The roads less traveled: Joan Fenicle turns outdoor adventures into paintings

The artist Joan Fenicle has wandered through New Mexico’s mountains, valleys and fields for 40 years.

Open at Placitas’ Wild Hearts Gallery, “The Art of Wandering” displays the results of those trips through 10 oil paintings on canvas. The show will hang through July 28.

“A lot of it is pulled together from trips years ago,” Fenicle said. “All the paintings are new. I’ve been painting like crazy.”

The roads less traveled: Joan Fenicle turns outdoor adventures into paintings

The paintings capture familiar sites such as Tent Rocks, Black Mesa and the Orilla Verde Recreation Area near Pilar, as well as places unknown.

“I really enjoy exploring,” Fenicle said. “I grew up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.”

Although she earned an associate degree at a Denver business college (it was practical), she has always created art, taking workshops and independent study classes.

“I keep learning and expanding my horizons, but I keep coming back to the things I like — the landscape,” she said.

The artist photographs the scenes, then returns to her studio, where she sketches out the composition. She glues her canvas on birch panel. Sometimes she redesigns her work in Photoshop.

“I continue to learn how to simplify,” Fenicle said. “Sometimes, less is more. I can add things like the yellow truck in ‘Road Trip.’ ”

The painting emerged from a trip on the road from Magdalena to Pie Town last year. Thanks to abundant rain, everything was green, she said.

“There were wildflowers all over.”

“Sacred Black Mesa” captures the formation on the west side of San Ildefonso Pueblo. The spire of a family chapel shines nearby.

“This used to be in a little village called Pajarito,” Fenicle said. “The chapel was abandoned when (the land) went back to San Ildefonso.”

Instead of the usual front spires version of Tent Rocks, Fenicle painted a ponderosa pine growing between the rocks.

“I have been hiking up there for 30 years,” she said.

Sometimes accidents lead her to better landscapes.

“Orilla Verde (Green Banks)” emerged when she was searching for glowing aspens between Taos and Angel Fire, but they were done.

“The cottonwoods along the Rio Grande were magnificent,” she said.

Fenicle once owned a computer business, where she wrote programs with her late husband. But the canvas always beckoned.

“I’ve always drawn and painted ever since I was a child,” she said. “Art’s been a part of my life.”