job he nailed it pueblo bonito with many rooms 30 or more of which were crushed when some rock face fell in 1941 so interesting to wonder what's under there you know I think it had been excavated already but wow crush of rock on the on the north west side of the of the site so spinae wow wow nathan I think you know I know you've got an amazing junior ranger program however I think you need an art ranger program you get to get the badge for that forgetting that uh that's amazing you know when you think about this history I can't wait to get up there um I do have an important question for you nathan when when we come up there for if we do get there for june are we going to be able to see elk do you think or is that only in the fall you'll probably see some elk I can't promise that you will but there's a good chance that you'll see some elk and that was one of the things that really surprised me when you first come into chocolate canyon it is it's a hard landscape and it doesn't look like a place where wildlife would would thrive but you see elk you see small mammals course birds reptiles it's a very active place and we've seen badgers and coyotes and uh the badgers mountain lions bears the list of wildlife that will explore the canyon or call the canyon home it's very extensive so there's a good chance you'll see some elk but i can't make any guarantees because they don't show up on time they do not do what we ask them to do bear 10 a.m i know really uh that's that's the beauty of it though you know that it's that you know when you go to a park it's reminding us about coexistence you know and how to you know just take care of the land you know and not feed the animals right nathan do not feed the bear do not feed the elk behave do not do that but i do have a question for each of you before we go you know when you think about really historic places and wild places where nature is thriving and you go for a walk you know we always love to talk about our one-hour walk group on facebook and get people outside to be observant and maybe have a really good conversation so if you could take each of you could take a one-hour walk in chaco or at aztec ruins where would you go for a walk and who would you take with you it could be someone from the past of that area it could be someone that's there now it could be anybody in the world alive or passed on so let's start with you nathan since you live there practically where would you go for a walk and who would you go with well you asked me this question last time we did yeah i know it's my favorite question i remember my answer i told you i wanted to do the pueblo alto trail with my two children henry and jane and later on that summer we did that hike and we went up to the pueblo bonito overlook and of course i just took i don't know how many dozens of pictures of my kids up there and that was an amazing experience and so since we've done the pueblo alto trail as far as the pueblo bonito overlooked next i would want to take them on the south mesa and i love that trail because there's a viewpoint where you see almost all of what is today known as downtown chaco you look down right upon casa rincanada and if you look across the canyon on the opposite side you see pueblo bonito and from that same vantage point you can see pueblo del arroyo can cletso chacho kennel so it's perhaps the best place in the canyon to see all the sites from one fantastic viewpoint so that's where i'm going to hopefully take my kids maybe later on this summer awesome awesome Nathan um by the way do you still take louisiana hot sauce with you on your picnics bollocks i'll tell you what i lived in the south for 10 years and everywhere i eat it's just so bland i have to have that little kick so yeah i just carry it of course i do i just wanted to know if it's you know anything had changed since our last conversation i love that i love that tanya where are you walking and who you taking oh you know i don't know what trail i'm going to take i think i think i'm going to let my grandma choose because i'd walk out there with my grandma who has since she's she passed away a couple of years ago but she took me to chaco about every year of my life since i was probably three if not younger i just don't remember before that so um she um she really loved that park and she you know she's from louisiana speaking of hot sauce and she ended up going during world war two and being at uh port the science i believe and then uh living out out there in the four corners area and uh yeah so we'd go all of the time and we would i remember her even when she was in her 40s and uh you know hiking with me out there so i'd take my grandma my grandma you know if i was going to ask you have you ever been to chaco i'm just kidding my grandma her name was marie sicilia van der lick ortega and she actually she and my grandfather uh had trading posts out there and uh until a couple years ago when she passed uh owns the el rancho hotel uh there in gallop so oh yeah i've been there a lot and i love it it's part of my heart yeah wow that's awesome that's an awesome story so let's go to you donja who are you walking with and where okay well you know i'm gonna have to say it's south meisa trail as well um i did it once this trip early arrival with with a group including the then resident geologist who was going to check out a fossil site um and so it was a quick trek because he was on a mission and you know i i took a few photos but i need to get up there and take my time again for some of the same reasons that that Nathan has enumerated that the expansive overview reminds me so much of these early aerial photographs that were made um i i think by Charles and Anne Lindbergh um and just be and compare you know the features the roads how how they appear now and you know it'd be kind of hard because her hips are not going to allow her really to do this but it would be my desire to take my mother my mother is in El Paso, Texas and who was with me and my and my then husband um in 1994 and i believe made it up but the new alto trail not all the way to alto but to the bonito overlooks i have some old snapshots of her looking am i gonna make it up this crevice right but she loved it she enjoyed it and she like so many other people i know um would really feel and know the specialness of having that overview again now in her life that's awesome i love these family connections with all of you you know i think that's part of the thing about parks you know we learn things with geology and i need a geology lesson after our little trek into a park locally here yesterday um but because i didn't know what i was looking at but um you know this is the thing looking at the strata i thank you that's the word um not singing okay yeah look at that blue thing anyway no there's something we learned so much in parks um to understand how our world is shaped and and nature and history and people and you know places like chakos you know there's parks are just the ancestry this ancient ancestry these lines are they're mysterious because we we weren't there and we don't know everything but we but we do learn but i think one of the most important things about parks is the family connection of families going into parks together and there's something with that and going through a hike and when it's having that experience of how am i going to get up that rock or how am i going to go down down that hill you know so i think that's one of those amazing connections remember that lady in mountain rainier nancy she had to be in her 90s oh yeah you know and she was in like you know she had like um quite a walker but yeah it was yeah it came and had to go one step at a time like really really slowly and the wildflowers were everywhere and the views it was incredible and she was obviously with her son or grandson and together they walked and they were just amazing her her face was so alive you know her face was just so happy joyful and joyful and just and having that connection together i'll never forget watching that that you know just that little family moment and here her still getting out there i think that's an amazing thing in nathan that's got to be one of those joys like you're saying about the solstice but that's a an everyday occurrence that we see in our parks there's people being happy i dig it yeah you know i i i don't know how many visitors i've heard tell me that you know they come to the park and they see this is this is what i want my tax dollars to do this makes me so proud to be an american that we are taking care of these places and as everyone on this phone call knows it's not just the wilderness areas but it's the archaeological sites the historic sites the historic buildings battlefields the the parkways the there's so much diversity at our national parks and there's a park out there for every individual and every family and that's what makes them so special yeah and and whatever your athletic ability is whether it's a one-hour walk a stroll or a wheel through you know it's there's everybody can go to a park and have a good time there's is they're accessible you know absolutely not something i always keep realizing that we need to keep sharing over and over that parks are accessible um tanya before we go uh residency that people should know i know we're recording this interview it's june that it's airing and um will be in greeley colorado as this airs uh so any residencies that people should know about starting in june and to be aware of uh yes um yes well we have all of the gettiesburg for 2021 expiring in about a month from when this airs we have um the holly acala we have what we haven't at this point as of recording but in june it will be out this very exciting and and nason you might want to think about this too we are having a particular programmatic theme in death valley national park of night sky photographer artists in residence in free workshops so that will be expiring pretty soon too to be able to apply for that and even to sign up for the free workshops so we have some great photographers that usually it's a pretty penny to go to their workshop but giving back to the park is so important but that's what we want to do um oh wow so yeah and the hawaii uh hawaii 20 winter um of i think mid- december 2019 to mid- december 2020 is going to expire soon and we just have a whole a whole lot a whole lot of late 2020 expiring and uh 2021 expiring um within the next month or two so so if you haven't looked get on board get on board go to nationalparksartfoundation.org sign up for the newsletter for the social media instagram twitter facebook uh so you can you know keep abreast of these opportunities and sometimes you guys get these like hey everybody we got a new opportunity and you got one week to get on board so uh you want to do that um so that's the best ways to get their newsletter and so again nationalparksartfoundation.org is a website you'll see all the different parks and just going to the website makes you want to get out and explore the park so it's a very cool thing um again i want to give you the website for choco too it's nps.gov/chcu and also for dongers website it's dongerberth.info thank you all for joining us dongers thank you so much for being part of our show today thank you thank you thank you and enjoy the rest of your time there i can't wait to see all your different images and everything you're doing there and uh nathan always a pleasure to have you back on the show same to you look forward to seeing you in june at choco yeah i'm we're gonna we're gonna have to do a sideways road trip you know how that happens you know might as well detour detours are the best things that's ever that's what our magazine should be just detour just everything is detour because that's how it is tanya always a pleasure thank you for joining us thank you thank you nation nathan and donja and nancy and lisa you guys are the best thank you all you guys thank you and here it is we're gonna play our special song every time we cover choco we love to play this song and it's called choco it's from the tall men group and you can go to tallmengroup.weelee.com and this is off of their first album called Too Tall because they're all six tall men um anything you play music together uh but everyone thank you for joining us here on big blend radio our first friday art show you can keep up with us at big blend radio.com you can keep up with our love your parks tour where we're traveling full time uh to document america's parks all parks and uh so go to loveyourparks tour.com and for other interviews that we've been doing with all these artists and residents which we love go to national park traveling.com you'll see artists interviews in parks and travel magazine or just you'll see the national parks arts foundation up in our expert department click on that and you'll be able to hear all these amazing stories of art artists and uh you know their interpretation of these parks these beautiful places so thanks everyone for joining us here it is choco i remember he's canyon walls i remember desert wind no i've never been here before it's good to be back here again it's good to be back here again oh choco you were my home the part of me still here with these same eyes but a different fate in this place the time and long since gone oh choco you were my home i remember turquoise in my hand i remember stars at night i remember walking a dusty road i don't remember how i died i don't remember how i died oh choco you were my home the part of me still here with these same eyes but a different fate in this place the time is long since gone oh choco you were my home a glimpse behind the curtain the shadow on the wall of vision i can never crash a few pieces of the puzzle fragments of the truth these memories from my internet oh choco you were my home and part of me still here these same eyes but a different fate in this place the time and long since gone oh choco you were my home i remember he's can you walk i remember dead and where you you you You
