David Leigh hates winter; he hates cold and he particularly hates snow. It’s doubtful, however, that he could possibly hate it as much as did members of the Donner-Reed Party who became trapped by disastrously early and wretchedly heavy snowfall near Lake Tahoe in California’s Sierra Nevada range in November of 1846. Infamously, since the first rescue party could not reach the doomed pioneers’ camp until the following spring, survivors were forced to cannibalize their dead. 87 would-be settlers comprised the Donner-Reed Party at its onset; only 48 survived what has come to represent the one of Western history’s greatest calamities of loneliness and despair in the name of Manifest Destiny.

With that in mind, it’s perhaps anathema to mention that New Mexico went through recordsetting
cold last winter while Leigh was considering source material for his early spring exhibition of drawings at Eileen Braziel Fine Arts in Santa Fe. He found himself reading about Tamsen Donner, the wife of one of the wagon train’s leaders, the 62-year-old George Donner, and the mother of their five girls. Although she was relatively healthy as late as March, 1847, and could have walked out with a rescue party, she chose to stay at what is now known as Donner Pass with her husband George. Both parents died that month; their five orphaned children survived.

Into this grim narrative enters the wily mind of artist David Leigh, known for his looping, free-wheeling and surprisingly dimensional drawings, often made with marker pens. He decided to name his exhibition “The Donna Party—as in Donner, only funnier.” Think of how Donna Reed, that consummate TV housewife from the twilight idyllic days of the ’60s, made choices—always the right ones, of course, made while wearing a dress, pearls and heels— focused on the wellbeing of her husband and children—rather like Mrs. Donner was forced to do in unbelievably grislier circumstances. As Leigh states, “I’ve been thinking of Tamsen Donner as a character. She stayed with her husband and died with her family.

Both women [the sitcom Donna and Mrs. Donner] provided for their families and did things that were
expected and unexpected. The Donner Party used what was available to survive. In my mind [the narrative of choices-gone-terribly-wrong that is represented by the infamous phrase “the Donner Party”] became the source: being in a situation where desperation makes things happen.” To an extent Leigh sees this kind of unrelenting requisite for ingenuity as intrinsic to making art: “What do you see, what do you have that you can use?”

Even if it’s embarrassment or boredom that feeds into the creative process, Leigh remains willing to work with what he’s got. This explains why his wide-open drawings have such a sense of freshness and wonder despite the darkness at their foundation; they never feel calculated or worked by rote.

For the exhibition, Leigh will make a site-specific installation, plus eight to ten framed preparatory drawings. He has set for himself a finite timeframe in which to “get things done. You know what you might do, but it totally changes when you’re in the space. I can draw, but what if I wanted to do something else? It’s about how the work adjusts as it should to the space and your experience.”

According to Leigh’s vision, “One other thing might happen: a giant food pyramid made out of vinyl stickers. Like a cartoon where if you look at something long enough when you’re hungry enough, it turns into a steak.” Whatever the physical manifestation of Leigh’s artistic process winds up being, you can expect “ruminations about the Donner Party.” With a little bit of Donna Reed thrown in.

Eileen Braziel Fine Art is open by appointment.
Contact the gallery at
229 B Johnson Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 87501
braziel2@mindspring.com
505/699.4914
Eileenbrazielfinearts.com