WORD PAINTINGS #48 – A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY Part VI – A DOLL’S HOUSE
Our last stop on my trip to Truchas late last month – the huge horse ranch at the end of the road. That first day so long ago I remember standing in the middle of the enormous wooden horse barn thinking “Where am I? Who am I and what am I doing here?” The reality […]
WORD PAINTINGS #47 – A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY PART IV – MAYORDOMO OF TRUCHAS
Drove through Truchas two weeks ago and it brought back so many memories of the first time I moved to the horse ranch on Llano Quemado next to the Land Grant from the King of Spain. I have alway referred to it as “suburban Truchas”! We drove up from Santa Fe on September 17th, 1982. […]
WORD PAINTINGS #46 – A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY PART III – Soul Food
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY PART III – SOUL FOOD – For the past two years I have been living in a very comfortable and “workable” little house in Taos. Only one problem – I am visually starved! This house is closed in – no views! I need to see mountains, clouds, sunsets – distance, space….soul food! On […]
WORD PAINTINGS #45 – MY SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY PART II
10/29/18 – Taos, New Mexico – Many, many memories from my trip through Truchas last Monday…. MY SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY Part II – Don Eusavio’s Paradise Moving back to Truchas for the second time, I wasn’t looking for a Zen master, but that is exactly who I found. His name was Don Eusavio. He was […]
WORD PAINTINGS #44 – Taos10/26/18 – A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY PART I
It is an autumn ritual for me to do some “backroading”, taking photos to use as source material for my winter work. Since I no longer drive, I called my friend Geraint Smith (geraintsmithphotography.com) and booked an afternoon tour to Truchas. We started out near the river at Pilar. The trees were magnificent. I was […]
WORD PAINTINGS #43 – STARTING OVER
Am overwhelmed as I write down this part of my life….in less than four years I gave birth to three babies, caught my husband cheating, moved to New Mexico, took a painting workshop in Cloudcroft, exhibited my work in public for the first time – and decided I could provide a better life for […]
WORD PAINTINGS #42 – “HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT?”
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! WHAT WAS I THINKING? Truth is I wasn’t thinking – I was blinded by rage! You clueless sonofabitch! How could you threaten your own babies? I was more than terrified that one day he might lose it and act on his threats! My theory […]
WORD PAINTINGS #41 – IF WISHES WERE FISHES
(My First Albuquerque Arts & Crafts Fair, Summr 1969) If wishes were fishes, we’d all have a Feast! Honestly I don’t have the courage to describe all of my childhood, except to say that my brother and I had some truly terrible experiences. Although the rest of the family knew the reality of what our […]
WORD PAINTINGS #40 – KINDRED SPIRITS!
The time arrived to frame up my paintings and get them ready to exhibit. The Albuquerque Arts and Crafts show had been held at the State Fair Grounds every summer for about five years. As of this writing, it is now 54 years old. Ernie had been showing his welded sculptures there for a few […]
WORD PAINTINGS #39 – GHOST TOWNS AND WIDE OPEN SPACES
The light in northern New Mexico is absolutely brilliant. It was a challenge to adjust my vision. A sunny day in Chicago is like looking through a gauzy window curtain. There is no comparison to daylight in the high desert. It took some time for me to realize the difference. I thought light was […]
WORD PAINTINGS #38 – BECOMING AN ARTIST!
(Note: “Toby, A Time of Flowers” – One of my earliest paintings after moving to New Mexico.) SANTA FE WINTER 1969 – After the move from Alegre Street and the Jan Herring Workshop, life became quiet and very enjoyable. The babies were really babies no more. When they were awake there was constant movement and […]
WORD PAINTINGS #37 – 10/6/2018 – Taos, New Mexico
10/6/2018 Taos, New Mexico – Have been up most of the night. My Thursday post was amended in an attempt to be more honest. And then yesterday happened. Judge Kavanaugh is to be confirmed to the Supreme Court today, when in reality he needs a good 12 Step Treatment Program. I can’t forget the picture […]
WORD PAINTINGS #36 – GOODFELLAS…..
All my fears became reality on one sunny August morning. I stood in the doorway of the bathroom where my husband was shaving and told him what I had just dreamed – our babysitter confronted me and said “I’m pregnant and your husband is the father of my child!” – I asked her how she […]
WORD PAINTINGS #35 – BONNIE AND FRANK
Eventually all that snow from the Great Chicago Blizzard melted and winter gave way to a beautiful spring. Some of my high school friends got together and gifted me with a twin stroller for the girls. The three of us had a few outdoor adventures to see the birdies. By the time I got the […]
WORD PAINTINGS #34 – GREAT CHICAGO BLIZZARD 1967
January 26 1967 – It was an ordinary afternoon John had his supper and I gave the twins their bottles.Expected my husband home around six. Only a few bottles of formula left; he planned to pick up a case of Similac on the way home. The wind started howling around five and then it started […]
WORD PAINTINGS #33 – CONFUSION AND CHAOS!
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….
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
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
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!!!
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
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
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
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
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
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 […]
#23 – THE ONLY CONSTANT IS CHANGE!!!
Looking back on all my years at the easel, I have only met two or three artists as generous as Jan Herring. She poured information into us – new words, new methods, technique. No question went unanswered. Our class came together as strangers and when Friday came around we had shared some very precious hours […]
#22 – Taos 9/15/18 -REFLECTION
Twelve days ago I celebrated my 79th birthday! A little bittersweet…. Do I miss those long ago days when I had great legs, a nice smile and lived life with strong certainty that I could accomplish anything? – Hell, Yes!!! Now I move ever more slowly and my word of the day, every day, is […]
#21 – EUREKA!!! MAMA LEARNS TO PAINT!
Jan Herring had taken a workshop led by Frederic Taubes, a well-known Polish painter and author. Apparently she excelled and he invited her to be his assistant the following year. Taubes had studied the methods of the Flemish masters and developed a line of copal painting mediums, which when applied to a board or canvas […]
#20 – JAN’S MAGIC BRUSHES!
Jan Herring was a dynamo. Quite simply, she loved people and she loved to teach! Married to a Texas farmer named Henry they raised their family in Clint, Texas. She began painting in 1952 and it was my understanding that she had studied with well-known artist and writer, Frederic Taubes. Over the span of her […]
#19-MAMA TAKES SOME BABY STEPS
Need to start this post with a huge confession. Although my resume states that I studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, my night school studies there lasted only one half of the first semester. Started out with high expectations of learning the basics. Although I won prizes all through my grade and high school, […]
#18 – CLOUDCROFT/THE LODGE
Late on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, my Greyhound Bus arrived in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Alamagordo’s elevation was 8600 feet. A car from the hotel was waiting to take me to 9,000 ft! Our trip to the Lodge was an uphill climb all the way…. heavy forests on either side of the road with only a […]
ON THE ROAD….1968
The New Year celebrations were very quiet on Alegre Street that year. It was a time of adjustment, settling into routines. The babies were growing fast and developing their own personalities. I loved watching them; every day there was something new. They were funny little people and I enjoyed being their mother. Although I was […]
HISTORY LESSONS
Stories – I love stories!!! Being a newcomer, everyone wanted to tell me their own family history in New Mexico. I listened and asked questions. Most often I was given the gift of generations; stories passed down through families – oral histories that never found their way into print. It became a habit to listen […]
BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED!
Santa Fe 1967 – A very smart self-help guru once said “If you don’t know what to do, do nothing”. The trip through the mountains on the back of that Harley was what I needed to settle down and stop moping around. It is not healthy to stay sad forever! I needed to take stock […]
BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED!
Santa Fe 1967 – A very smart self-help guru once said “If you don’t know what to do, do nothing”. The trip through the mountains on the back of that Harley was what I needed to settle down and stop moping around. It is not healthy to stay sad forever! I needed to take stock […]
INTO THE LIGHT….
Santa Fe 1967 – Altitude sickness overcame me our first month in Santa Fe – sleepy, very tired. The days were spent changing diapers, feeding babies, unpacking boxes and trying to adjust to all the changes. The girls were beginning to crawl and had to be watched every minute. They had these little stroller seats […]
SANTA FE – 1967
Santa Fe was another country to me. Would like to say that I readily adapted, but it took a long time for me to adjust, it didn’t happen right away. In Chicago all the art was in museums – in this new town of mine art was being made all around me – the town […]
ANDREW WYETH – SPIRIT OF PLACE
I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious. One’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. It’s all in how you arrange the thing… the careful balance of the design is the motion. -Andrew Wyeth- Chicago 1967 – The Chicago Art Institute mounted […]
WAY BACK THEN IN CHICAGO……
Chicago – Life was very different for women fifty years ago. My mother never learned how to drive, she had no money of her own and when my father died, she had no idea how to write a check. My life at twenty was not much different – I only knew what I observed and […]
LONESOME DAVE’S FUNDRAISER
Santa Fe 1967 – Dave Cargo was inaugurated as New Mexico’s twenty-second Governor in January 1967. One afternoon early in September our friend, Ernie, walked across the street to our house and said we were invited to the Governor’s Mansion for a big party! Wow! Exciting! A chance to take the ever present diapers off […]
THE WAYSHOWER
After what I felt was my disastrous debut into the Santa Fe social circle, I went home and decided that everything would be just fine if I worked hard enough. There were baby bottles to wash and many, many diapers to change. It was my job to try to create some normalcy out of what […]
A FOURTH FOR BRIDGE
Before we moved from Homewood, I was being taught to play bridge from my landlady who was training to earn her Master Points. She was one tough teacher! I never gained any confidence that I could be any good at the game. In fact, I came away from her house certain that I was not […]
DANCING IN THE STREET
The summer of 1967 was also a time of some monumental change in northern New Mexico. Four weeks into the season on 27 July Santa Fe Opera house caught fire – plans to rebuild started immediately and today’s outdoor theater is built on those foundations from 1967. In a battle to reclaim the land granted […]
ALEGRE STREET 1967
How did I get here? It felt as though I had been transported to an alien planet! It all started with a phone call from the mother of one of my husband’s students which gave us no choice but to move far, far away from our little house in Homewood. He taught at a small […]
MY OLD ARTIST
Staying with my theme of “meetings”…. Shortly before my eighth birthday I sat on the cement stoop of my step-grandmother’s house on Fletcher Street in Chicago. She was very pious and loved the saints. To please her I was drawing a picture of the Blessed Virgin with colored pencils. When I looked up from […]
Taos – 8/7/18
Really strange dream this morning – Decided to write a Letter to the Editor Taos News and struggled with how to start. Finally my beginning sentence was about how, as women, we were Mothers of the Moon! The body of the letter was the call to unite women to scold their sons, fathers, brothers, husbands […]
August 1967 – Finding Home
It is said that every journey has a beginning, a middle and an end, followed by a new beginning….51 years ago this month, the moving van left our house on Riegel Rd. in Homewood, Ill. My son was two and my twin girls were six months old. It was a long trip – I felt […]
WORD PAINTINGS #3 – August 1967 – Finding Home
It is said that every journey has a beginning, a middle and an end, followed by a new beginning….51 years ago this month, the moving van left our house on Riegel Rd. in Homewood, Ill. My son was two and my twin girls were six months old. It was a long trip – I felt […]
AN IMMENSE JOURNEY….
Taos – 8/3/18 Forward and backward I have gone and for me it has been an immense journey…..Perhaps there is no meaning in it at all, the thought went on inside of me,save that of the journey itself, so far as men can see. It has altered with the chances of life, and the chances […]
WORD PAINTINGS #2 – AN IMMENSE JOURNEY….
Forward and backward I have gone and for me it has been an immense journey…..Perhaps there is no meaning in it at all, the thought went on inside of me,save that of the journey itself, so far as men can see. It has altered with the chances of life, and the chances brought us here; […]
WORD PAINTINGS #1 – Taos, New Mexico – 2 August 2018
Taos, New Mexico – 2 August 2018 – I love words and have kept a daily journal for the last forty years – all of which I have thrown away (for the sake those in my life still living). My life has become quiet – and it is time for me to write – just […]