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(More customer reviews)In 1995, author Katherine Wells and her partner Lloyd Dennis, transplanted Californians, bought 188 acres on the Mesa Prieta in northern New Mexico. The chief attraction of the property was that it contained about 6,000 petroglyphs or carved images on the countless stone faces and boulders on the property. Wells dedicated herself to the petroglyphs - getting them catalogued, sharing knowledge of them, inviting nearby Pueblo Indians to visit them, and fighting to protect them from nearby gravel mining, quarrying, and trucking. LIFE ON THE ROCKS is Wells' story of her life on Mesa Prieta from 1992 to about 2001.
I am rather ambivalent about the book. Those parts that deal with the petroglyphs themselves are the best. Mesa Prieta is unusual in that it has so many petroglyphs from distinctly different time periods - Archaic (from before the Christian era), Pueblo IV (1300-1600 A.D.), and Historic (after the arrival of the Spanish). But what is special is that many of the petroglyphs (of which about two dozen are reproduced in the book via drawings by Wells) are among the most aesthetically pleasing that I have seen; they are more fluid and artistic than is usual, at least as drawn by Wells. Also of value to me were the parts of the book dealing with the efforts of Wells and local activists to fight the depradations of mining and quarrying and the bureaucratic ineptitude and inertia of various governmental agencies, both state and federal.
Less interesting to me were the accounts of Wells and Dennis struggling to make a home and build a series of straw-bale structures atop Mesa Prieta. And even less interesting were those parts of the book that told of very personal trials and tribulations, although I acknowledge that it would have been difficult to keep at least several of those matters out of the book. A more idiosyncratic reservation of mine is that Wells is of a more spiritual bent than I, with New Age and Jungian propensities that I don't share.
Nonetheless, I am glad I read LIFE ON THE ROCKS, and if you also are interested in Native "rock art" (Wells acknowledges the somewhat uneasy status of the term), I suspect you too will find it worth reading. The book definitely is not academic in nature (probably a plus) and the writing is better than average. 3-1/2 stars.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Life on the Rocks: One Woman's Adventures in Petroglyph Preservation
Katherine Wells's obsession with petroglyphs (images pecked on stone) began in the 1960s. Three decades later, after careers as a teacher, a businessperson, and an artist in Southern California, Wells and Lloyd Dennis, her partner, purchased almost two hundred acres near EspaÃola in northern New Mexico. The large boulders on the property contained many examples of rock art from previous Native inhabitants and the lure was overwhelming.
Wells describes the beginning of her new life and her exploration of the petroglyphs on her new land. Meeting New Mexico archaeologists and local rock art aficionados, and locating previously published information about petroglyphs and the prehistoric inhabitants of the EspaÃola area, Wells learned to identify the time periods when the glyphs were made and to understand many of the motifs found among the more than six thousand petroglyphs on the site.
In addition to discovering all she could about her surroundings, Wells worked with Dennis to design and construct three buildings on their property, each constructed of straw bales. Each of their experiences introduced these transplanted New Mexicans to the oft-cited definition of maÃana: 'not today.' However, the beauty of their adopted homeland made the trials and struggles they encountered pale in comparison.
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