Aqua oil on canvas, 36″x60″

In the high desert of New Mexico, the summer monsoons usually arrive in late July, but sometimes they come earlier which is a good sign. And sometimes the monsoons just spit some rain, and never cut loose. Those make for hard, dry summers. One hot day I was out walking in an arroyo, and I really had the desire to be in the water. There had been so little rain all summer. I was beginning to feel like a desert mermaid. I would have been happy with just a little bit of running water in that arroyo.