In the high desert, snow is a soft silver dust. It glows in the shadows of pinyon and juniper, luminous, etheric. Storms brew around the crown of Taos Mountain and leave behind a towering, shimmering architecture of white peaks. In the town below, the excitement is palpable as skiers prepare for a day on the slopes. Snow is a magical spirit, a bringer of joy.
It’s also ephemeral. As skiers and painters know, you need to catch the snow in all its pastel glory before it’s melted away in the winter sunshine, pooling in spangled puddles and darkening the soil into that classic boot sucking New Mexico mud.
Snow is a provocation to release preconceived notions about color in nature. Only in picture books is snow really white- what is white, anyway? The whiteness of snow is sometimes a counterpoint, sometimes a mirror, to the landscape’s whole.
