new mexico | The Filson Journal

George McJunkin’s Discovery of a Lifetime

Born sometime between 1851 and 1856, McJunkin originally came from Texas, and as a young man worked his way across Colorado and New Mexico as he pursued the life of a professional cowboy. He was a self-made in this respect: he worked the trails on cattle drives, trained horses to sell in Santa Fe, and helped a family called the Roberds establish a ranch on the Purgatoire River in Colorado.

3 Min

man in a dark cowboy hat wearing a white and brown shirt

Profiles

For Clint Mortenson, Horsemanship is the Key to Happiness

If you’ve watched a Western film in the past two decades, chances are you’ve seen Clint Mortenson’s work. Mortenson made the saddlebags that Pierce Brosnan carried in Seraphim Falls, the belt worn by Woody Harrelson in No Country for Old Men, the saddle used by Tommy Lee Jones in The Missing, and the title character’s holster in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Most recently, Mortenson has been training actors to ride horses for The Harder They Fall, an all-black Western produced by Jay-Z for Netflix.

5 Min

woman in white shirt and jeans riding a horse

Profiles

Bianca Shannon: A Life Built Around Horses

In New Mexico’s cowboy country, Bianca Shannon turns heads. She rides a one-eyed horse, her silver nose-ring glinting in the sunlight, multiple tattoos peeking out from beneath her Oxford shirtsleeves. If you ask, Shannon may expose her inner right forearm to reveal the ink she got right before she left New York City to move to Santa Fe in 2014: a wrist-to-elbow rendition of a Leonardo da Vinci horse sketch. She describes the tattoo as “a kind of yearning for what I really wanted to be doing with my life.”

3 Min

different types of cactus rising out of low lying brush illuminated in silhouette by dying light

Field Notes

Top 5 Medicinal Plants of the Southwest

John Slattery is a New Mexico based bioregional herbalist, forager, educator, and author helping people develop a deep and meaningful relationship with wild plants. His first book, Southwest Foraging, was released in 2016 on Timber Press, and Southwest Medicinal Plants was released in February 2020. Below he imparts some of his knowledge, highlighting a selection of the medicinal plants and their uses found in the Southwest.

5 Min