The Park Rangers allowed me to sit among the ancient stones of Spruce Tree House, painting the view down the canyon and the kiva before me, roofless, open to view, wonder and reverence.
The ancient puebloan people of the southwest a thousand years ago built incredible stone villages, often tucked into inaccessible ledges of cliff walls. The cliff dwellers.
The kiva was a circular, underground room, a meeting space for refuge and ritual. Originally a sturdy roof covered the kiva, paved over as a patio above. One entered the kiva through a doorway hole in the roof, down a wooden ladder into the round room beneath. A firepit, with a cleverly engineered ventilation shaft and deflector stone, provided light and heat in the cold winter months.
Behind the firepit is a small hole in the floor, the sipapu, believed to symbolize the place of emergence, where the legendary ancestors came up from the third world into the world in which we walk today.
Kiva at Mesa Verde is a large, colorful, original watercolor painted on location in Mesa Verde Colorado USA. The painting is enhanced with fine pen and ink work, chalk and charcoal. It is a tribute to the puebloan peoples, the ancestors and the tribes of today.
Plein air watercolor by Kim Solga.
12 inches by 20 inches on Arches 140lb paper.
Original painting for sale: $500
To Purchase: Please contact me for information on availability, cost and shipping to you. I am happy to discuss framing, mat options and frame colors if you would like to receive this painting ready to hang in your home or office, or to send it as a gift.