Danny Ringo

Sep

INTRODUCTION
As part of our vacation to northern New Mexico, in September of 2017, we stayed a couple of nights in Taos. I had reserved a tour at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, not knowing very much about these two men, their work, or the historic site in general. This attraction was a very good rating on the TripAdvisor website and other rating agencies and looked much less like a tourist trap than some of the others. On this trip we had decided to focus more on the artistic attractions of the area so this place seemed to fit the bill.

We arrived about 20 minutes early for our tour appointment. Rather than sit in the small room that served as a lobby, we walked around the beautiful garden area that was created by Irving Couse’s wife Virginia on a barren hillside over a hundred years ago. The flowers and other plants were beautiful and the view of the surrounding area was stunning. The time passed very quickly.

The garden looking Southwest.

The garden and Couse home looking Northwest.

After the other 8 or 10 guests arrived, we started the tour as the volunteer guide led the way. The site consists of an adobe home and studio that Eanger Irving Couse and his wife Virginia lived in during the early to mid-1900’s. Also part of the site are the garden, a chapel, the workshops of Couse’s son Kibbey, and the studio of Couse’s neighbor and good friend, Joseph Henry Sharp.

THE CHAPEL
We first toured the small chapel, built in 1836 by Juan de Luna. A few years later Pedro Luna built a small home against the chapel’s south wall. This home, eventually to belong to the Couse’s, was expanded, little by little, over the years. By 1909 when the Couses bought the property, the adobe home had seven rooms. By that time, the chapel was owned by and used initially as a studio by Sharp. Quickly, Sharp determined that the chapel did not have the light that he needed for his painting, so he built a larger studio on the lot just West of the Couse home. Sharp also had a home on that property, but it no longer exists.

The Chapel Entryway

The chapel contained several paintings done by Sharp along with some display cases containing artifacts and props that he used in his paintings. The lady that was the tour guide told us about each painting and the artifacts along with some interesting stories about Joseph Sharp with respect to his use of the chapel as his first studio in Taos.

Moccasins, leggings and photograph of the subject posing for a painting.

Painting of a young subject wearing the leggings and moccasins that were in the display case.

THE DINING ROOM AND KITCHEN
From the garden porch we entered the dining room through the screen door. The walls were decorated with paintings by Couse. Some of the paintings were done early in Couse’s career as a student in Paris. Against one wall was a hutch made of walnut where a set of beautiful Blue Willow China owned by the Couses was displayed. In the middle of the dining room there was a large dining table with chairs specially made for the Couses. There was a small fireplace in the corner of the room. The mantle was decorated as the Couses had decorated it when they lived in the house with brass candle holders and other items made of brass and copper. From the dining room we went into the kitchen. It showed what a typical kitchen looked like in the early 1900’s. This kitchen was added to the structure in 1912 after Virginia determined that she needed a larger kitchen. One special item of interest in the kitchen was the kitchen table which was bright orange in color. It was previously used as a poker table at a local saloon and even had an ante drawer that could be pulled out from under the table that the dealer could use during the course of a game.

Walnut hutch with Blue Willow China.

Fireplace in the dining room.

LIVING ROOM AND COUSE STUDIO
After the kitchen we moved through the living room where there were more beautiful paintings the tour guide told us the story behind each one. Then we proceeded into the the art studio where Couse did most of his painting in his later years. Again there were many of his paintings. Also on display were his painting palette and his easel and a couple of display cases. One case had several of the cameras he used to photograph his models as part of the painting development process. Another contained some decorative moccasins that were worn by one of his models for a painting along with some pouches.

Corn Ceremony painting.

Painting named Indian Artist.

Irving Couse’s Painting Palette.

Cameras that Irving Couse used in his work.

Decorative moccasins and other items used by Couse’s model for a painting.

PHOTO LAB
From the studio you could walk through a door to his chemistry lab where he did his photographic development. It contained chemicals, flasks, bottles, trays, Bunsen burners and other items used in the photographic development process and possibly for other uses. As I looked at this room, I mused at how many disciplines a person had to master just 100 years ago to be an artist. I wondered what we gain and what we are giving up in these fast paced days of computerization and specialization and it gave me an uncomfortable feeling to be sure along with feeling of thankfulness to those that had the foresight to preserve this important place in Taos art history.

Couse’s Photo processing lab.

MACHINE SHOP
From the photo lab, we walked down to one of the more interesting rooms at the site. Kibbey Couse, who was Irving and Virginia’s only son, moved his family to Taos after his mother died so he could take care of his father. This room was added in the late 1920’s by converting the garage into a machine shop. It contained all the tools required to create metal objects and tools. Included were many tools including a huge metal lathe, anvils, large tongs, hammers, drill presses, files, and all the tools that make up a forge. Kibbey was a talented engineer/inventor and the main goal of the shop was to develop a prototype of a mobile machine shop that could be used to repair heavy mechanical equipment in the field. The final design was used to repair oil field machinery as well as military tanks and airplanes among other purposes. The design emphasized the ability to easily customize the mobile device for a specific purpose. After his father died in 1936, Kibbey determined that the machine shop was too small and moved the machine shop to New Jersey.

Kibbey Couse’s machine shop.

Custom homemade decorative door hinges in the Couse home.

THE SHARP ART STUDIO
After browsing through the machine shop we walked over to the Sharp Art Studio which was about 30 yards to the Northwest of the Couse home. It is on the property that Joseph Henry Sharp lived and worked. As we walked from the Couse home to the Sharp Gallery we saw a Teepee that was donated to the historic site about a year ago. It is a mock up of a Teepee that was put up by Mr. Couse on the same spot which was used in some of his paintings. The Sharp Art Studio was opened in June of 2017 and displays some of Sharps best work inside the beautiful art studio that he designed, built and used. The Studio is large and had excellent lighting for painting. It had a loft which could be used to store supplies, to display more artwork and to paint.

Teepee between the Couse home and the Sharp Art Gallery.

Inside the Sharp Art Gallery showing the loft.

Painting named Old War Chief’s Son.

Two among many more excellent paintings in the gallery.

CONCLUSION
There was no fee for this excellent tour, nor was there any big sell job with regard to contributions. There was just a jar in the small lobby room where you could place a donation if you enjoyed the tour. Needless to say we were very pleased with the tour and made a donation. If you are in Taos and you have about 2 1/2 free hours and you want to see something a little different that will lift your spirits and inspire you, I would highly recommend that you schedule a tour. You will not regret it! I have included a few links below that you can visit to find out more information.

LINKS

Couse-Sharp Historical Site website – This is the official website for the Couse-Sharp Historical Site.

Couse-Sharp Historical Site overview video. – This is a very nice video giving an overview of the Couse-Sharp Historical Site. Just under 2 minutes long.

Irving Couse Paintings – This displays the results of a Google Image search for Eanger Irving Couse Paintings.

Joseph Henry Sharp Paintings – The results of a Google Image search for Joseph Henry Sharp.

The Kibbey Couse Machine Shop – A page from the Couse-Sharp Historical Site website with information about the machine shop.

Couse Laboratories – A webpage with photos and information about the company that Kibbey Couse founded.

Jun

Cardinals Take Flight!

By Danny Ringo | Nature's Art

The cardinals took flight yesterday (June 2). Early in the morning, we noticed that the baby birds were very restless. They were moving around in the nest a lot more than usual. One jumped up on the nest edge and started stretching his wings. This gave the others more room to stretch as well. Having watched cardinals raise another nest full of baby birds earlier this spring, we knew that this sudden restlessness meant that they would fly today.

The first baby cardinal jumps to the edge of the nest.

As the little ones prepared to leave the nest, the mother kept coming back with big fat bugs to feed the little ones. This will give them the energy needed to make the flight. At one point the mother brought a large moth to feed the baby birds. It was so large that she tried to put it in each mouth only to find that none of the babies could swallow it. Finally she jumped to a limb, chewed it up and ate it herself (she needs some energy as well!).

The mother bird arrives with some food - a moth.

Mother cardinal tries to feed a baby bird before its first flight.

The bug was too big for the first bird. Let's try this one! Notice how the first bird still wants it.

As the mother watched from higher in the tree one jumped out of the nest onto a limb and the mother bird took him step by step through the process of flying to trees that surround the creek at the back of our lot where the male bird waited. They did this with each bird, one-by-one until they were all safely together again so the parent birds could continue to watch over them and feed them. The process took about 6 hours. The photos below show how they did it.

The first baby bird jumps out on a limb.

Mother bird takes a wary look at me before she flies to get more food.

Mother bird jumps down on a plant shelf just below the tree with the nest in it, encouraging the baby to make the leap.

The baby bird follows the lead and jumps to the plant shelf.

The mother bird then flies over to some patio furniture and chirps at the baby to follow.

The baby follows again.

The baby flies under a patio table.

Mother and baby bird have a conference before proceeding.

Not everything went according to plan. This is not easy!

Mother looks down at baby as she leads it back toward the back yard.

Mother feeds baby one last time before they head out toward the trees surrounding the creek.

The mother bird gets ready to lead the baby bird across the back yard to the creek.

Jun

Cardinal Babies in the Nest

By Danny Ringo | Nature's Art, Photography

I know there are a lot of photos of Cardinal babies posted on the Internet. Still it is an amazing site to be able to witness a miracle like this on a day-to-day basis and I wanted to share it with all of you who visit this blog.

Cardinals are present year round and bring beauty and song to us here in the North Central Texas area. A couple of Cardinals built a nest earlier this spring on our patio in a little potted tree right next to our living room window. The father and mother both worked diligently to build the nest and feed and protect the baby cardinals. During that time they successfully raised one batch of 4 birds. I didn’t take photos at that time but swore if they ever came back I would do so. Much to our surprise, about a month after the first bunch left, the parent birds started checking the same nest out again. Before we knew it, eggs started appearing in it again.

I took these photos today (June 1). There are three babies this time. They are moving around a lot, preening themselves and keeping mom and dad cardinal very busy feeding them. What a cool thing to be able to witness such a beautiful thing so easily! By the way, if you want to find out what a baby cardinal is officially called you might want to check this link Wiki-Answers-Baby-Cardinals (After you take a look at the photos below of course! Be sure to click on each to see a larger photo.).

Baby Cardinals see their mother land in the tree.

As the mother bird gets closer, they stretch their necks and open wider.

The mother bird jumps to a limb right next to the nest.

The mother bird takes a closer look at the baby cardinals.

The mother bird has fed the last baby and gets ready to leave to find more food.

May

Woodworker Extraordinaire

By Danny Ringo | Nature's Art

My son Aaron has always loved woodworking. Since he was a young boy he was always building things out of wood. It is not surprising to me that he became a luthier. Aaron makes fine hand crafted guitars. His company is Wood Ring Guitars.

Aaron is not the only woodworker around here though. We have another member of our family that has woodworking in his blood as well. You see, we own a Double Yellow Headed Amazon parrot. He has been a member of our family since 1990.

Our Wood Worker Parrot

Over the years we have learned many things about these beautiful and fascinating birds. One is that they love to chip away at wooden toys. I would hate to tally up the amount of money we have spent on bird toys over several years only to watch them be reduced to a pile of wood chips in the bottom of the bird cage. A typical parrot toy sold at the local pet store costs anywhere from $10 to $20 dollars. After a while we decided that it was imperative that we start making these toys ourselves to save money.

We looked at the types of toys he liked best and then designed the simple toy shown below based on what our bird likes the best, day after day and week after week.

Simple but Effective Parrot Toy

Our parrot can reduce one of these toys to a pile of chips in one day. The photo below shows a typical run of wood pieces cut and drilled from a piece of 2×4 lumber (pine).

About 2 Weeks Worth of Wood For Parrot Wood Working

After much study we discovered that you must be very careful as to what kinds of wood you use for parrot toys. Some types of wood are dangerous to a bird’s health. Pine is safe for parrots to play with and chew on. We also carefully wash all the wood to be sure there are no contaminants on the surface as birds are very sensitive to very small amounts of solvents and other types of chemicals.

The photo belos shows the result of approximately 2-3 weeks worth of work that our parrot performs on these toys.

Artwork from Our Parrot's Woodworking Efforts

Not bad for a bird that weighs about a pound and a half. Who knows? Maybe one day we will give our parrot a commission to do the beginnings of some inlay work for one of Aaron’s guitars!

Apr

Best Little Guitar Festival in Texas

By Danny Ringo | Guitar, Music

Aaron and I just got back from a trip to the University of Texas at Brownsville. We were there as a vendor at the Brownsville Guitar Ensemble Festival and Competition showing five of Aaron’s classical guitars. Aaron is a luthier who builds hand crafted guitars for his company Wood Ring Guitars.

This is not the only guitar festival we have been to this year. There are several classical guitar festivals that occur around Texas every year. Many are centered around university guitar programs. Many of the major universities in Texas and several community colleges and high schools and even some elementary schools now have classical guitar programs who are taught by a group of very talented guitarists. This is resulting in more and more people being introduced to the classical guitar and the amazing music written for it. The quality of the competition and the performances at all of these festivals is outstanding and every year the crowds get larger and larger in response to this.

I think of all the festivals I have been to in the past couple of years, I enjoyed the Brownsville festival the most. This is not because the entertainment and quality of competition was not as good at the other festivals. I favor the UTB festival because it is unique in that the competition is ensemble based rather than being individually based. There is an amazing spirit that permeates this competition because the ensemble competition requires each group of individuals to focus on working together as a team rather than competing as individuals. Dr. Michael Quantz is the head of the guitar program at UTB and he has created an elite classical guitar program that is affecting the classical guitar scent throughout Texas and the Southwest in an extremely positive way. I think many of the other university guitar program heads in the Southwest would agree with this, based on their growing participation at the yearly festival.

There is a 75 MPH speed limit between San Antonio and Corpus Christi.

The 75 MPH speed limit is nice when driving long stretches through Texas.

I have included quite a few photos from our trip from Wood Ring Guitar headquarters in Weatherford, Texas to UTB. Aaron and I made the trip in one day, alternating in the driver’s seat every couple of hours. This made it an easy drive. We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard hotel which was recommended by the festival and we got a festival discount resulting in a nightly cost of $89.00 which was extremely reasonable for such a nice hotel.

Guitar players practicing in the hot tub at the Hotel.

Once we settled in at the hotel and got all of our luggage and guitars squared away, we relaxed a bit and then we went to a local Japanese restaurant for dinner. The sushi was fantastic, but we learned to never order Thai food at a Japenese restaurant. We ordered Pad Thai, which is normally a very delicious Thai noodle dish. Instead it tasted like an odd mixture of Thai Spiced noodles in a spaghetti sauce laced with mexican spices. Not very good! We also dodged a bullet that evening when we ordered sushi because we heard later that the spicy tuna roll at various sushi restaurants in the area caused a rash of food poisonings.

This is the entrance to the concert hall.

View of the Arts Center foyer from inside the Wood Ring Guitars booth.

The next day, we set up our booth at the new Arts Center at the university. It is a beautiful building that has a gorgeous foyer and a wonderful concert hall that was acoustically tuned to perfection. Our booth was in the foyer in front of the concert hall entrance. Dr. Quantz and his staff met us as we entered the building to set up our booth and throughout the festival they were exceedingly helpful and made our gig at this festival extremely enjoyable.

Another view of the UTB Arts Center foyer where we set up the Wood Ring Guitars booth.

For the next three days, Aaron and I talked to more than a couple of hundred people interested in touching, holding, playing and talking about the Wood Ring Guitars that we brought. It was a great experience for both of us. We met and talked to many folks who, like us, love the guitar and all kinds of guitar music, especially classical guitar music. We also were able to visit with many of our friends who teach guitar and who play professionally. We also had the treat of being able to visit with members of two groups who headlined the entertainment for the last two nights of the festival.

On Friday night the Texas Guitar Quartet played. It was an outstanding performance from four of the best professional classical guitarists on the Texas scene these days. This performance was done in conjunction with the realease of their first CD which is named Red for the title song on the CD. The entire concert was played beautifully. On Saturday night members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet played an amazing concert. I have seen these guys play several times in the past couple of years and they always amaze me with their virtuoso performances. This concert was no exception. It included a premier of a new piece written for a large guitar ensemble written by Shingo Fuji in honor of the victims of the 2011 Japan earthquake. Mr. Fuji conducted the ensemble which included both LAGQ and the UTB Guitar Ensembles. It was beautiful and moving to be sure. The entire program was extremely entertaining and the guitar playing was impeccable.

We had the beach almost to ourselves. This is me walking along the shore.

It was not all work. We work very hard at this. Sometimes we end up working seven days a week. Thus when we get an opportunity to travel for business purposes, I am a big believer in having a little enjoyment and down time during each trip to experience the culture of each place we visit. We did not have much time, so for this trip, Aaron and I drove to South Padre Island to have breakfast on Pier 19 and then to walk on the beach to enjoy the sun and the smell of the ocean breezes for an hour or so. It was great.

Lots of cameras must have taken our picture as we proceeded toward the border patrol station.

After the festival, we drove back home. About 30 miles North of Brownsville we were stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. We were asked if we were citizens and then told we could go on, but not before about 30 or 40 cameras had taken our pictures to help them determine that we were ok.

Bluebonnets and Prickly Pear Cactus just south of Marble Falls.

The Blubonnets are absolutely beautiful along the Texas rural roads this year.

As we proceeded north of San Antonio we were able to photograph some of the millions of bluebonnets that are currently blooming. This year they are exceptionally beautiful because there has been abundant rain. It seems to me the beauty and abundance is enhanced because of the terrible draught that we had in Texas last year. The contrast from last year was amazing.

Aaron and I had a great time. It is really cool to be able make a living doing what you love to do. Aaron has discovered that he has a real talent in designing and making these guitars. I have a strong science background and I have helped him, by using the principles of physics and acoustics, to work out a guitar design that really sounds great. Combined with Aaron’s amazing craftsmanship and his unique artistic and design skills, I believe we are beginning on a journey that is full of adventure and fun all the while offering some of the guitarists of the world with outstanding instruments to play. What could be better than that?

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The Couse-Sharp Historic Site in Taos

Cardinals Take Flight!

Cardinal Babies in the Nest

Woodworker Extraordinaire

Best Little Guitar Festival in Texas

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