on houses reflects this narrow tonal range, home designer Jim Beverly also thinks a lot about light. (Beverly is featured in “Undeniable Solutions” on page 42 of this issue.) He likes to characterize its quality by its effect on people: east light is friendly, south light is comforting but harsh, and so on. He also thinks like a visual artist when he notes that in this region, shadow often substitutes for color. During the winter, this becomes even more apparent.

I’ve often thought I saw New Mexico most clearly in winter. I’ve had my reasons: the scent of piñon smoke wisping out of a chimney, the two-wide, two-narrow tracks of a jackrabbit darting through wet snow, the expansive silence of midnight on a freezing full-moon hike, the stark calligraphy of cottonwood branches scrawled across an achingly blue sky.
Now I see the best reason for thinking winter is this place stripped to its essence. To take liberty with Shakespeare, the quality of light is not strained, it is clarified. Slanting in steep around the solistice, it cuts every edge sharp and distinct here in the high and dry Southwest. Such clarity opens our eyes to the moment, whether we’re admiring one raven slicing over the trees of a riverside bosque or the angle our garden wall makes against the ember flare of sunset. It is those moments when we most directly experience a place.