carol connett studio

Acrylic and paper collage

This painting is about my wonderful month-long adventure traveling across Nepal in October 1997, a trip that included a two-week trek in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. But this work is really two paintings.

The outer painting represents the Nepali Buddhist village of Kagbeni, which sits at 11,000 feet in the Kali Gandaki river gorge. This area is both dramatically beautiful and environmentally tragic. Amazing people, incredible mountains, deep blue skies, and fierce afternoon winds that rip through the river gorge contrast with the obvious fact that humans have decimated this fragile environment. The area has basically been reduced to a desert. Local farmers only seem to be able to grow buckwheat; the apple trees that have been planted look more dead than alive. The closest things I saw to wildlife were ravens and the carving of an animal skull on the roof of our guest house. So in the outer painting, the snow leopard is carved from stone to show that he is now just a distant memory. But in his eyes—and in the smaller painting in the middle of the canvas—a glimpse of times past still exists. 

The central painting is portrayed as a tonka (a scroll-like Tibetan Buddhist painting) hanging on a stone wall, and depicts my journey from the mountains to the forests, along with visits to monasteries and rides on elephants. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to visit many countries—Nepal remains a high point and I'd love to return someday.

If you would like to learn more about Nepal, I strongly recommend the following books: The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen and Stones of Silence by George Shaller. These two men traveled together in Nepal several years before I did; each then wrote his own version of that journey. Both books are great reading.