Artists (left to right): Henry Morales, Ellie Weadock, Virgil Velasco

Sponsor and art agitator: Karl Whitaker

The process:

This print was generated from three woodcut carvings on April 13, 2024, at a printing workshop event conducted by Lyell Castonguay of Big Ink (bigink.org). During the workshop weekend, prints from a dozen artists or teams of artists were collaboratively printed on the Big Ink traveling press.

A summary of the weekend’s printing, and activities leading to it can be found here: https://bucketexhibitions.blogspot.com/2024/04/big-ink-summary-albuquerque-2024.html 

The image concept:

It was during 2023 that Karl Whitaker suggested to a small group of printmakers that we embark on a print exhibition focusing on the history of New Mexico.

In 2021, national attention in the scientific community descended on White Sands when fossilized human trackways were radiocarbon dated to be made between 21,000 – 23,000 years ago. This discovery has challenged the long-established theory that the Clovis people were the first to set foot in the Americas.  A few years later, in 2023, the film “Oppenheimer” brought popular national attention to the history of the detonation of the first atomic bomb, also in White Sands, NM.

These events enabled us to think about White Sands in a cross-section of sorts, both through place and time. We can see in one image the footprints, fossils and beings of ancient times alongside modern-age creations, beings and natural phenomena, as envisioned by three colleague artists.

By conceptualizing our past, we can understand the brevity of our own existence while holding hope that modern human society will learn from the past with a focus on the future.

Exhibited at the South Broadway Cultural Center, summer 2024.

Exhibited at the Juan Tabo Albuquerque Public Library, June 2025