Life on the Rocks: 
One Woman’s Adventures in Petroglyph Preservation

By Katherine Wells

     Though clever, this book’s title doesn’t do it justice.  I opened Life on the Rocks expecting a preservationist’s impassioned plea to protect the Ancestral Puebloan markings that dot New Mexico's landscapes and documentation of the grassroots struggle to do so.  I found all that, but I also found so much more.  Author Katherine Wells delivers a lively, intelligent memoir that begins when she deserts her California home to forge a new life in New Mexico. 

     The petroglyphs on her newly purchased property on Mesa Prieta, north of Santa Fe, beckon her here:  “New Mexico spoke the idiom of my soul”.  She describes her struggles of building a straw bale home, her relationship challenges with her partner, Lloyd, how his battle with cancer brought their connection into focus, and her emergence as a mixed-media artist whose work often celebrates the Virgin of Guadalupe. 

     Well’s devotion to preserving the numerous petroglyphs she finds on her land and in the surrounding area runs throughout the book, whose final chapters are devoted almost exclusively to the Vecinos del Rio group’s efforts to prevent roadway construction and mining from damaging these irreplaceable artifacts.  Though battle-weary from her decade-long struggle to protect the petroglyphs, Wells concludes that “the view from my kitchen window each day, each season, is a pure blessing.  The land is my hard won refuge.  Beloved, boulder-strewn home.”  This book is a pleasure to read. 

Review by Ashley M. Biggers, New Mexico Magazine, September 2009

25% of the purchase price is given to the MESA PRIETA PETROGLYPH PROJECT

Each copy signed by the author

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