“NOCHECITA” (Trujillo Road – Llano Quemado, New Mexico) New! 8″x10″ Original Oil
WORD PAINTINGS #131 (How I Came to New Mexico and learned about Art and Life!) – UNCOMPETITIVE PURPOSEFULNESS!!!
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April 2023 – Saying Farewell to winter and “Hola” to Spring! It is a
quiet Sunday morning here on Llano Quemado. Woke up with a long “to do”
list running through my brain until I remembered that I have given
myself a weekly reprieve for this “day of rest”.
It
has been a month since writing about the dicey stay in the ER at Holy
Cross last September. Many days focusing on “mortality” and
“retirement”. Finally decided that sometimes the difference between
staying alive and brain death are small daily choices. This isn’t a
fight I wanted to have at my age. From the time I was a young child, my
only purpose was to raise my children and paint. There it is –
PURPOSE!!! Rather than plop around in my own thoughts of perpetual
darkness, I decided to take out this ad in the Taos Gallery Guide,
believing that Centinelas de Oro was one of my best canvases to come off
the easel!
About
this time last year I decided to leave my gallery and just wing it
again. Having done this before, it was a little scary. In this
process I remembered all the other times I felt like a “cash cow” and
walked away from the hype. This has always been my way of maintaining
artistic integrity and a healthy creative life . Turned down a sure sale
because it was absolutely necessary
for me to sit with this painting for a year before deciding to let it
go. Hoped with all my heart this work could stay in Taos where it
belonged!
Buying
this ad renewed my self-confidence and PURPOSE! Within a day of its
publication the painting found its forever home and was “adopted” by a local family just down the
road. The man had visited my studio on Santistevan Lane over 30 years
ago, but waited for his perfect piece. He and his wife had decided that
this was “the one” before they ever set foot in my studio! We three
hugged and cried. Told them it felt like a “divine appointment”! My
spark was lit one more time!
Now
what??? Later next month I will celebrate my 37th year of sobriety
thanks to all my angels and helpers along the way. My sponsors drummed
into my brain that life needs to be lived One Day at a Time! Who can do
that when a hundred images run through your head – empty canvases as far
as my mind can see! Well, here I am where time matters and I need to
make creative choices on a daily basis. It turns out that my choice to
be on my own again was a solid decision because I no longer feel the
need to
compete and am free to choose what to paint one day at a time. This might be called a late in life New Beginning- a new adventure! Amazing Grace….DC
