Pictographs

Most of the rimrock stone here in Ingomar is not suitable for the carving I like best. It is soft, and more conducive to pictographs. I saw Barrier Canyon pictographs in Utah that are 2000-3000 years old, so pictographs on sand rock *can* be archival. The Ancients though had the benefit of a hundred generations to figure out what are the good spots for painting. My study of the subject suggests that south facing overhangs, preferably very tall overhangs, are the best. The petroglyphs that I found near Musselshell were on south facing sandrock faces. The oldest faces seem to have a redish hue to them, the Montana version of desert varnish. I re-canvassed the rimrock where I am working and found a few south facing rocks with a slightly redish hue and set to making experiments.

Here is the first sand rock pictograph I’ve made. I asked my host what his favorite vehicle was of the many that he has owned. He said, “Oh, probably the 1982 Ford Courier.” It has 270,000 miles and had required almost no work over the years. His kids all drove it to school, and now his wife drives it to work everyday.

I carved with a sharp stone the outline and painted the body of the truck. Hard to say how it will last…

Story in the Telluride Watch Newspaper about Kevin Sudeith’s Petroglyphs

Marta Tarbull wrote a story about the two petroglyph panels I carved in July in Telluride, Co.

Sudeith’s fascination with petroglyphs began as a boy, canoeing in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, which soon led to his discovery of “pictographs of moose and canoes and Xs” painted into the rocks along the lakes, all carefully recorded in a journal.
…..
And while his petroglyphs today document relatively high-tech industries – oil frac’ing and agribusiness in North Dakota; sheep- and horse-ranching and elk-hunting in Colorado (and all the attendant vehicles) – his work ultimately suggests that more things change, the more they stay the same.

Telluride, CO

When I was here in Telluride during the financial crisis in September 2008, I began a carving a panel at about 9000 feet above sea level. It is located several switchbacks up the road from the patron’s ranch house on a sheep trail. It took a week of hiking to find two suitable sites to make petroglyphs. In 2008 I began work on the more remote and less “architecturally” significant panel. I saved the the more substantial site until I had more time to work, like now.

The panel I began in 2008 featured primarily technological motifs: airplanes, hot air baloons, helicopter, space shuttle (as well as a large bear since this is the Hidden Bear Ranch). Upon reflection it felt silly not to depict local subjects like cattle ranching as well as local fauna and game, so this year have commenced the Second Site featuring cowboys, deer, elk, pickups, campers, and cattle. The images ate the Second Site are also geared to the patron specifically: their pickup, their camper, their six wheeler.

New carving at the Second Site:

Carving from 2008 as I found it in 2010: