santa fe desert musings

Santa Fe is cold right now, 20 degrees in the morning, snow fall, clear skies, and steel grey evening sunsets, with a hint of orange, the house on the hill looks like a painting i saw in a gallery on canyon road, no better, my girlfriend, Julie, and i are in a gallery on canyon, Selby Fleetwood Gallery. Julie's work is figurative, like desert angels, my work is figurative, based on a lot of studies of Francis Bacon and Max Beckman, not as dark.

When the cold comes Julie sends me out to the studio with a cup of coffee and the hopes of returning later with a great painting. Sometimes it happens that way. We're surrounded by other artists' studios; you can see the lights in their studios at night like beacons. We see them and notice them but we don't know if they see us. They are all trying to make that next great piece of art just like we are. We can go for months never seeing them but we know they're there, we can feel the hum of the paint, the gears turning and see them loading paintings headed off for shows. We are a great breathing, churning art colony out here in the desert.

We have a lone bobcat that comes by our studio, he seems to appreciate abstract expression. There aren't many of us out here.
later--James Koskinas