Donna Clair

Southwest Contemporary Artist

WORD PAINTINGS #33 – CONFUSION AND CHAOS!

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Oh, how I loved my baby boy!!!  He gave me so much joy and I was determined to make his life absolutely perfect!  I always was a dreamer! We lived in a three room apartment above a garage on Holbrook Road in Homewood.  The place was too small for the three of us and we […]

WORD PAINTINGS #32 – A GOOD CATHOLIC GIRL….

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Not long after the glass-throwing incident I was walking out of the bathroom – it was semi-dark.  He was waiting for me.  He slammed my whole body against the fridge with stunning force. Without a word he walked into the living room.  I stood in place and reverted to my childhood coping skill of numbing […]

WORD PAINTINGS #31 – HIDDEN AGENDAS

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It has taken many years for me to realize that I wasn’t the only person in my marriage to have a hidden agenda.  My husband and his mother were determined to keep him out of the Viet Nam War.  The solution they came up with was marriage – and a Hail Mary pregnancy should do […]

WORD PAINTINGS #30 – A VERY BRIEF FAMILY HISTORY

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Note: In the photo above my beautiful grandmother Clara holds my father. Beside her is her daughter.  A third child was born after my father.  A fourth pregnancy followed his birth – she died giving birth to twins.  The wake was held in the living room of the house on Fletcher Street.  Clara was waked […]

WORD PAINTINGS #29 – READY, SET…..GO!!!

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Fall 1968/Winter 1969 – After the workshop at Cloudcroft, I settled in to take care of the babies and painted every spare moment.  Very surprised that the alla prima method came easy for me.  I was basically experimenting with the paint – every painting was a surprise.  Ernie exhibited his sculptures at the Albuquerque Arts […]

TAOS 9/21/18 – WORD PAINTINGS #28 – SANCTUARY

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TAOS 9/21/18 – This has been an upsetting week for any woman who has experienced any kind of abuse – friend, partner, stranger.  Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch have risen again like ghosts from the Grave of History Past!  It honestly makes me ill to see them on TV and my mute button is getting […]

WORD PAINTINGS #27 – CULTURE SHOCK

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JAN HERRING WORKSHOP, CLOUDCROFT, N.M. – 1968 As mentioned in a previous post,  I celebrated my 79th birthday three weeks ago; life was very different for women back in the day!  Culture shock for me really wasn’t because of the move from my mid-western roots to mostly Hispanic and Native American city of Santa Fe.  […]

WORD PAINTINGS #26 – THE JAMISON GALLERY

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What a Gal! Margaret married well known art collector C. Bland Jamison in the Taos home of Leon Gaspard. Gaspard’s wedding gift to the bride and groom was a wonderful Russian snow scene with a large group of men and women in colorful peasant dress crossing a bridge.  (This was one of my favorite paintings […]

WORD PAINTINGS #25 – NEW BEGINNINGS

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Once we settled into a daily routine, life calmed down.  Mornings, diaper changes, breakfast, laundry – now it was time for me to set up my own schedule to paint.  It was easy to spread out a comforter and all their toys on the floor of the family room.  Cheerios were everywhere.  John had his […]

WORD PAINTINGS #24 – LOST AND FOUND

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SOMBRIO DRIVE, CASA SOLANA – We began to settle into the house – adjusting to a new kind of normal – family life. Of course we had to have furniture.  Tom Broome was Chief of the Voluntary Fire Department.  When he wasn’t battling blazes, he managed his family’s furniture store.  We took out some credit […]