Artists determined to share the beauty and the heritage of southeastern Colorado's grasslands and canyons are making monthly trips to take photos, sketch and paint on location.

They're working toward an exhibition late in the year, creating art - and generating attention - in the face of the Army's proposed expansion of its Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. The show will benefit the Pinon Canyon Opposition Coalition.

Although the Army is scaling down its expansion plans to 100,000 acres from 414,000 acres, the reduction makes no difference to the Pinon Canyon Art Project, says Doug Holdread who serves as a link between the artists and area ranchers. Holdread says the Army has changed its acquisition plans before, and expansion opponents are convinced the Army ultimately wants the whole southeastern corner of the state but first needs to get a foot in the door.

"So from our perspective nothing has changed," Holdread says. "We are still proceeding full speed ahead."

More than 50 Colorado and northern New Mexico artists are taking part in the project, on private ranches, state wildlife areas and national grasslands.

"Most people, even here in Trinidad, don't know about the beauty of the canyon country because they can't see it from the road," says Holdread. "The perception is the land is flat, semiarid, without much to offer."

In fact, it is "magnificent," says Holdread, who's head of the art department at Trinidad State Junior College and who works in a studio on the Purgatoire, the historic river whose waters flow through the canyon country and join the Arkansas River near Las Animas.

Not only is the country scenic, it's archaeologically and historically significant. The Purgatoire River area has been inhabited for at least 5,000 years. Native peoples including Apache, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Comanche, Kiowa and Ute and their ancestors lived there or visited and some left a rich tradition of rock art. The Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail opened up the area to trade in the 1820s. Early Spanish occupation is evident and the remains of the Dolores mission and cemetery built in the late 1800s can be seen. Sheep and cattle ranchers have lived in the area since the mid-19th century. Some families who live and work there today trace their ancestry to the early homesteaders.

Pueblo West painter Fran Dodd went on the first outing, to the Mullins and Hass ranches near Thatcher in May. She says she's not really a political person but is opposed to the government taking property through eminent domain. She also feels strongly about preserving land - and history and habitat - that's being lost to development and other forces.

"These are beautiful, beautiful tracts of land," Dodd says. "Driving through the area in a car you have no idea how gorgeous they are. At the Hass Ranch, they took us to an amazing canyon with a river and red rocks. . . . These are lands that are precious."

Dodd says it's wonderful to have the privilege of seeing and painting the landscape and she'll probably use sketches she made at the Hass Ranch to paint a rock outcropping that overlooks the river.

She missed the June painting trip but hopes to go on the others. She works in oils and pastels.

Beulah artist Anne Whitfield says she's involved in the project because she wants to create images that will let other people see the beauty of the prairie, the unique aspects of ranching life, and what will be lost artistically if the expansion occurs.

Whitfield works in pastels and has concentrated on the native junipers on her trips to southeastern Colorado through the art project.

She's no stranger to the area. As a member of the Colorado Rock Art Association, she regularly travels to Picketwire Canyon to monitor rock art sites.

"The rock art is so voluminous. We're so delighted when we find a new (art) element or a new panel."

Holdread says the alliance between people of differing politics and ways of life is one of the positive aspects of the expansion-opposition effort.

"Artists and ranchers are not exactly an obvious match, but we are learning a lot from each other and have gained an authentic appreciation for one another's vocations," he writes via e-mail. "I think we understand one another. Neither being a cowboy nor being an artist is an easy way to make a living. Both vocations come from a deep inner calling. As an artist I can easily understand why a rancher feels an imperative to do what he does. I think that's why we artists feel so strongly about supporting the ranchers. It's not just the land and history. It is also about defending a unique and threatened way of the life; the cowboy culture."

The artists went to Picketwire Canyon and the Wooten Ranch in June, and the third outing is this weekend at the Roberts Ranch in the Walsenburg area and in Apishapa Canyon. Future trips will go to Vogel Canyon in August, the Louden and Bernal ranches in September and Painted Canyon in October.

The benefit art show will take place in November at a venue yet to be determined, but Holdread says he's thinking about Denver because that's where the greatest number of people would see it. It also is distant from Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, and Denverites and northern Coloradans are less likely to know about the proposed expansion and the land and way of life it threatens. Participating artists have been asked to donate a work to the exhibition; proceeds will go to the Pinon Canyon Opposition Coalition.

More information is available from Holdread at 719-845-9959 or by e-mailing him at pinoncanyon@gmail.com . The art project's Web site is www.thislandisourland.org/pinoncanyonartproject.html .