[1975] New Mexico is the last silent sanctuary where I can enjoy the splendid
isolation that is the imperative of art, where you can contemplate eons
of time in the violent riot of the varicolored mesas and man as his
primitive and original self in my friends the Navajos, and the animals
other than man in all their wild beauty--the elk, mountain lion, the
coyotes that howl at midnight at the mysteries of my ranch. The
West--promise and dream, legend and myth, the West that has not only
escaped the painter, the poet and the movie makers, but because of this
has escaped reality itself, has failed to exist--what greater challenge
than to make the American dream an alive, a fulfilled promise?
