Returning from an Artist's Soul Retreat in Tombstone, Arizona May-25-2009

Tree at San Pedro River

Celebrating Creativity & Self-Care in May

By Chris Dunmire

"Beautiful moonlight night. The skies here about sunset and later are worth traveling to Arizona to see. They are simply gorgeous."
— George Whitwell Parsons, August 8, 1881

I've returned from my Artist's Soul Retreat in the American Old West: Tombstone, Arizona. An odd place for a retreat? Far from it! I spent two weeks hubbed around a small 1800s mining town vacation cottage (over 100 years old) with a wobbly, old weathered white picket fence and Cyprus trees in the back full of singing birds cheerfully waking me daily at 5:30 am. The "spring" temperatures reached up to 100 degrees during the day and cooled off to the 60s at night.

During my time there I rode a horse named Amigo for two hours on a desert wash trail. I walked along the San Pedro river on the property of my newly-made friend, Janice (see tree above). I made sun tea in the desert sunshine. I saw a tree branch sporting three teeny, tiny baby praying mantises. I jumped at my first bathroom wall scorpion and a second large one scurrying across the floor. I saw (and heard!) javelina silhouettes in the moonlight right outside my bedroom window. I saw stray cats running across streets. I locked eyes with a deer eating flowers on somebody's front lawn. I heard coyotes howl in the dark as I drifted off to sleep.

Dragoon Mountains

I awoke to the sun rising over the mountain tops. I saw spring blooming in the Arizona desert with little yellow flowers accenting the prickly pear cactuses. I listened to MP3 interviews with Jerry Wennstrom. I did not catch Swine Flu. I ate baby carrots every day. I "borrowed" food from my Mother's pantry (she lives close by). I journaled letters to close friends. I finger-painted and wondered about the real Wyatt Earp and what really transpired leading up to the famous gunfight at the OK Corral. One night, I caught the silhouette of an old cowboy town billboard against the sun-setting sky. The attraction is now closed, but the sign remains. Will this town's history remain?

Cowboy Billboard (backside)

I ate lunch one day at Nellie Cashman's restaurant and realized how much I admired this pioneer woman of adventure. I read the two-volume Private Journal of George Whitwell Parsons, an 1870s miner who chronicled his journey daily through Tombstone's boomtown heyday and wrote about the early Tombstone fires, shootings in the streets, OK Corral gunfight and camping in the desert amongst many creepy crawly things spilling out from his sleeping gear, hat, and boots: scorpions, tarantulas, snakes and centipedes (that's when the nightmarish flashes of fast-running centipedes invading my cottage walls began. Imagining all of their feet had little Nike running shoes on them provided some comic relief).

I thought about the miners striking rich silver deposits in the "Lucky Cuss" and "Toughnut" mines. I thought about life on the frontier, without cars, and before the train tracks entered into this far southern town. I walked down Allen Street and pondered the lives of the Soiled Doves who populated the red light district and entertained in the bordellos when a woman wasn't even counted on the official population census (nor children and other minorities).

I contemplated the stars. I drove on "primitive" roads. I read Violette's entire Journal Bliss and hand-painted my own writing paper. I made coffee from ground coffee beans and wrote poetry about coffee and birds. I made lots of snail-mail art and sent it off to my husband and people I cherish. I listened to 60s and 70s rock and Old School R & B and realized how each decade mod-podges a layer with new elements over the collage of our personal histories.

I went on an after-hours tour of the famous "haunted" Bird Cage Theatre with my tipsy brother ... and I heard odd, muffled voices of women screaming while sitting in the dark. I am waiting for an e-mail with a goulish picture captured on film in a bordello mirror from a British woman on holiday in Tombstone. She's making her way across the bottom of the US and will get back to the UK in June.

I found a partially-formed Indian arrowhead and a chunk of rock with a small piece of crystal quartz embedded in it near Ed Schieffelin's monument. I thought "Ha! Ed, here's my Lucky Cuss!" I got sunburn and it peeled and turned tan. I snuck into a beautiful motel pool and took a quick dip. I wore my hair up in a scrunchie and under a cheap brimmed hat every day — the same hat my Dad let me borrow and later gave to me to take home. I snapped a picture of a street sign labeled "Lonely Lane."

I watched Budweiser Clydesdale horses parade in downtown Tombstone. I visited the Tombstone Cemetery (not Boothill Graveyard) and wondered about the meaning of life. I met new friends. I learned how to roll and tuck eggrolls. I had my first beer in a real saloon named Big Nose Kate's (Doc Holliday's woman). I ate awesome Mexican and Japanese food. I tasted the best salsa ever called "casera." I visited with family. I reconnected with myself. I reconnected with life. •

Tombstone Cemetery

The Poetry About "Coffee and Birds"

Bean there, done that. May-27-2009

It's not supposed to be ground-breaking stuff, so imagine the above coffee-stained poetry/art just a small sip from a cup of my own creative brew.

The inspiration? A favorite ritual during my Artist Soul Retreat was to rise early each morning, awakening around 5:30 am from the gentle sound of morning birds tweeting. The higher the sun rose, the more amplified the twitterings became. Once awake, I made a pot of hot coffee for myself from freshly-ground coffee beans and slowly drank it while listening to the birds sing.

After days of this delightful ritual, I decided to combine coffee leftover in my cup with some watercolor paint-dabbling and experimented with staining small sheets of watercolor paper with coffee, drying them in the hot sun, and then adding more coffee stains ala splashes and rings. I ended up with several unique versions like you see above, then penned on simple verse and sent them off to friends and family. It was the next best thing to sharing a real cup of coffee together. This creative project helped keep me connected, and well... grounded! •

© 2009 Chris Dunmire www.chrisdunmire.com. All rights reserved.