AUGUST 2019 • WWW.SOUTHWESTART.COM 79convey her feeling of place. “It’s not
super-accurate, which makes it more in-
teresting. I’m always playing with the
angles of buildings. It can almost look
like a building is moving or dancing,”
she says. TIME WILL TELL ME, for in-
stance, was loosely based on a scene in
the village of Peñasco, but with houses
set closer together and a narrow red
road twisting among them. Cavan lined
the road with fl owering chamisa, in-
spired by watching seasonal changesin New Mexico vegetation as she walks
her dog. She was also visually drawn
to the twin portals of the house on the
left, curious in particular about how the
wood and adobe elements intersect.
Likewise, Cavan’s interest in history,
cultures, and architecture intersect in
her work, as she continues to explore
these aspects of New Mexico. “Many
of the old adobe structures haven’t
changed in hundreds of years,” she
points out. Others, such as a villagecanvases, as large as 4 feet square, lend
themselves to striking portraits of indi-
vidual edifi ces that loom above the view-
er, including timeworn barns the artist
didn’t much notice growing up. “They’re
fabulous structures,” she says now.
On panels, her imagery frequently
features villages or groups of houses in
a quintessential northern New Mexico
landscape—as seen through the artist’s
“rose-colored glasses,” she says, where
color and composition are tweaked to
cFind Your Star, oil pastel, 30 x 30.
eTime Will Tell Me, oil pastel, 24 x 36.“
I hope viewers want to put
themselves into the piece, wander
through, and see where it goes.