At Everyone's Mercy

Periodically our son comes home from the Philippines, and when he does, it seems I always need help with my computer. He spends 24/7 on the computer and he knows what I need to know. The trouble is, he is always wound up like an eight day clock; he is tired, worn out from a twenty-two hour flight and he needs rest. But he always shows me respect and works on my computer. One time when he left, I found floating across my screen, in big white letters, “It is a dangerous thing when you buy your mother a computer”.

Since I didn’t know how to change it, those words floated across my screen for years until our grandsons stayed with us, then the screen saver was changed to football memorabilia and football links such as Tebow Zone and football scores.

I looked at football heroes on my screen saver for a couple of years until our oldest daughter came from Grass Valley, California. She hooked up my computer to DSL and changed the screen to a nice serene landscape. Another daughter set me up paying bills online. I’ve been taking baby steps for years where the computer is concerned and I am always at the mercy of my children and grandchildren.

When my friends came to Pagosa this last summer, they insisted I categorize my art on the computer and become more visible and develop a reader’s base. Setting on my book shelf are several books I have written. No one knows to read them, and I don’t know what to do with them. Preserving a record of my art and writings was the next step, even if I wanted to kick and scream, I said okay, I’d learn how to do it. Thus my journey began with another first step, the BLOG!

I now have 8 Blogs, I daily enter a piece of my floral art on my Blog with a mini-art lesson and send it to my Face book friends. I also show my landscape art with poetry and have now begun a spiritual journey with teachings from the Song of Solomon. So I am on my way!

Recently I received an e-mail from someone who had read my art profile and was interested in my art and wanted to get to know me. She said she also did art and wanted me to see it. I glossed over the sentence in her e-mail which said, “And I am a nice girl” and signed her name, Candy. I thought the sentence was a little strange and out of the ordinary. It was a good thing she was a nice girl, but I was more excited she was a potential artist. I was anxious to see her art. So I sent an e-mail back encouraging her to stick with it and send me pictures of the things she was doing.

We exchanged a few more e-mails and I continued to give her encouragement in her art. Then I received another e-mail again confirming she was a nice girl and did I want to see her art. She did delicious things.

Lo and behold, knock me over with a feather, I got it!

Things have changed. Didn’t they use to stand on street corners in Go Go boots and hot pants? This computer world is new to me and I have no idea what I am doing. Is it any wonder my son leaves a message on my computer, “It is a dangerous thing when you buy your mother a computer?”

I am finding I am at everyone’s mercy. I use to say, “I wasn’t born yesterday” until I read in Job where Job’s friend, Bildad came to him in the father’s traditions and said, “You were born yesterday, learn from the fathers”.

The things I am learning today, I didn’t learn from our fathers, I am learning from our children. Amazing what we are learning. At two years old, my grandson Creede was showing me how to put a disc in the “Putter” as he called it. He is now fourteen, and like every other child, is a whiz at all of this technology.

I am still asking for mercy when caring souls come along to show me a few more tips on the computer. My children tell me all the time, “Mother, you should take a computer class.” I always tell them, “I am too busy.”

I am now dealing with Youtube and promo tapes for art lessons. I asked another grandson who is doing skate videos to show me how to do overlays with credits and music. He gave me a few tips, but not enough. So I continue to wait for the next kind soul who will show me a little mercy.

As I wait, Candy is still out there waiting for my response. Sorry, Candy, I’m not into your kind of “Art”.


The Final Brushstroke! Yes, we were born yesterday but there is nothing new under the sun, it is just packaged differently.

A Boy and His Dog - A Perfect Christmas Gift

The Gift

This article was prompted by seeing one of Missy’s pups in the back of a pickup. It looked like Missy. Our daughter asked the owner where he got his dog. He proceeded to tell her “the story”. She told him her boys got one of the pups for Christmas. Most of the pups are gone now, but there are still a few around. This story is for you.


In 1998, Al heard that the word was on the streets of Pagosa Springs that twenty-six AKC registered dogs had been living in a shed “in a secluded area”, treated badly, picked up and transferred to the Humane Society. There were several labs in the bunch.

As fate would finally have it Al was in the right place at the right time to own another Lab. Immediately he phoned the animal shelter. It was true. Ownership of the dogs was in litigation.

They promised to call Al, and as promised, the shelter attendant phoned, “The ad is out and the phone is buzzing. Call after call is coming into the shelter. You need to get here as soon as possible.”

He was panting like an excited school boy as he explained to me that I had to see the dogs. He was selling me on having another dog. We had one, I thought one was enough.

“If I don’t get down there, there won’t be any left.” He said nervously as he was getting ready. He didn’t know what to expect, but he anticipated he would finally get another Lab.

I was not as smitten as Al was by the news. “You know if you go there, you won’t be happy until you get another dog.” I told him.

“Another dog? It isn’t just another dog. Apparently you don’t understand, it is a Labrador!”

After much convincing Al and I were in the car and he promised he was just looking and it wouldn’t hurt. Arriving at the shelter, everything was in total mayhem. The phone continued to ring. One by one each caller received the same explanation. Al didn’t help matters. He had already worried them to death. They instructed us to go back and look for ourselves. Names and identification were still in question.

Al walked into Lab Heaven. Nine of them were waiting. He made his way to them, the chocolate, the black and the yellows. They all seemed to turn away from Al. They were still in shock from their previous ordeal. Then he saw her. Her golden hair glistened, her big brown eyes met his. She was stretching the length of her chain. Her deep husky voice called to Al. She began dancing and performing for him. She chased the ball at his command, retrieved it, wagged her tail and rolled over.

“Where are the puppies?” Al asked. “She looks a little saggy, she must have just had them.”

“No one knows. These are all the dogs that came in.”
“She looks like she’s had pups recently,” he questioned again.
“We don’t know.” The attendant said.

It was surely music from the heavenly choir when Al heard me say, “Okay, I guess she belongs to you, she is begging to go home with us.”

They told Al, “You can sign the papers but she must stay here until she has her shots and is spayed.”

Al agreed with the terms. That night he couldn’t eat or sleep. When out-of-town company came over the weekend Al insisted that they see her. He explained to them Missy Lynn looked matronly, but she wasn’t as old as she looked. She was only two and half years old.

Taking our friends to show off his new love, Missy was gone, she was at the vet and a new turn of events had just happened. The doctor began to operate and found she was carrying puppies to be born shortly. The doctor had mixed emotions. He couldn’t abort them. The doctor said, “We are suppose to abort them, but Labs are so gentle and such good dogs for children, so I sewed her up. We have to keep her here until the puppies are born.”

Al continued to worry them. Finally they said, “You can pick up Missy anytime at the doctor’s office. Her papers are ready and she is ready. You can keep her until she has the puppies. Do you want to?”

“Of course,” he said.

When Al arrived, Missy’s excitement took over the room. Her big tail swept the doctor’s coffee table clean and yes, you guessed it, she wet on the doctor’s floor. She knew she was coming home.

Missy Lynn didn’t leave Al’s side. Daily conversation was about “the arrival”. Missy grew and grew, her belly dragged the ground and Al helped her in and out of the pickup.

Then it happened. The morning of October 6, 1998, little yellow labs were everywhere. Under her feet, between her legs, over her shoulder, under her tail, twelve little pink mouths were sucking, and squealing for milk. Three girls and nine boys, mother and puppies were doing fine.

We kept them for six weeks until they were ready to be weaned from their mother. We agreed to take the puppies back to the Shelter and if possible we would like to keep one for our grandsons. Al picked a little girl. Many other families in Pagosa also found a little Lab under their tree that year.

Gene Hill is a writer for the Gun Dog Magazine. He writes, “The Labrador was put on earth to show man what he might aspire to.”

Final Brushstroke! This is our grandson’s poem who received one of Missy’s pups.

A Perfect Christmas
The scent of cinnamon tickles my nose.
The warmth of the covers makes me snuggle down under and curl up my toes.
As my mind travels over the events of the day, I don’t want to do anything but lay.
I’m thinking of the gifts awaiting under the Christmas tree.
I still remember the Christmas when I was three.
The big, brown eyes peeking out at me, peeking out of the Christmas tree.
My favorite present with its wet brown nose wouldn’t stop chewing on my big socked toes.
Back to the present my wiser older friend peeks her soft golden head under my covers, to let me know its Christmas morning once again.
Slade Wylie, grade 7

Traveling with Sweet Al

Hand painted Luggage by Betty Slade

Some of you will be traveling over the holidays. Al and I are staying home and I am relieved. I thought I would send you off with some holiday fun.

You would think if you lived with someone for fifty years, you would have learned how to travel together. Al takes everything in his closet and I am learning how to take just enough. Ten items are enough for a two week stay; one or two pair of shoes which will go with everything, colors which I can interchange with several outfits; dressing up or dressing down. I take a separate suitcase with study books, writings and paint supplies, but it is different, I travel with projects. My mind never goes on vacation.

Al has a fetish for shoes. He takes at least three pairs of tennis shoes, dress shoes and just shoes for incidental reasons. I think it is a throw-back from the years he traveled and lived on the road.

Our daughter, Cricket, won an overnight stay and a breakfast buffet for two at a very exclusive hotel in Reno Nevada. It had a living room with a big screen television, a furnished kitchen with granite counter tops and a king size bed with 600 thread sheets. Cricket couldn’t use it; her schedule just wouldn’t allow it, so she gave it to us to use on the way home from California. She called ahead for our reservations.

When we left California, I told Al, “We will each pack a small carryon with one change of clothes and one piece of reading material.” I had my small Liz Claiborne and he had his. I thought he understood; we were staying over night at a very expensive hotel, and it was important we looked like we belonged even if we were going comp.

The valet attendant looked dubious as I carried my small carryon and Al jumped out of the truck with his huge suitcase. Al was carrying one pair of tennis shoes in one hand, and he had another pair tied together with shoe laces hanging around his neck. He had a sack of snacks which he bought from the Dollar Tree in the other hand and four hunting magazines rolled up and tucked in the waste of his pants. When he opened the door of the truck, a big orange rolled out and he put it in his shirt pocket.

I said to Al, “Absolutely not. We look like backwoods people. You don’t need all that stuff.” Al said, “I don’t care, I don’t mind carrying it, I might need something. You might get hungry in the room.”

In humiliation I stood at the registration desk and the woman took our comp certificate and looked at Al and all of his belongings. I looked straight ahead as if to say, “I don’t belong to him. I don’t know him.” Al was huddling around me making small talk, I was thinking, “Al, go away.”

We entered into this absolutely posh room with mirrors, a fruit basket, a fancy coffee maker and gourmet coffee. Al left the room and returned shortly with our family size ice cooler. I guess he thought we were going to cook a meal in the furnished kitchen.

“Al”, I said, “did anyone see you? Of course, everyone saw you. And I am sure they all know you are with me. Al, in Reno we can get a prime rib dinner for $5.95, what are you doing with that big cooler?”

Al innocently said, “I was thinking of you, honey. You might get hungry.”

“Deliver me, from this kind man who is always thinking of my comfort.”

Al pulled out his shoe shine kit with his multiple colors of shoe polishes, brown, black and maroon and began shining his shoes. (a salesman thing). Al pulled out three bottles of aspirin and offered me an aspirin.

“Al, I need more than an aspirin. I need a strong drink. You could drive me to drink and gamble.” I grabbed the orange out of his pocket and told him, “I am going to the swimming pool. I need some space.”

When I returned Al was beaming with pride. He decided to clean out his suitcase and he filled three trash cans over flowing with stuff.

“Great,” I thought, “even the housekeeper knows how we are.”

After I got over myself, the stay was wonderful.

By the time we were to leave, twenty-four hours later, Al had managed to bring four loads of belongings into the room. Now he began taking them to the valet parking one by one.

I sent Al ahead to deal with the valet attendant So Al was up and down the elevator with load after load and I opt to take the backstairs with my one little overnighter.

Our daughter excitedly called to see how the room was.

“You wouldn’t believe it.” I told her.

“Yes, I would, you are traveling with Daddy,” She said. “I'd be mortified to be seen with him carting his stuff. I've lived it myself when we were in Hawaii trying to pretend we

belonged at a 5-star hotel but not fooling anyone as we refused to let the bellhop help us with our luggage.”

“I know, he doesn’t care about the tip, it’s about your Dad thinking he is able to carry his own things. Maybe it is a man’s thing.”

All in all, Al is a good sport for taking all this ribbing. He doesn’t care what people think of him, and apparently I care too much. Believe me, the next time, I’m packing for Al.

But for now, we are home for the holidays in the comfort of our home. We will be sitting by the fireplace thinking of you. Have a Merry Christmas and if you are traveling, think of us, Al and Betty Slade.

The Final Brushstroke! It’s all in Al’s suitcase and there isn’t room to add another thing else.

Here's to the Girls of Pagosa

Under every pair of steel-toed work boots there is a pair of brightly colored toe nails. The Girls of Pagosa still remain ladies in the midst of a man’s world.

My daughter and I enjoyed a beautiful Saturday afternoon together. We sat in the patio of the restaurant; I looked over at her; she had rolled up her pant legs.

“Oh,” she said, “I thought I would catch a little tan on my legs while I have a chance.”

I laughed and said, “Who’s going to see them?

We stopped by the gas station on the way home, we pulled out three gas cans, and proceeded to fill them. A hunter from Oklahoma was hunting in Pagosa and was at the gas pump filling his gas cans too. He overfilled one of them and he sprayed gasoline all over us. He said, “I’m sorry and kept on talking in his twang.”

We laughed and made a joke out of it. “I hope no one throws a match our way.”

I whispered to my daughter, “Now there’s a Redneck.”

A friend drove up to the gas pump in a hurry. She pulled out an empty five gallon gas can from her truck and said, “The guys are mad at me, they are waiting for this gas for their chain saws. My son is selling candy bars at the Bazaar and I had to stop to take care of him, the guys are waiting to cut wood.”

My daughter said, “There’s another Pagosa Girl with gas cologne.”

I said, “It might have been better if one of the men went after their own gas.”

My daughter quickly said, “Mother, it is better she goes for the gas, or they would have her behind a chainsaw.”

The conversation continued with the man from Oklahoma. He was curious why we were buying gas. My daughter told him, “We are buying gas for the tractor, the guys are filling potholes on our road, and the gas is for the four wheelers, the snowmobiles and the chainsaws.”

“What’s a snowmobile?” He asked.

“A jet ski on snow!” My daughter replied.

“Oh!” He said.

I thought about the gas spray and how much it takes for a woman of Pagosa to be a lady. In the seventies, Al was gone making a living, our son and three girls hauled wood for the wood burning stove for our only heat. In the country the electricity was always going off, I cooked many meals on the woodstove. When the well froze up, we hauled water from the river behind our house. During the week the girls wore blue jeans, but come Sunday, I insisted they wear dresses. I told them, “You are ladies, you can’t forget that.”

My daughter was planning Pasta Night. She served spaghetti from crock pots from the truck’s tailgate as the football boys came off the field from practice. She was the one to rally; the high school commons was not available that week for the football team. She wasn’t going to let the boys down. We have all learned, it’s not work, that’s what we do. Stay flexible is her cry!

Driving the kids from place to place for sports practice, digging out from the mud, cutting our guy’s hair, it’s all part of living in Pagosa.

Winter is coming and we will all wear three layers of clothing and put on an extra ten pounds. The women know how to man-handle large diesel trucks and we get giddy when we hear the chug-a-chug sound as our husbands warm the diesel for the morning. We have put chains on the car and changed a few tires. We have jumpstarted dead batteries and hot wired the ignition.

The neighbor lady down the way overhauled a Volkswagen Motor and my neighbor up the hill, found where the workers had cut the electrical line, leaving her house without electricity and she fixed it.

Come mud season, every woman in town will have caked-on mud on the back of her pant legs. Every time I get in the car, Al says, “Hold up your coat and your pants. Don’t let them touch the running board.”

Al always seems to need an extra hand. “Help me here. I need to move this - Hold the jack, the car might fall on me – Hold the ladder while I get on top of the barn, then hand me up that piece of sheet metal.”

Last year Al had three vehicles stuck in the snow at one time, mine included. “Come steer the truck, I’m going after the tractor.” He said.

Finally, I said, “Al, you don’t have any place to go, just stay out of the vehicles.”

I just looked down at my hands on the keyboard. Salmon color paint is on my left knuckle and forest green on my fingers. I have been painting house doors.

When I go to Albuquerque, I look at the sidewalks and think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a sidewalk from the house to the car.” We walk through a shopping mall and looked at all the beautiful clothes in the window and think, “I’d never wear that in Pagosa.” The women who move here who insist on being pampered move away as quickly as they come. A for-sale sign goes up in their yard and they move back to the city life.

Life in Pagosa is hard for everyone, but we all say, “It’s no effort.” The Girls of Pagosa would rather have rock on their road than a stone on their finger. Their conversation is about their septic system and the rattles in their car. Our flip flops have gone up in the closet and our plow boots have come down; but we still keep our toenails polished.

The Final Brushstroke! It takes a lot more work and a good sense of humor, but the Girls from Pagosa still remain as ladies in this man’s world.

Completeness

Completeness (Watercolor 16X20)

If I mention the name, Stephen Quiller, you will probably recognize it. He is an artist from Creede, Colorado, who has made it big locally and is in the international art market He has produced a line of art supplies; from palettes to paints and from DVD’s to week workshops. He is also a part of Northlight Books.


I recently received his catalogue. His painting was on the front cover. On the inside cover, there was a black and white photo taken of him in 1970. He was holding a painting with a similar mountain which was on the front cover. He commented, “I remember this painting and a series of similar works that I completed in the ‘70s while I lived in the mountains…Now I realize that it took these early paintings to help develop this new “View from the Air” series. Thus, the painting on the cover was over 35 years in the making!”

Quiller also commented he painted the mountains from the bottom looking up, now he has had the opportunity to view it from a puddle jumper flight from Denver to Alamosa, Colorado and he has seen it from the top.

We are all in the making. I wonder sometimes if I will ever be completed, yet I know I am and will be. I have the end in view. It has taken many mistakes, trials, and ups and downs to see the view from above. I am getting a clearer view.

Recently in a small group, we talked about how important our history is. If we lie about our history, or we can’t accept what happened to us in the past, we will not accept our present and we will not have an end in mind.

That’s a bold statement. It is interesting to me, that our past is so vital to us, to know it is all in our making for today. No matter, the good or bad of it, without accepting our past, we will not be established in who we are today or in our future.

If our history; whether it is our country, based on godly principles; our faith, based on the crucifixion and resurrection, or our individual lives with past drama and misunderstandings, we need our past. If our history is changed we will not know who we are and where we are going.

From above we can see clearly where we have come from and where we are going. It takes faith to embrace what we do not like, and trust it is what we need to become who we are.

Just like a painting, every time I paint, I draw from all the years I have practiced and failed. I have learned from my mistakes. And yes, in the completion of a painting, I sign my name, date it and believe it is the best I can do. I too look back like Stephen Quiller, and know the paintings I paint today have been in the making for 40 years.

Final Brushstroke! We have all been in the making, ourselves and our work and we are all being made complete daily.

This painting is one of my very favorites. It is the incompleteness that makes it complete. The roof line is not parallel, the pond is just there, there is a lot of white. One time someone said to me, "it takes a lot of courage to call it finished when it is isn't." In my book, this painting is the best one I have ever done. Did I say, I love it?

Standing on the Edge

Standing on the Edge

A friend told me he purchased a spotless detailed, beautiful red 1957 Chevy with chrome wheels from a widow. My friend’s comment to her was “Your late husband must have spent hundred of hours on this car.”

Her response was, “Yes, he did. I wished I had the time spent.”

When I heard this, it nailed me to the wall. I knew I had been guilty of the same thing; spending more time with the things I love to do rather than spending time with the ones I love.

I believe we all live in our own forest; thick green mangled foliage of creativity. It is also called self-centeredness. We haven’t entered into other’s lives or their story because we are so attached to ours.

I am sure many people around me have felt the same way as the widow felt. I am guilty and I am not sure how to change. I am not sure if I want to come out of my deep luscious forest I’ve created for myself. I like it how it is.

I can’t see the trees for the forest or is it, I can’t see the forest for the trees? I’ve laughed when I said it and thought I needed to step away from my all –encompassing life. I get so attached, and in so doing I have become detached from others I love.

Apparently the widow saw more clearly than her husband did, but it was too late.

In order to be attached to the moment, to be aware of the lives of those who we genuinely care about, we must enter into their story; their problems and joy and even be willing to be a part of their solution. We are determined to read life as we see it instead of feeling the spirit of the moment. It’s a great way to escape from reality, but it also presents another problem, self-absorption.

Self-absorption is the wall I have built around me. I realized I have done this to people. This is an edge. It takes time to get involved into another’s life. I rather be writing and painting than be the answer for someone else’s problem. As I write this, I wonder if I want to change.

We can remain in the forest, live among the trees and not see them, or we can step outside the forest, into the edge of a bigger opening, where we can see clearly before it is too late.

Everyone has their edge, they come up to it and change their mind. We have a choice to stay dwarfed by the trees or move out into the clearing.

Life will put us in the moment and on the edge of something we haven’t done before. As we choose to step inside the moment we experience something new. We push through the fear and find the thrill.

As we enter into someone else’s story, and become a part of the way life has written their book, we get a better view of them and ultimately ourselves.

The widow sold the car her late husband left behind. It was not that important to her. She would have rather had a few more minutes with him. Someone else is driving his car and enjoying the time he spent.

Final Brushstroke! The edge will take us to the end of ourselves and the beginning of someone else and it will always bring a new horizon.

A Hook in the Tree

Aspen trees grow in families. Just try to dig one up; their roots go from one to another. Where the first tree was planted and where the other ends, it is anyone’s guess. Aspen trees are hard to come out of the ground, their roots interlock deep below the surface.

I recently showed a painting of aspen trees with gold leaves on my Facebook. I painted it in a series and called it The Message Trees. I didn’t think much about it; I was just categorizing my paintings on my Blog when a friend e-mailed me.

She sent a copy of an old photograph of herself standing by a tree holding onto a large hook that had been embedded into it. She writes, “This is proof that my family has been here.”

My friend, receiving my Facebook update shared her story with me. “Every fourth of July since 1950, myself, my husband and four children have gone to the church camp in Chama, New Mexico, then we added one by one our grandchildren. We camped out, cooked outside, making homemade tortillas and beans. We screwed a large hook in one of the trees and hung our mirror on it, and now years later, memories. Every year we looked for the old tree with the peg and made our camp site there. In amazement, one of the family members will always say, “The hook is still here!”

I fired back a thought to my friend. “That peg you are holding onto is holding your children and grandchildren close to your heart. They will remember those days. It’s their history; it’s just a hook in a tree, but it gives them a deep belonging. It is a hook they can hang their hats on and call home.

The Message Trees I painted are familiar to many of the old timers, who remember stories of the days when the cattleman drove their cattle along a pathway from New Mexico into Colorado. They left messages in the trees for others coming that way. The dates goes back to the 1800’s.

Lovers carved hearts into the trees with their initials. An arrow showed a direction for someone to follow, and others have written their signatures, saying, “I was here.”

Did they know when they made their mark on the side of a tree, it would be the conversation today? I don’t think so. They were doing what they do; herding cattle from New Mexico to Colorado. I just remembered seeing an article written about these trees, it struck me and I knew I needed to paint them.

The trees are still standing and growing today and the cuts in their bark witness stories of years ago when passer-bys left their history for others to see. I am sure if anyone has passed by recently, they will be tempted to carve their initials too.

My friend and the Lucero Family only knew to do what they needed to do to preserve their family. They weren’t thinking of leaving a hook in a tree as a legacy which has remained over sixty years, they were just being family, loving and caring for each other.

Today, when anyone talks to the family they still talk about Chama, the jokes come out about each other and all the memories. I can hear Benny ask, “Is that hook still in that tree?”

This family has gone many ways and lived in many places across the Southwest. I have known and loved this family for over twenty-one years. I have seen the harsh winds come insisting on pulling their family down and their roots up. This family is rooted, connected, and have interlocked themselves with each other. They are family. When the mention of Chama comes up, it is one of the ways of saying, “We belong and have roots in the Lucero Family.”

As families we have all left hooks in trees. They are those places in our hearts where we have met with each other, joked, laughed, cried and just been family. It is a blessing for me to stand along side The Lucero Family's Tree. I am blessed. Hopefully this article is carving a remembrance of their roots and a strong conviction for the next generation to live their legacy for others to see.

The tree with the hook still stands today. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. If you are walking along the Chama River, you might witness it and wonder, “What is that tree doing with that hook? Someone has been here.”

Final Brushstroke! Just as we look back on those message trees that stood silently along the cattlemen’s pathway, we are still sending messages in an obscured way. We are linked and connected together just like a family of aspen trees.

In the Eye of the Beholder

It’s time to get out the winter clothes. I was transferring summer clothes into the upstairs’ closet and bringing the winter ones down. My eye fell on the ugliest article in my closet, an old, extra large, long, overstuffed polyester, tan coat with paint stains. I wondered, Should I keep it for another year? The answer is Yes! I’m not ready to let it go.

I laughed when I saw it and thought; now that’s an article to write about, nobody wanted that coat but me. A few years ago I found this beauty as a bargain. It was new and perfect for what I needed. I seized it before anyone could lay hands on it. I knew it would be the perfect coat to wear to the football games. It was one of those one-size-fits-all and I am sure it made me look fifty pounds heavier than I am.

In my excitement I showed it to my family and I was willing to lend it to any of my daughters. To my surprise, none of them wanted it.

“It looks like it belongs to a bag lady.”

Another one spouted her opinion about my coat. “This is the most incredibly ugly thing I ever saw,”

Another one popped off, rolling her eyes, raising her eyebrows for the others to see, “Mother, you keep it, I have a coat. I would rather freeze.”

I defended the coat, “It was a bargain and it’s going to be warm this winter.”

Apparently no one saw the beauty I saw. It wasn’t about how it looked, it was what it meant to me; it exuded comfort, warmth and it would be the perfect coat for what I needed.

I threw it on the coat rack and every time I walked out the door, through three feet of snow, to my studio, I’d wear it. On chilly days in the cold when I painted, it was perfect. Oh, I dragged my sleeves in the paints and dripped paint and coffee on the front, but that’s what was so good about it. I didn’t have to be careful, I could be myself. It was what I needed.

I took it with me to the games, just to use as a blanket. The family snickered when I packed it in. But as the air got frosty and the metal stadium seats got colder, every one wanted to wrap up in my ugly coat. They begged me for it, but I resisted. It’s mine. It’s not up for grabs any more.

This immediately brought an idea; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We usually see the beauty and usefulness of something when we need it. Otherwise, we just as soon discard it, which brings me to my heart felt prayer for my friends whose marriages are in trouble and up for grabs.

Recently I heard of four couples separating and I felt a heavy thump. Someone said they had counted over 59 divorces in Pagosa over the past year. Pagosa couples are in trouble. Al and I have had our struggles at times and I understand.

Pagosa seems to bring discontentment out in people. I don’t know if it is the cold, the mud, the lack of money or jobs, isolation and sheer boredom, or maybe just thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. All these things work against these precious marriages and family units. What about the children? Somehow along the way; the beauty in the eye of the beholder diminishes.

All the years, Al and I have had to forgive, accept each other and love in spite of each other, and I am amazed, my sweet Al still sees me beautiful. The wrinkles in my face, my bending posture, my flannel gown and that old bag-lady coat doesn’t seem so important.

He still sees me as I was in my youth. He thinks I should wear my hair in a ducktail like I did when I was seventeen; three inch heels to accentuate my ankles; short skirts and tanned legs with bright toe nail polish. I just roll my eyes and think, “Oh Al, you have the most beautiful heart, you only see me beautiful.”

There is something predictable about Al and me. We do not see age creeping up; we see love, warmth, comfort and perfect companionship. And no, I’m not wearing three inch heels in three feet of snow or mini skirts with my white legs. I still throw on that ugly coat, but when evening comes and we are together, it makes it alright.

How do couples get into trouble? Do they need to look back to those days when their eyes looked on that one that was young, beautiful and full of life? That one who made them laugh; and brought the best out of them. Have they just lost sight of their first love?

And, maybe I am meddling, I hope not, but my heart is heavy for you my friends. Is it possible we need to take a look at ourselves and at our children? Don’t put your marriage up for grabs, you do not know who might end up with your treasure and raise your children. Think again. It will truly be a cold winter.

Final Brushstroke! There is nothing wrong with your mate that a loving heart can’t fix. Maybe ugly has crept into YOUR heart and you can’t see the treasure in front of you.

Is Anyone Listening? Impacting lives

Water in the Wilderness 15 X 30 Oil

Is anyone listening?

In 1960, Al and I were young, full of ambition and ready to set our life’s career in motion. We attended a sales meeting for his company in Vail, Colorado. Insurance salesmen were immaculately dressed to impress, wearing $300 suits, long sleeve white shirts with gold cuff links and a perfect knotted tie. And of course, their shoes were shined.

As Al always contended, “No one will buy from you if you have run over shoes with a hole in them. You have to look successful.”

Salesmen came from all over the region and were blowing and going; shouting rah, rah, rah and quoting slogans of Positive Mental Attitude. They stood in a circle known as the Round Robin and yelled with enthusiasm, “I feel healthy, I feel happy, I feel terrific.” Al and I bought it all. We chased the carrot.

An older, white-haired gentleman was invited to speak. Nearly twice the age of any one in the room, he modestly wore a white starched shirt with an opened neck, minus a tie and jacket. He stood out as one who didn’t belong with the up and coming crowd. He had already arrived. He had the confidence of success. He didn’t have to impress. He already knew who he was.

He came to the front and spoke. The rowdy bunch of salesmen quieted themselves for a few moments and then yelled, “Yes we do!” But they really didn’t.

I leaned forward to hear more, he had something worthwhile to say. But in the midst of so much hype, no one seemed to hear him. Speaker after speaker continued building and plumping up the salesmen. They all had the answer as to how to make their millions.

The gentleman’s words were established deeply in me. He wore success on the inside. I knew I wanted what he had and I also wanted something worthwhile to say one day. I wanted words with grit which would go beyond the hype just as his words did for me.

Would people ever lean forward, cup their ear, just to hear me say something of value?

Quite the contrary, I have laughingly made the comment many times over the years, “I know how to empty a room. When I start to talk, everyone scatters. I don’t know what it is.”

The trip I went on recently was no exception. I felt I shared some deep things, thoughts of great worth; but I noticed no one prompted any interest to carry the conversation any further. What is with this? What’s the problem?

I remembered the older gentleman who stood before a rowdy bunch of insurance salesmen. He didn’t have to strut his stuff; he knew he had a lot more on the inside, but he probably wondered if anyone was listening or if anyone even cared as he packed up his briefcase in disbelief. He might have discounted an eighteen year old wife of a hotshot salesman in the audience.

Well, Al and I grabbed the carrot; the gentleman’s words lay dormant for many years in both of us. We continued to do what we were programmed to do. Al drove a new black Porsche. He left our family every Monday morning and came home every Friday night for over eighteen years. We had money in the bank, a big house and a noisy life of success, and it almost destroyed our family. In all that noise I have never let go of the words, “Do YOU know YOURSELF?”

Final Brushstroke! Is anyone listening? A person can impact lives without knowing it. I am thankful for the man who had the courage to speak truth.



The School of Hard Knocks

I have just returned from a trip to Southern California where I enjoyed Parent’s Weekend at Biola University with my granddaughter and daughter. Secretly, I thought I would go to college one day to get my education, I didn’t expect it to be Parent’s Weekend.

Al swept me off my feet with all his charm and when I was seventeen I fell in love. I wanted to go to college, but you know how love is? It couldn’t wait. I always felt a college education was the one thing I lacked.

I stepped onto the college campus and I knew I could get into that thing I missed, “college life”; cute boys, dorms, no sleep, overloaded backpacks, and of course, studying.

I walked on the brick sidewalks where great men walked and I felt a tinge of envy. Those same sidewalks were leading young minds to greater knowledge.

I visited the library. I saw beautiful words written on the walls, a wealth of treasures sitting on the bookshelves, students studying, some with earphones, multitasking in their own cubical or at a library table. I pulled a few books from the shelves, just to get the feeling of higher education and how well-educated people must feel.

I found the Common Grounds Coffee Shop filled with students and laptops. I ordered a big cup of gourmet coffee and a bagel. What is it about gourmet coffee and places like that? The students and their books were sprawled out over chairs and sofas. The wall art was edgy, colorful, new and different and I thought. This is my place, I belong here. I sipped my coffee and lived my dream. I could see my art along side the young artists of today.

I ate lunch in the cafeteria with my granddaughter and her friend. Her friend was going to college for a career in the film industry. I threw out a few names of founding fathers in the film media. She hadn’t heard of any of them. I thought how could you not know about them, they blazed a trail for you? In my excitement, I threw out my little knowledge, and of course, I was still living my dream, I drilled her as to what she knew and where her education was leading her. She looked at me bewildered.

I guess I stepped over the line. My daughter took her finger to her throat and made a cut-off motion. She was silently saying, “Enough!” It brought me up short. I was a guest. It was not my place to teach her what she didn’t know. I was immediately brought into reality.

The difference in ages began to creep up in other places too. The president of the university spoke, he must have been in his early forties. He was young enough to be my son. Aren’t presidents of colleges supposed to be old? Every where I looked everyone was getting younger.

A younger speaker brought it down to fun and illustrations. I thought, what a paradox, higher education brought down to children’s minds.

An older speaker spoke. His words were deep, rich, and lofty and I hung on to every word. It was obvious with all of his eloquent speaking some of the students were lost. Students were busy texting their friends, sleeping with their heads in their hands and some were just waiting to leave.

I walked out of the classroom with the students; some of their faces were drained in confusion. I asked a couple of the students, strictly out of curiosity, “What spoke to you?”

They said, “I didn’t get anything, he didn’t say anything to me.” I wanted to tell them what I learned, but they didn’t ask. I could have gone into a deep debate with them. The last thing they wanted was to match wits with someone’s grandmother.

My knowledge has come from the School of Hard Knocks. I learned there are no free meals. If I want something worthwhile I have to work for it. I have worked for things with no apparent benefits, it was just life and I needed to do it. I have made lots of mistakes, but I learned from them. I could have probably gotten a better job and better pay, but would I have loved my life any more? I don’t think so.

I also had to admit, when I was eighteen, I would have gone for the college life and not for the higher education. I only gained a desire for knowledge after years of living. Today I hunger for knowledge, but it was not until I attended the School of Hard Knocks that I saw what would have made life a little easier and richer.

So what is the difference between college of higher education and the School of Hard Knocks? After visiting Parent’s Weekend it put things in perspective for me; it also forced me to get real. Life didn’t go quite the way I thought it would, but I realized I have all I need for today to make my life complete.

Maybe it was the age gap. Maybe I have learned that going back to a pipe dream would not be the same. And I also learned it was The School of Hard Knocks that has afforded me the necessary things I need for my life today.

Final Brushstroke! Learning or living? Some times one comes before the other.

Lines in the sand become squiggly

Have you ever said, “I will never do that”? Then you find yourself doing it. What happened! Did you change your mind or did something change you?

Recently a gentleman in a small group we attended said, “When I was young I made a commitment and I wrote definite lines in the sand, then a wayward child came along and the lines in the sand became squiggly.”

I reached over and I quietly said to him, “I understand exactly what you are saying, the lines we have drawn in the sand have gotten squiggly too.” This thought challenged me. How could I have been so dogmatic about life with such firm rules; and today the lines have gotten so blurry. Maybe it was life lessons that came our way and changed us.

It reminds me of a watercolor workshop I took a few years ago. The teacher said, “I want you to paint in flux. Find a spot and sit still and start painting. I’ll come by and check on you from time to time. Have at least six sheets of paper.”

The place was called Cathedral Forrest. The trees were so thick they literally arched over each other. There were just bits of light showing through and the light changed quickly through the trees.

I chose a beautiful spot next to a small creek; the trees arched, partly in shade and partly exposed to the sun. I found a rock to sit on, pulled out my paper and committed to the instructions of the teacher. I started to paint, each painting I painted changed from rigid to fluid; each one showed a certain confidence and the subject became clearer, freer, and yet with fewer lines.

In the course of the afternoon, a rain shower came; I covered my supplies and continued to work. The soft spray of water hit the paper as I painted, making the paints fuse together, taking on a whole different look.

I committed to the spot I chose and did not change my position, but one by one, each painting recorded the moment I was in. As I lined them up later I could see what the art teacher was asking us to do, “paint in flux”.

So I went to the dictionary to see exactly what flux meant. Webster puts it this way: Flux is an act of flowing, and flow of matter, flow of the tide, anything used to promote fusion.

My most favorite of all the six paintings on the same subject is definitely the last one I painted. There was little paint, lot of white paper, quickly executed colorful trees, and a dramatic zigzag for the creek.

Later, the first five paintings were changed from watercolor to mix media. I added acrylic paints and then oils. But that last one is framed and will remain the way I painted it originally as a reminder of the afternoon when I learned about painting in flux.

Back to life, what happened to the lines we so intently drew in the sands of conviction? Did we become diluted, did we compromise, and was it all to move with the ebb and flow of life? Maybe it was all about learning to get along?

The tide has and will continue to come in and erase the harsh lines we have drawn in the sand. Each time the lines became softer and squigglier. It is just like each watercolor I painted, the strokes were fewer. And soon the lines and exactness were not so necessary and the only thing that was important to me was the subject before me.

The commitment written on my heart years ago goes much deeper than the religious lines I drew in the sand in my younger days. Hopefully love is finally working itself into me, and the harsh lines of prejudice, religious notions, success, ambition, and how I thought things should be are being erased.

I’ve not changed my position towards the commitment I made years ago. It is just as I sat by the creek with a small continual stream of water passing between the banks, and the lights and darks changed in the course of the afternoon. I didn’t move. Even the showers came and fused colors together and I continued to paint. The subject was constant before my eyes, it is the same as today, life is changing how I look at things. I have been living in flux just as I painted that afternoon.

Final Brushstroke! The ebb and flow of life erases the lines drawn in the sand and even our footprints will vanish in time, but the commitment we made in our hearts will remain. Our lives are being established and written as we live in flux.

I Don't want to do it... Don't make me do it!

Why did I kick and scream for years? “I don’t want to do it, don’t make me do it!” What is so terrible about technology in an artist’s mind?

“What are you doing about getting your art into the market?” a friend asked who came for the weekend. “I will set up a Blog and put you on facebook.”

And my answer was, “Why?”

“It’s a great way to catalogue your work. You can also have a record of all your past newspaper articles. Also you will be developing a reader’s base,” she expounded.

“I’m listening,” I replied. “All these years and I still don’t have all my art categorized. I haven’t taken photos of them and they are gone now. But I still don’t want to waste my time on the computer.”

“It’s not wasting time, if a gallery wants to see your work, it’s on your computer.”

“Okay, I’ll learn it.” Slumping down and pouting I tried to be civil to my guest. After all she was helping me and I should humor her.

And the process began. I started blogging. “I decided to put one painting each day along with a min-art lesson and meanderings on my Blog and send through Facebook. Then one Blog turned into two and so on.

This playground for the crowd under thirty has now become a new way of social networking for people over fifty; and the growth for them is faster than the young users.

I read an article “Blogging and what I learned on the Therapist’s Couch” by Moshe Mikanovsky. The title caught my attention and I knew I was not alone. Most of us artists need to be on the therapist’s couch. We paint and work diligently all of our lives in our art yet we make few feeble attempts to show our work, then we quit. As I read his article, I felt sure other artists have found themselves with the same resistance and have used all the same excuses to stay away from social networking as I have. It robs our creative time.

As artists, we need to re-invent ourselves to fit into the economy of today. We have to do something different than we did just a few years ago.

My friend is a Venetian artist and has always supported me in my art as I have in his. He heard I was blogging. He paints on people’s walls - old Tuscany, marble, and all kinds of faux finishes. As a painter and with the construction market falling, he found himself out of work. He painted and finished the walls of million dollar homes once, and then the work was gone. He wrote to tell me, “You’re missing it if you don’t get on YouTube. You need to be global.

“Oh me, do I have to? I don’t know enough about all that stuff. I don’t know if I want to do it.” I said.

His reply was, “It is free and it is easy. I have made contacts in Thailand and they are flying me to instruct them on how to do Venetian finishings. Sherwin William’s representative is flying out and they have considered me an expert on how to use their paint. And it has all free and it has been handed to me through YouTube.”

My response was, “I don’t have anything like that to sell. What do I do? Do YouTube or develop a product first? What comes first the chicken or the egg?”

He fired back an e-mail. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? YouTube. Get an account with YouTube; then you can add to it as you decide.

Just like Mikanovsky, I felt weak in my knees and drained. I needed to lie down on a therapist’s couch and cuddle a Teddy bear. I don’t know why I have fought going into this next phase of life. So I typed myself a list of what I had to sell - what I was working on at the moment - what I needed to get started. Also I listed things I didn’t want to do anymore, what I was willing to do and what were my biggest fears.

I believe the fears are losing my privacy, losing my creative time and learning something new. It is also stepping out of the realm where I thrive.

I bit the bullet. So each morning I get up and add one more painting to my Blog, a description and a mini-art lesson. By the time I finish this project, I will have hundreds of paintings on file. I am setting it up with a theme so that it is already compiled into whatever I decide to do with it.

Galleries who want to see my work will be able to go to my Blog. As far as Facebook, I am adding friends and their friends and their friends.

My grandson said the other day, “Grandma, you are on face book more than I am. Ha Ha.” My children are finding great humor since I have entered into their playground. They can’t believe I am playing in their sandbox.

I am writing to you my artist and writer friends and encouraging you to reach out for another market. I am with you. I just want to paint and write, but as my Blogs are unfolding I am beginning to understand the value of them. Not only am I categorizing my work, it is getting me out of that “stuck” place and developing a bigger market.

Final Brushstroke! It is a matter of being honest with ourselves and refusing to listen to the same old record we keep playing, hearing the same old tune played over and over in our heads, “I don’t want to do it.”

Before the Snow Flies...Moving with the Season

Gently Drawn Away

Before the snow flies, there is work to be done. Al and I began the process again which happens every year. Outdoor furniture moved under cover, outside hoses rolled up, wood stacked, guest artist’s cabins weatherized, and the list goes on. It is all part of moving with the season. It’s all protecting what we have and what we have already established in season’s past.

Al asked, “While the weather is beautiful would you help me organize my garages?” Talk about music to my ears. Al doesn’t ask for much and I knew he needed help. He was overwhelmed with too much stuff. So I agreed, of course with the hidden agenda of throwing away a bunch of junk.

How do you organize a packrat? It was going to take some brutal action and a master plan. I had to be careful though because Al likes his stuff and is attached. But Al was ready to move into another season of life and now was my chance.

I knew I wouldn’t have any problem throwing away his junk! My junk is another story. Every artist knows that ideas take up space. So we all have our junk, but it is a different kind of junk. My junk is going to turn into something beautiful one day.

After all these years Al and I have been moving in and out of one season after another. You would think we would look at things the same way. Not at all! He hangs on to things, I throw away; he chinks, I give it a place; he moves slow, I want to get the job done; he wants to sell it in a garage sale for ten cents, I want to burn it. He wants to reminisce, I want to move on; I put it in the trash, he takes it out, and the saga goes on.

So we began the process of eliminating and working together. There were a few close calls. After a piece of wood flew by my head from inside the garage, I had to speak to Al in his currency. “Al, if I get hurt, you lose free help.” That seemed to temper Al’s throwing arm. Free help is a premium around here.

After two long days, loading the trash trailer to the top, burning everything I could get my hands on, Al and I succeeded. Al is organized; everything has its place; like-things are grouped together, such as jumper cables, battery chargers and batteries; air hoses and hoses of every kind, bicycle pump, tire patch and inner tubes.

As Al began stacking the shelves again, I reminded him, if you want to stay organized, these are the rules. Nothing goes in front of something else and after you use it, it goes back to its designated spot. So we have managed to get through another season but what have we learned?

Henry Thoreau, writer and poet writes it best. "I have learned this at least by my experience: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."

As different as my sweet Al and I are, we are advancing into seasons which we are not sure of. Growing older takes on new dreams and fewer expectations. We have walked together with a gimp leg for many years, but always following our dreams and endeavoring to live life as we have imagined. We have unexpectedly met in common hours. This time was no exception.

For Al and me, as we change seasons once again, we are learning how to move into that next place. Not only nature changes but we are changing too. And somehow we always find each other in those common hours. We are so blessed.

Final Brushstroke! Common hours! What are they? I believe they are when we reach that place, where we line up with each other in that moment and we fit together. It is where our goals and who we are and where we are, meet in satisfaction.

Thank you to the Boys of Fall

Message Tree (Oil 24X30)

Under the bright lights, huddled in the cold and wet, wrapped up against the winter winds which tease us from around the corner, Pagosa comes out for the best night of the week. It’s Friday night under the lights at the Golden Peaks Stadium. Our young boys suit up in their numbers. The fans wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Our little town of Pagosa files into the bleachers, with thermos bottles, extra blankets and stadium seats. Mothers nestle with all their belongings around them, fathers brag, band members tweak their instruments, and young girls without coats, in flip flops wear their boyfriend’s jerseys. None admit they are cold. Cold doesn’t come into the conversation, the excitement of the game keeps us warm.

We stand together united as citizens of this great country and place our hands on our hearts and sing our National anthem. There are tears in our eyes as we hold onto a deeper feeling of blessing. We want freedom and hope for the generations to experience what we have. We send up a prayer of thanksgiving and forget the trials of the week.

Fathers out of shape, come scruffy in their dirty work clothes. It shows they worked hard all week. They willingly take their place as family providers during the week, but for three hours on Friday night, they get to be boys again.

“Put my son in,” one yells. Another one shouts, “Get me the cookie!” The fathers hash over the plays among themselves, talk about the unfair calls and penalties; and they secretly think they could do better if they were in the game.

Proud moms busily tape the game in between screaming, yelling, chatting and drinking hot chocolate. At home, the tape is slipped into the DVD player and watched, stopped, talked about, watched and watched some more. The family binds together as they look at the plays one more time before they fall into bed.

My young grandson said to his mother, “I wished you could be out on the field. It’s different than being in the stands videoing it. I am looking at some guy bigger than I am, and I know I can tackle him. You can’t even imagine how it feels.”

Another grandson who enjoyed the same feeling last year is suited up in his uniform, standing on crutches on the sideline, knowing he will not have that feeling this year. His heart is breaking and his parents’ heart aches for him too. No one can help him. This is also a memory and a tough life lesson that will change him and how he looks at things.

Why do we love the game so much? I look around and see J.P. He has supported the Pagosa kids as long as I can remember and is still rooting for the team. I remember watching David Cammack, Billy Manzanarez, Randy Swornson and Cody Ross playing. Cody rode around the track during half time as Homecoming King with Debra Holder as his Queen. Today the guys are pacing the fence, watching their boys, remembering when they were the boys of fall.

Out of town games take more effort; parents leave early from their jobs, caravanning and carpooling. The Excursion fills up with hopeful fans trucking over Wolf Creek Pass; or driving west to Dolores for two games, Varsity and Junior Varsity. They spend the night, pile extra boys into the motel room, and talk about the game, the wins and defeats. They listen to the radio for Kenny Chesney’s song, The Boys of Fall.

A hush falls over their voices when K-Wolf Radio plays The Boys of Fall one more time. Some one comments, “That’s the way it is!” And another one says, “Yep!”

The game consumes us this time of the year. I am sure everyone has their reason. For me it is a time that brings me back to being young, remembering I too wore someone’s jersey. They sang their football song after the “Win” and I hugged a tired, sweaty boyfriend who played his heart out, and I thought it was all for me.

Moms and Dads want their kids to have the same memories as they had when they were in high school. Coaches are bent on building well-rounded boys who will learn how to work together as a team, wanting to build young men for a better life.

The boys learn how to take defeat after they have played their hearts out. This is a necessary reality in life. The bus trip is a long way home. The coaches are already talking about next week’s game. The dirty, grass-stained uniforms are thrown into the washer for the next time.

Maybe this is one of the few times in a busy family when they enter into each other’s lives and rally in the glory, defeats, the grind, the injuries and the sweat.

It’s an experience none of us can really put a handle on. It moves in all of us something special. It takes old boys to the rocking chair. In the nursing home one of the grandfathers is still bragging and it is keeping him alive. “I remember in 1945 I carried the ball in the last two seconds and made a touchdown and brought the game home.”

I guess it brings the game home for all of us in one way or another. Thank to The Boys of Fall.

Final Brushstroke! To day’s moments are tomorrows memories.

Hundred Faces of Rembrandt

Ruth (Oil 24X30)

When I heard the phrase “One Hundred faces of Rembrandt”, I thought this is a clever concept. Over the years many have adopted this idea in marketing their passion from wars to whatever. I also wondered how I could adapt this concept to fit in one of my projects, and maybe I have already. I have worn a hundred faces -- I just haven’t painted them. I have definitely been my own project.

This idea started with Rembrandt while he was just looking for a willing model to paint, and he found him in the mirror. Over Rembrandt’s lifetime, “he sat before himself” and painted himself in many costumes and characters, in different ways and moments, tones and colors, always capturing the real being beneath the flesh and blood… himself.

He drew his face repeatedly -- serious and smiling, with frightened eyes and whatever he was feeling at that moment. Some portraits showed him young and some old, some free and some tight, but all with the mark of Rembrandt’s soul.

Robert Henri writes in The Art Spirit; “The whole value of art rests in the artist’s ability to see well into what is before him. A model is wonderful in as many ways as there are pairs of eyes to see her. Each view of her is an original view and there is a response in her awaiting each view.

“If the eyes of a Rembrandt are upon her she will rise in response and Rembrandt will draw what he sees, and it will be beautiful. Rembrandt was a man of great understanding. He had the rare power of seeing deep into the significance of things.

“A genius is one who can see. Others can often “draw” remarkably well. Their kind of drawing, however, is not difficult. They can change about. They can make their sight fit the easiest way for their drawing. With the seer it is different. Nothing will do but the most precise statement.”

This separate eye of genius is one of the world’s most precious possessions. Rembrandt was always conscious of his own secret vision. His eye was sensitive to the faintest shadow of change passing over a man’s countenance.

After the death of his children and his wife, it is written, "From this time, while he did much remarkable work, he seemed like a man on a mountain top, looking on one side to sweet meadows filled with flowers and sunlight, and on the other to a desolate landscape over which a clouded sun is setting." When Saskia, his wife died, he made only one more portrait of himself, his one hundredth; and in it he made himself appear a stern and fateful man.

As I pondered this thought, “he sat before himself,” I thought it would have been wonderful to have the drawing and painting talent of Rembrandt, but greater still is to have the eye of understanding which he possessed. What if we had the eye to elevate people to a higher place, giving them a higher respect for themselves?

When he painted himself, his eyes must have drawn the best from himself or he could not have done it for others. An old saying, “You must have respect for yourself before you have respect for others.” It is true.

We all wear different disguises. When we pull the mask from our own face and become honest, we might not like what we see, but it is the place of gaining respect for who we are. Only then we are able to see ourselves more clearly and there is where we give others a margin for error.

Most people fool themselves their entire lives trying to be someone they think they should be or who other’s think they are. Self-acquaintance is a rare condition.

Over the years, I have worn a hundred faces, but who I was in my early days seems far away from who I am today, I don’t recognize her anymore. I am coming out from behind the disguises and am enjoying and accepting who I am and consequently doing the same for others.

Oh that we would have the eyes of Rembrandt when others are in our presence, that they would rise in response, thus having the eye to see the dignity of their own soul and they would be beautiful. This is a true artist.

Final Brushstroke! Self-acquaintance is a rare thing. It takes courage to remove the mask and see the beauty we really possess.

Talk to the Pocket

Four Seasons (Oil 24 X30

This has absolutely nothing to do with art but maybe I can slide it in under the art of listening.


Recently we were spending time with friends. We have all grown older and understand we do not hear as well as we used to. That evening everyone was very serious about the conversation until it became so ridiculous, we couldn’t stop laughing.

My friend was exasperated and her husband was as sincere as he could be. He sat and nodded his head. He didn’t find anything humorous in the conversation but was offended that we didn’t understand him. He was talking about something totally unrelated to the conversation.

“Put on your hearing aid,” my friend shouted to her husband.

“I’ve been working all day, I’ve got a little job,” was his response.

“Do you see what I go through? He doesn’t hear me,” she said to us.

He looked at me for some kind of understanding and said, “I can hear everyone but her. I don’t like to wear my hearing aid because of the beeping.” I’m thinking, he’s asking me to understand. I’ve got to stay neutral; this argument has been going on for a long time and we just entered into their lives, there is no answer.

His feelings were hurt; I could see it in his eyes. His wife was exasperated and she was asking someone to hear what she lives with. Al remembered a joke and said, “Soup will do,” and I was thinking how I could turn this into an article. There were four different conversations going on and no one was hearing, and everyone thought they had something important to say.

The wife looked at his shirt pocket and said, “He has a $5,000 hearing aid in his pocket and he won’t wear it. I guess I am just going to have to speak to his pocket,” and we all laughed.

They say there is a world in every head. So I guess we can say we are all in different worlds. Maybe it is time to get into the other’s head and relate to them.

How many times do we speak to the pocket? I am now communicating with my grandchildren on Face book. “The rents dn’t understnd, awesum dude.” My grandson writes.

I wrote back, “Who’s the rents?”

“My parents, ha, ha, ha, you’re funy grndma,” my grandson writes back. I have chatted with him more than I ever did before, even if it is in quick broken sentences with abbreviated words.

Our family had lunch with an old friend and the conversation came around to how the young people only converse through texting or face book. “They have lost the social skills of speaking to each other,” she made the comment. “How are they going to make it in the business world?”

My son-in-law responded, “Fine, they are all living in the same world and doing the same thing. We are the ones who do not belong.”

“Scary,” I thought, “They can’t even spell and they will be running the world some day, never talking, always texting.”

“Will they do more work or less?” Our friend responded.

Our son-in-law said, “Probably more. They will not be standing around the water cooler or hanging out at another employee’s desk. All the e-mailing and such is keeping the conversations short. People do not want to be on the phones, it takes too much time and too much talk.”

I went out to lunch the other day with a friend and we sat across the room from a table of four women (not girls), and all four were texting, no one was talking, everyone was engaged in their own world. We made the comment, “They haven’t said a word to each other the whole time”, and we surmised they were not really enjoying each other; they were busy looking down at their phones, making conversation with someone else. But maybe this was enjoyment to them.

Who knows? I want eye contact and good rich conversation, no prattling, and I want to look deep into another’s soul. That’s probably really nerve racking to most who do not want to be seen.

A friend came back from a large city where she attended church. She said at the end of the service, “The pastor said, ‘If any one has a prayer request, text me.’” We shake our heads, but isn’t that the way it is in today’s society? Where’s the heart-wrenching cry at the altar?

So how do we learn the art of listening when we are all talking to the pocket? I believe it takes getting into their world, hearing their heart, even if they are not hearing or talking. I am not sure how to do that, but I am trying.

Hopefully, we can be courteous and respectful where they are and they might be respectful where we are. For the young people, how can we condemn them? They know nothing else. They surely can’t appreciate sitting on the front porch swinging or hanging around the post office talking about the weather and saying nothing.

The Final Brushstroke: Don’t discount the world in another’s head; we can learn from them and them from us.

The Imaginery of Love

Spirit through the Valley


The Imaginery of Love - Destino

“Time unfolds you,” is the first line of Redeeming Time – A Tribute to Salvador Dali by Darcy Downing, poet and writer. Those three words could be used to explain a work by Dali which unfolded after his death and is considered one of his best pieces of work.

Salvador Dali, the Spanish surrealistic artist was a master of imagery. I watched a six minute short film several times, wanting more. I asked the man in charge, “Where did it come from? How can I get a copy of it? Why haven’t we seen it before? Why is it hidden from the world?”

Not only the work, but the destiny of the film itself intrigued me. The film by Salvador Dali called Destino – Destiny of Love found its own destiny after a half of a century.

This film is of the image of a burning flame melting the white waxy candle, turning drops of wax into a fluid form of a woman. She flows like a summer breeze in a soft, white, sheer gown towards the trapped man. He is encased in a solid square block unable to move. The image of a bird covers the stoic man’s heart and eventually pulls loose and flies away to look for love leaving a hole in the man’s chest. The fluid flame of the woman is drawn to the cold stone man. She finds her place in his heart and she sets him free.

This scene has many layers, the love between a man and woman, their differences and how they complete each other; it could also easily have a spiritual implication of God’s love and man’s stony heart. It shows that love has no boundaries. It can break down walls, and time can not destroy it. Love will continue it.

Walt Disney’s nephew Roy Edward Disney unearthed the dormant project in 1999 which was hid away in a vault. He decided to bring it to life and the short was completed in 2003.

Production began on this film in 1945, 58 years before its eventual completion. The storyboard by Disney studio artist John Hench and artist Salvador Dali worked for eight months in late 1945 and 1946. Disney ceased production on it because of financial concerns. The Disney Studios was plagued by many financial woes in the World War 11 era. Disney borrowed against his home to keep the studio alive. Destino was not deemed financially viable and it was put on indefinite hiatus.

The project was collaborated by American animator Walt Disney, Spanish painter surrealist Salvador Dali and it features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez.

What an odd threesome to bring an exquisite piece of art to life: Disney and his animated childlike characters, Dali with his genius artistry, and Dominguez’s recognizable music in Disney films. The three found a way to bridge their art into a work that quietly explodes in one’s heart. Great things are seldom bright and flashy and intruding, but quiet and unassuming. Destino quietly unearths the treasure in the viewer’s heart by its genius quality.

Bill Desowitz wrote in 2003, “In a dreamlike universe, a man made of stone frees himself from his mooring to go after the woman carved in his heart. In this surreal dance of love, man and woman overcome the natural abyss between them,”

Dali’s signature time piece, the melting clock, is seen in Destino. Many stories come from this image. “Time unfolds you,” Downing writes, “We are God's poetry knowing not the last sentence or phrase”. Dali died before he saw the completion of his masterpiece unfold, not knowing the last sentence written.

“Present and past meet at the window and laugh with relief,” another line of Downing’s poem. When Roy Disney found this work, Destino, he brought the present and past together, and the window that stands between diminishes in the heart of the viewer. Does the world acknowledge this piece of art to be great? No. The world will walk past, but the heart knows its greatness.

The carved woman in the man’s heart completed him. The art and passion in our hearts will play its part to complete us also. Take heart, my dear artist and writer friends, do today what you carry in your heart and it will carry your destiny, the final sentence has not been written. We are still living our story.

The Final Brushstroke! “There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few that will catch your heart. Pursue them.” Anonymous

Turn around is fair play

Since I gave Al such a hard time in a recent column, when I moved his hunting experience out of our bedroom, I thought it would be fun to write Al’s side of the story.

Gitta (Oil on Door)

Artists are passionate, but no more passionate than hunters. So this is for the hunters who read my column and dream all year of that big hunt.

Lady (Oil 24 X 35)

When a man possesses a good hunting dog, not just any old, play-around dog, but I mean one who whines and pulls at her collar at the smell of a bird that’s a good hunting dog.

I knew I had a problem when my precious gave me an ultimatum. Betty said, “I fear for our grandchildren. Gitta is dangerous. I live in constant fear of who Gitta will attack. Either Gitta goes or I go.”

I couldn’t believe my wife disliked my little German Frauline so passionately and insisted that I choose between her and my little cutie with the curly, wiry brown hair.

“Don’t be silly!” I said with authority, “Gitta is not leaving.” And she didn’t and neither did my wife. Gitta lived with us for fourteen years. My wife complained and I just continued to love my Gitta. I couldn’t let go of her any more than my wife could stop painting and writing.

Gitta wasn’t much to look at; quite ugly, in fact, her nose was plastered all over her face, but what a nose! She could sniff out anything, anytime, and anywhere. You can’t describe what goes through a hunter and his dog’s mind at the moment when the gun goes off.

Gitta was bred to hunt; she had a killer instinct lurking in her being, ready to pounce on anything that moved. Gitta vom Kervinshof had been given to me as a gift. She was from a litter of the highest breed, registered Drahthaars. Schooled, certified, papered, you name it, she had the credentials.

Not only that, she had the nose and I had a good shooting eye. We were a perfect match. My shooting eye was still as good as the day I looked down the barrel of my first shotgun - a single shot 410 - when I was just twelve years old.

No hunter wants a hunting dog that runs and hides in the closet when the gun is shot; or a dog you have to tell, “That’s what you are looking for.” Not my Gitta, she knew exactly what she was bred to do. She was fast, full of energy, intent on the “game” of hunting. She was the best hunting dog around and she was mine. She made me proud.

I will admit she was a little boisterous. A trait I had been accused of at times. In the evenings I’d invite her in just for a man-to-dog bonding time. She was not interested in bonding. She stalked the place for anything looking like a bird; she was restless, yes, it was in her, to retrieve.

She hunted with me for many years and she always brought home the game. My precious wife and my Gitta never bonded either. I couldn’t admit there was even a slight defect in my prize hunting dog. So I turned a deaf ear to my precious when she complained about her.

It was a gray day, when Gitta’s gray whiskers poked out around that beautiful big nose, a nose which never lost its sharp instinct for smelling. I held off as long as I could, cancer had eaten a hold clear through Getta’s stomach, and I had to put her to sleep. I loaded her in and out of the van. She could no longer jump into the car as she once did. I too can’t get around like I use to and I understood the pain of slowing down. Gitta and I still yearned for those days of tramping through the countryside looking for birds.

In the last days of Gitta’s life, I had to grieve alone; my wife could not understand my loss. I cried and Betty was jumping up and down in glee. I said, “I can’t live without her. She was the greatest dog I ever owned.”

My precious gave me no sympathy and said, “Thank God I lived through it.”

At the vet’s office, in the last few minutes of Gitta’s life she spotted a high bred wolf dog and in one split second, Gitta pulled at my hold, ready to fight. I yanked back on her collar and she whined with yearnings for one last win; once an alpha, always an alpha dog in heart and mind.

As I have reached this time in my life, I look back and remember when I was ready to take on anything, anytime, and anywhere. I too have been tempered, can’t do the things I used to do, but mention hunting, I’m at the end of my tether. With my gun at my side, my hunting boots on my feet, decked in camouflage from top to bottom, inside out, I’m ready to hunt.

Bright and early every Saturday morning when Turkey Call America or any other such TV show flies into my scope, I take my trusty 12 gauge and aim and for that split second it is that moment of when only a hunter and his hunting dog dream.

The Final Brushstroke: Every dog has his day. Nourish your dreams; they are what you aspire to be.

“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light, which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.” Woodrow T. Wilson