Gallery With A Cause • Located in the New Mexico Cancer Center • Benefitting the NMCC Foundation
Please call gallery director Regina Held to arrange a private gallery tour, make a purchase, or ask any questions.
My journey as an artist has taken a multitude of paths. After 40 years as a criminal defense attorney in New Mexico, I began a new life and career as an artist. I had always painted, and much of my earlier artistic career focused on rodeos and rodeo cowboys. I retired from the practice of law in 2014, and moved from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2015, I had the good fortune to have an artistic life-changing experience. I spent six weeks in Paris, France experiencing life as a Frenchman. I walked the streets of Picasso, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh, and so many others of the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism period. And I learned one of the important lessons taught by these Masters. "Paint what inspires you, and, if luck smiles upon you, someone else might love it enough to buy it." I was determined to follow that path.
I returned to New Mexico with a new perspective. I wanted to experiment with new materials and new subjects. I wanted to see where my inspirations led. My new paintings began to focus on what I loved most about New Mexico and the Southwest. The sky has always fascinated me, both the daytime sky and the nighttime sky with its millions of stars. I began to paint Native American subjects which had been a mystery to me since my childhood in Texas. I began to feel the spirit of Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Juan Gris, Georges Braque and Albert Gleizes - whose spirit had guided me in Paris. I had always loved Cubism, and its roots with Cezanne. And it was fitting that it is now the 100th anniversary of this 20th Century art movement. Could I find the mystery of the Southwest in my paintings? Could I combine these spiritual influences, and make them my own, and like what I was painting? Could I follow the storied Southwest Modernism movement of Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Raymond Jonson, Andrew Dasburg, John Marin, and Cady Wells? Could I put all these influences together, and carve a new artistic path? Again, I am determined to try.
NO GLASS NEEDED ON MY WATERCOLOR PAINTINGS
After drying, my paintings are sprayed with at least 10 coats of an archival acrylic spray with UV protection. The surface is hard and durable.
My goal is to take you, the viewer, inside the painting by allowing you to see and experience the beauty and complexity of watercolor pigment up close with no artificial barriers (like glass or plexiglass). Using French-made Arches 300lb rough and thick watercolor paper enhances the interaction of the granulation in the pigments.
