santa fe monday morning

you've got to listen to the last notes of the song until it bleeds into silence, let the petals turn brown and fall off the flowers, keep them way past when you think you should, sit in some cafe and drink your coffee holding the mug feeling the heat of it passing through your hands before you take a sip and eat your food so slowly you think you're going fall asleep, slow down and have nothing more than intent,let your body show the way to the day, does it want to sit or get up and move, even dance, sit with yourself for awhile before you make a move, look at your woman's hands and notice how beautiful they are, there is no hurry to get to anything. it's sad i've burned up so much of my life trying to get somewhere, and spent too little time on the silence. i've spent all morning just looking at my clothes hung over a chair and drinking a cup of tea exhilerating in the feeling of the hot tea gurgling down my throat, like the sound of the sea. jgk

one eyed jack

oh jeez, the con men ,drifters, artist visionaries, putting a wolfs paw in my palm, how you doing brother, just don't ask me for nothin, art is all and if you don't mind i'll have that latte now though all ive got to pay with is this smile and i'm still yours forever dont you know and i may or may not be there when you need me but damn i'll need you to come through for me cause there's a hole the size of a dog in my roof and ill be moving in to your crib to finish my novel and that's only going to take three months, that damn women she'll be sorry ,it's got to be worth 250 thou and she knows it, but man don't bug me cause i'm a medicine man and i'm up early saying my prayers to the spirits, daddy, oh shit well i'll pay you later and im a real socialist, half of my nothing is yours and i guess i'll tell you this because i was an apache in another life time but now i'm an artist, no anarchist, they should tear it all down ,no an indian chief and i can't, i'v e got drunk relatives in the back yard bedeviling me, oh man don't hold me to my word, cause there is no word, only words, it's like the wind man, dig it, i'll sign the damn thing only, i may have to spend the money on a good cause, yes i know, you'll wait, the weather changes, the shadows look kinda real and that's just the law of the land here, whatever was it sure ain't now and i can't help that, just let me borrow whatever it is you have, i said borrow. brother, i'm a shaman, ya know... jgk

what is beauty?

I got in an argument at a party last week with another artist M, about what was beauty. she adamently argued there was only one kind of art that was valid, old russian masters, artists she said who knew how to paint, and "I hate Picasso". i said hell Picasso was one great draftsman, and she said he'd done some good works when he was younger, this meaning before he became a cubist and the later Picasso, and i don't paint like you either jamie, i paint like the Russian masters. I asked, you mean you don't like any of the expressionists, the Cobra movement, karel appel, asgar john, george basilitz, anselm kiefer? oh you mean the german neo expressive dullards, oh course not, garbage she replied. we were interupted by a well meaning neighbor, mr S who said something i forgot before i had a chance to launch a reply. later in the week i was looking at fashion magazines in the book section at DTS and i noticed every model in every magazine looked exactly alike. exactly the same concept of what was beautiful in a woman. the magazines sang this is beauty, the beauty society has declared as beauty and if you don't look like this you're not beautiful and well, go buy something to make yourself look like this. M's way, one way. Look, every society has done the same thing, the mayans flatened their heads, tattoed themselves, the japenese bound feet etc, etc. o.k. but we never see traces of any of this other beauty in our cultures idea of beauty, there's only one way, like the artist M's idea of art, the old masters european model. To the conquerers goes beauty. sunday I was at the brothers getting my coffee and i looked over my shoulder and noticed this guy in a black sports coat, nice coat i said looking at the fiber, corderoy, he said and then i noticed his face, dark, very wide, high cheek bones, large ears and short hair, very indigenous , no trace of an acccent when he spoke and i was struck by the picture of the two images, one image i'd seen in the bay area every day, a young executive type in a natty coat off to work, but the face in the coffee shop didn't fit the picture of what i'd been used to seeing in that natty coat. I almost poured the coffee on the floor. see, even i had gotten used to looking in one way of how reality was supposed to be. i'd stereo typed my business executive. part of the problem is that's mostly all i'd ever seen before, that one way, the old european masters portrait of a young business executive. when julie and i took a trip to mexico we went in to a book store and bought art books on mexican artists we'd never heard of before, Chuco reyes, Lebeya, other great artists, and i said why haven't i ever heard of these people before, i've been robbed, kept away from these artists, cheated out of their vision of beauty. there's another party this weekend and M the artist has been invited, i've been planning my rebutal argument all week, and here's how it will end, with me exclaiming, so you're saying if i don't paint like the old russian masters and like you, there's absolutely no place for a painter like me and what you're really saying is i don't even exist. if you can't see it then it doesn't exist. man, that's arrogance. jgk

where hawks dare

When I was deep in the construction trades, up early every morning either out on the job or out looking for work, many mornings I’d be escorted to the day by a covey of hawks who would circle my truck and then follow me along my back road and then peel off before the freeway and head back to the trees in the hills behind my house. One or more hawks would fly over my truck in ever increasing circles and I’d remark, we're going hunting together. I used to get so much satisfaction in those days imaging myself as a great hunter, and the hawks were my allies in this endeavor, the natural world and I uniting as one. I thought i'd be out in the field forever, reveling in the powerful feeling of using my body to bring into existence something that hadn’t been there before. Make no bones about it, construction is a hard and dangerous business, I have the scars to prove it, they run along my body like a map of my life out there. You work like a dog, you work fast and you work past the limits of whatever you think you’re capable of and that's when it's dangerous, and your working all the time, day in day out, month after month, year after year. You have a perpetual tan, your muscles get hard and your mind becomes clear and you’re in sync with the seasons, you feel the warmth of the coming spring and the cold bite of winter, but you get used to it, grow to love it, you’re in the natural environment, you’re where you belong. I truly felt I was part of that endless tide of lifes cycle . The hawks would confirm this for me. They would be waiting in the oak tree outside my house when i started up my truck in the morning, I would feel the nip of the early chill , my saws, hammers , level, and all my other tools, ranging from demolition to finish work, were placed in their proper positions, shined and oiled ready for the workday ahead. I had my hawk’s blessings. If I didn’t have work that day I would travel up and down the county line scouting out jobs, talking to store owners, realtors, random strangers, confident, and determined I would find some work before I would come home. The law of the hunt was this, never come home until you had something, no matter how long it took, how far you had to drive, you had to have a job to go to, whatever it took. I did this for years until it became so ingrained in me that there was never any doubt I would come home to my hawks with something. A man alone with his instincts, loving the mystery and romance of it all, ready to test myself against the day. These are the times that made me, when I would find myself part of the natural world, waiting for the adventures ahead. The hawks and I playing in the fields .jgk

one day in santa fe

early a.m. phone call to my gallery owner in atlanta, i've got these paintings available you can have, 8 more on the way, i'll jpeg those to you and hand the phone to julie who has her question and answer period and the owner wants Julie's figurative work right now and no abstracts, thank you'll we'll be in touch and she liking my new figures wanting something different for her clients instead of that uptown thing she did before. ok with me. and then i call this gallery in NYC and tell them I'm not interested and the assistant sounding like she died on the other end when i said no thank you, and then i've got to make two more phone calls to my contact in town and say i was running late and then off to the space where i showed it to J who dug it for the antique trunk show he was having. he and his girl friend used to run a yoga center on the island of saba in the caribbean, and him an ex detroit auto designer who burned out and had a life threatening illness and then became a therapist. he and i talking about our paths meeting now and me having had a similar story which i may tell later but the pertinent part is my illness got me painting again which is what i'm doing. J. and the girlfriend are going to central america after the big sale to build a healing center, and me being an ex- builder also i said dang, i'd come down and help out, teach the natives how to build and he took our little contract off to read it at home with a parting beautiful space and then i call julie and tell her the heater in the space is working fine and i'm off to see wilem at cloud cliff cafe and discuss my play idea. when i get to cloud cliff wilem is in the attic of the kitchen doing some repairs and i say i'll get a cup of coffee, be right with you and oh yes i parked the truck at my old gallery across the street now closed and doing business at home and read the posted sign out front which said closed but we're going to reopen at the railyard later. strange to see the space closed. julie and i having a number of great shows there. i'm drinking my decaf waiting for wilhem and big mac comes in , one of my clients and buddies and we decide to have lunch together. big mac is a very literate guy, smart, a writer, so i tell him the problem i'm having with my play and he listens and comes up with some good ideas and then lunch comes, him a curry dish and me a chicken sandwhich and then wilem comes out and sits down and i'm telling him the problems with my play idea and then i start telling the play and it gets very emotional, wilem with good ideas and support, and i'm feeling a lot better about it and then big mac says you've got a lot of good issues there, but you've got a tiger by the tail and wilem says he'll put me in touch with some people, then i realize the enormity of the project. Damn jamie what have you bit off? just then my director comes in and sits at the table next to us, i'll see you in class, ok and then i get up and big mac pays the whole tab. i'm thanking him when i see A the artist having lunch and i go say hello and exchange the usual art small talk, where are you showing, oh serbia, and i'm going, and then A says she can't talk, which is usually how all our conversations end up. ps forgot the one hour rap with my buddy blind joe the photographer at his studio prior to lunch that went something like this, my art, his art, money, refinance, down sizing, him back from south africa, surfing, taxes, galleries, can he help me with our with my space, have you seen cyril he's changed but he's still afraid of you, the cellist michael kott being a true artist, checking out my new work, dig it, not that yellow and julie's work looks like cave paintings he took pictures of in south africa, and could i leave a flyer? and he gave me a cd of his new album when i left and then I went and bought jule some fresh chocolate at chocolate maven, drove home gave the chocolate to her and went out and painted for four hours. just your average day in santa fe. jgk

no stranger to the road

i was no stranger to the road by this time, i'd been out with freidrick, the road king i called him. he was this big german kid who'd come to see america, hitch hiking all over the country by himself and by the time i meet him down in mexico he spoke pretty good english. i was hiking out of baja the first time i ever saw him in a old vw bus that he'd painted by hand, an ugly unknown greenish color. he pulled up along side me and in this german accent asked me if i wanted a ride. when i got in i took a good look at him and was immediately struck with how big he was. his hands were huge, they held the steering wheel as if it were a saucer, he had long blond hair down to his shoulders and his face was all angles and the nose long and sharp, almost touching the postage stamp of the windshield, the bus seemed much too small for him, rather looking like a green turtle shell on his back and he was so wide i had to lean hard pressed against my door to fit in at all. We broke down a couple of miles down the road right after he picked me up and we had to leave the bus, pushing it behind a sand dune, the ugly green top poking out behind the dunes and then both us set out to hitching together across the border and into san diego. friedrick told me he'd been to every state in the union by then which if it were true would have been pretty amazing because we were both only twenty years old at the time. we hitched all the way up the coast of california having good luck with the rides and due to freidrick's deft and skilfull manuvering on and off the freeways. i started to believe his stories about being in every state and over the years of us traveling together would come to know it absolutely. so we hitched up the coast and the weather was good as it was early summer and we went all the way up to santa cruz which was where i was living at four mile beach, set up in a cave. we moved into the cave and decided to join forces and get some money together and go back and get friedrick's vw bus in baja, freidrick having some knowledge of cars having gone to a trade school in Munich before getting wanderlust. friedrick ended up gettting a job in downtown santa cruz in the Bug Shop repairing vws for these guys called the Smith brothers, two really low down looking dudes along with some mechanic named scorch, a short pug faced fellow who looked liked he was born covered in grease and lived out back of the quonset hut shop in a broken down camper. i was a gardener, mowing lawns, raking leaves, trimming trees and bushes and it was a neat trick considering i had no truck no car to get around town. we camped out in my cave at four mile beach that i had inherited from this artist from san francisco who painted these little tourist scenes of boats and wharfs and whatnot. we had a nice campfire and a big iron skillet to cook in, friedrick was a master at cooking potatoes, and making a big pot of beans we ladled onto tortillas. we got some money together after a few months, and i kept thinking was the vw bus still there after all this time, wouldn't someone have found it by now? finally having enough of the Smith brothers, this meaning friedrick having done most of the work while brother A and brother B smoked dope and Scorch did the oil changes, friedrick quit and we pooled our money, picked up friedrick's new vw engine that he'd bought and rebuilt the whole time he'd been at the bug shop, me having cleaned every part by hand with a toothbrush and solvent and friedrick putting the engine together in due course, i called it german engineering. we hauled the engine down to the freeway one late summer day, and we were off and set out back down to Mexico. at this point there was absolutely no doubt the vw bus was there, we were on a mission. we hitched down the length of california with the engine, which we named lolita and when we got down as far as Rosarita beach just over the border from san diego, friedrick meet janice a college girl from santa barbara in a bar where we were drinking, and she falling in love with him and now we were three. we had deposited lolita out in front of the bar where she drew quite a crowd to her gleaming shiny metal presence including the drunk Diego, who being fascinated with her, consented to give us a ride down the coast in his chevy pickup truck, repeating over and over, i jus don't believe it, friedrick and janice in the front with diego drinking Tecates and me in the back with lolita and we all went down the coast and without any problem and located the ugly green lost bus, and friedrick and i pulled out the old engine, replacing it with the lovingly reconstucted lolita and damn, gosh, lo and behold, the bus fired up on the second try and we were off, waving to diego who was shaking his head having i'm sure never seen anything like this in his life, and leaving the old discarded motor out there in the sand dunes. it's probably still there after all these years. we spent three great days camped out on the beach playing in the surf and friedrick and i having a footrace marathon up and down the beach, janice being our scorekeeper, friedrick finally winning on the third day, 37 to 36, and we ate a lot of bean burritos, drank beer and had giant bonfires on the beach at night, finding huge caches of driftwood thrown up on the beach. the best times are the times when you're young and you don't know any better. jgk

dirty water

coming out of north africa with freidrick the german on an old BSA motorcyle i named the witch because she had a habit of breaking down at the worst possible moments and she didn't let us down, finally wheezing to an oily finale, throwing a rod somewhere in afganistan. we walked for miles coming to a broken down lorry, the driver sitting along side the road smoking a pipe which is where we all sat for the next three days, and lay under the truck when it rained waiting for a ride. i had to clean myself in dirty water, and we had nothing to eat. we just sat and waited and threw stones across the road and periodically freidrick would go over and try to kick start the bike. the point of the story is sometimes you do have to clean youself with dirty water, make the best of it while you're waiting for something else to come along. i was really good at that when i was young, because i didn't have any money, i had to learn to get by, be patient, see what came down the road. eventually another truck came by and we left the witch along side the road, and the truck driver that picked us up had some food he shared and we ate. i had gotten to know the underneath of that truck we slept under pretty well and i was sorry to see it go, it had keep us dry. the witch, well she'd was another story and i'd love to say she was an adventure, and she had been a sort of transportation but she mostly broke my back. but i'm grateful to her, she taught me a valuable lesson, you never know when something bad is going to become something good. bless you witch. it's a good line for a blues song i think, i like the sound of it, you've got to clean yourself in dirty waaater, yeah baby. jgk

georgia was here first

This a continuation on a theme and I know it, but it’s one of those that keeps popping up in my life here as part of the flot sam jet sam of the great new mexico river that runs through us all. “We’re all independent people,” my friend victoria said, just after I told her she was one of those strong willed women who populate santa fe, and just after she told me there wasn't enough mud on my red truck. It must be the zeitgiest of santa fe, a spirit that permeates the mud city, floating like a halo over the moutains, you can't really define or capture what this mystery is and of course you're not supposed to but i see it tangibly in front of my face daily. all i have to do get is get in the red truck and go somewhere and there they are, I meet these women , and i won’t mention their names because they might think I’m doing a research project , but I’m not, rather I’m paying them my deep respects. new mexico is filled with beautiful strong willed, feisty, powerful, artistic, talented, business owners, house painters, trades women, tile setter women, writers, dancers, mothers, photographers, hikers, builders, sailors, chefs, visionaries, gallery owners, and I’m rubbing shoulders with these women daily, they’re all over santa fe, making it happen , and a lot of them going it alone without a man. Alone in a man’s world. That’s a saying. Maybe it’s always been like that here but it’s not what I’m used to seeing in the world I came from, the states, over the adobe curtain, the men were out in front, at least that’s all I ever saw, the wives were the supporters, and this is generalizing, most of the single women I met were looking for a man to do something for them, they would deny this of course, but that ‘s my experience. Not here, these new mexican women seem to love themselves. look I’m not saying they don’t have men or don’t want one, but they don’t seem to be dying for the lack of one, they’ll go on with the wind in their face, georgia o’keefe lived alone in a mud house in the desert in abiqui at ghost ranch and had to be dragged to town. maybe it’s a tradition in new mexico that if you're a woman and you're here, you're a pioneer, a risk taker, one of the women run their own galleries, paint, take photos, remodel houses, and for someone who has gone it alone much of his life and knows how hard that is and having run my own business it’s well, simply amazing . as one of them said to me, I prefer it that way. What a statement, I’ve never heard it said with such absolute conviction. Most men would run from it, but I found it very sexy. why these women could be my equal, no surpass me, be better men in the field, tougher, captains of their own industry and apologetic to no one, what a novel and fresh idea. goddess warriors standing their own ground, independent and competent, a good woman in the field. God, better than most men I’ve known . I really want to say all their names right now you , you, you , you , you , and you, it’s with the deepest respect I bow and say glad to know you. So what’s the point of knowing this? Am I making some statement about women and men, or about myself? Well it doesn’t take anything away from me, I’m still who I am, it simply adds to the richness of life’s experience, and I’ve discovered something new and amazing, there’s women out here who can do all the things I’ve come to expect out of myself and they can do just as well. Damn, now that’s a discovery. it gives me a great sense of freedom, I can look at myself through their eyes and find camaraderie. i'll keep you posted on their doings. Jgk

colors more colors

Color, more color


you never know when the floodgates are going to come loose, painting is like holding on to the the reins of a horse, or hunting big game, you never know when something is going to fall into your trap. A hunter needs his gun and his instincts, a painter needs his brushes and instincts, the more you’re holding your brushes, the greater the chance it’s going to happen, a painting I mean. Look, for a painter like me, and I mean an expressionist, a dude who can’t paint the same painting twice, I’ve got to be in the studio firing the paint on all the time. This doesn’t mean making art is purely chance, sometimes it is, I curry this, it’s like throwing the runes, or divination, I’ve got to throw the paint on, it’s got to be moved around, I’ve got to follow the paint, romance it if it were, interact with it and follow. Of course you’ve got to be in some control, but maybe it’s more like being with the moment, being in the moment, you and the paint doing this fabulous tango together, you’ve got some technique but at some point the technique becomes absorbed in the whole dance, yeah you’ve moving with your partner, and the music, and it’s up to you to make the dance come to life, to become majestic. All the elements forming the dance . No technique, and you have no form, but to much technique and not enough passion, you've got a lifeless and stiff dance with no soul. It’s never going to be uniquely yours, your voice. That’s it for me, I just can’t preconceive what’s going to come out of me. One of the things I almost always remark after a successful day of painting is “I can’t believe I painted that.” Let me say it again, GAWD, I CANT BELIEVE EYE PAINTED THAT! Is that loud enough for you. If I get in the way of whatever this thing is, this creativity, no, my creativity, then whatever I paint is boring, dull, and lifeless. Believe me I get in my own way all the time and head down the wrong road , and spend two days painting like someone else, well just not like me and I have to grab myself by the throat and paint that sucker out, out spot , out you painting that’s not me. When the work is happening I’m not in charge, I’m moving with the flow, it’s sounds corny but it’s not, it’s fundamental. You see the best thing you can be is yourself, completely totally you, well me and no one else and don’t ever try to . It’s tricky because you’ve got to look at other artists, it’s how you learn. van gogh, gaugin, god how I love them, love their colors, I eat their colors, but I’ve got to let them go at some point and look, as painters we all know how great they are but we’ll never be them and you’ve got to take a chance, the biggest chance you'll ever take in your whole life, the chance to be yourself. Being yourself means knowing yourself, what your strengths are, no more it's much more than this, it's knowing yourself inside out, what am I made off, what do I feel like, who am I? And trusting what that is, what james k is, is great enough and working with that whole thing that is you. Burn out doubt, trust your hand, trust your own knowing, no one else’s. it’s the only way, it’s the painter’s way, your own unique wonderful way. Damn, I did that? No, DAMN, I DID THAT! JGK

The Promise--episode one

My 40 foot ketch the kitiwake was rocking against the pier in Grand Bahama and woke me up. it was sunday morning and i could hear the rigging bouncing against the mast in the slight breeze. i got out of my bunk and walked aft, past edwardo and dark john in their bunk. i shook edwardo and said, we've got to go, let's go and he moaned and rolled over. whaat, he said, with, a foggy voice. nothing, i replied, and climbed up into the cockpit of the boat, nothing, never mind. i had a promise to keep and i was going to keep it, you two slackers can stay asleep i said out loud and climbed off the deck and onto the dock. Grand Bahama was still asleep, the little harbor filled with sailboats of all sizes, and i looked at the Kitiwake, a pale robin's egg blue against the dark green of the harbor water. she had limp torn sails on her masts, the turnbuckle on my bowsprint was shorn off, the reason we put in here on our way up the Florida coast, the topside a pile of gear and line tangled and messy, debris from the storm lay along side beer cans, and my diesel was a wheezing asthmatic of an engine, having failed to start when we needed it most, almost resulting in our being cleeved in half by a freighter as we lay becalmed at night in the Bermuda Triangle. we were lucky to have made it this far, having set out from St. Thomas in the fall at the height of hurricane season, headed for Barbadoes and being lost instead in a huge storm and blow into the Bahamas. lucky or delivered, either way i was going to make sure i kept my promise. i walked past the other yachts in the harbor and noticed they all looked in better shape than mine, and myself i must have looked a sight after two months at sea, long shoulder length windblown hair, skin dark, no shirt, ragged jeans, and sandals. a dead sea turtle lay on it's back in the cockpit of a power boat, and i shook my head at the sight of it and headed out of the harbor, past the hotel and the outdoor bar. it never failed to amaze me that there were people bellying up that early for a snort, but this was the islands and everyone drank and i knew as soon as they woke up from last nights revere, that's where edwardo and dark john would be, knocking back some beers and trying to pick up college girls. God what crew we were. i should say what a crew we weren't, hell we should'nt have even been out here, no way, not ever. well, we should have had a lot more sailing experience, still even then to be honest, i'm no sailor, i get ferociously seasick, and though i love being in the water, me being a great swimmer, was no qualifier for being at sea. i'd never sailed anywhere before and edwardo had never been on a boat until he showed up one day from Ohio, standing on the dock in front on the Kitiwake announcing his arrival. dark john was a Virgin Islander from Antigua with a stutter and a mean streak we picked up off a boat he was 86'd and pressed some money in his hand to teach us how to sail and he sort of did barking orders here and there, we stuttered our way through his lessons, and arrogance, and in due course after a couple of passes around the island, and then a small passage to Tortola on a moonlite night, we thought we were ready for our maiden voyage and ready to sail to NYC, up the Atlantic seaboard. Oh god, i guess if you're going to make a mistake, make a big one. dark john talked a great game , snorting and throwing his head back, showing his big white horse teeth, telling us how he'd sailed to columbia and back by himself and he had, only later we found out he'd sunk his owner's sloop on the way back, having to much sail on for high winds and i think someone told me this just as we were leaving Charlote Aamlie harbor, and i either didn't want to believe them or it was a case of well what do i do now and it already late in the season and me having quit my job with the native construction company and being stuck with edwardo and generally sick of the island, i must thought, i'ts time to go and dark john full of his bravado and swagger, stuttering, i'm a great captain and what not. it was fool hardy, and i had a bad feeling about it at the dock fueling up with diesel. we'd find out soon enough what we were in for. To be continued------

no ordinary plumber

Jamie, you’re writing a play here, this is more like a novel, totally captivating, it drew me in and I couldn’t wait to hear the ending, but its’s not a play. He looked like a French cavalier with a van dyke beard and longish gray hair, with these intense blue eyes, he is after all, he says, intense. Look Jamie you’re dealing with a very deep powerful subject here when you’ve talking about war, remember no one really wants to here about it, they don’t care about suffering, your suffering, you’ve to draw them into this magical place so they can’t get out and then you leave them whipped in the isles, make your dialogue terse, cut it to the bone, your actors won’t be able to remember this long of a monologue, you’re the playwright anyway, you’re not going to be doing this yourself . help your actors out, give them something so they’re able to bring their own emotions and feelings into the piece , and by the way we’ll put on that faucet for you tomorrow, ten am. Don’t forget, it’s an 8 inch wall mounted faucet, you may have to go to Dahl plumbing to get it, and with that he gave me a hard knuckle to bone goodbye and nodding at me went out to his truck.

my impatience their incompetence

four items to remember on one of the most important days of the year, for our state, and for our country. election day, the primaries to decide who runs for next president of the united states, the most powerful, important person in the world. four items, the voter register list, a pen, the box to put the ballot and the ballot, and a simple one at that, fill in one box, and go home, only they ran out of ballots and we had to wait while someone ran off to arroyo hondo to get more , but wait, the rumor in the line is arroyo hondo is out of ballots also. julie and i got inside out of the cold and snow but there was a long line of eldorado-ians stuck outside waiting. just how long was the wait, not to long, two volunteers came in with extra ballots and we moved on. don't they know that el dorado votes at higher than 70%, of course they do unless they're asleep. how did this happen? didn't anyone count last year's register list, add up the numbers, add on say 20% for some error and at the very least have some sort of back up plan, like whose got an extra copy machine. hey i do, i'd have volunteered the use of it to preserve democracy and our way of life, i would have even baked cookies if they'd asked me to, but heck i had to get to the gym and then pickup a movie , go home for my shortribs. i'll bet the governor had a ballot, and not a zerox copy either. jgk

heading out

twenty feet and there's the dirt road, twisting through the cactus, duck under a juniper, and there you are, the open road. you climb a gradual slope and then come to the top of the hill, and you've got a choice to make, straight ahead leads you out into the desert, turn right and it's along the top of the canyon, a two mile circuit, but if you feel strong and want more you bushwhack across the up and down countryside, sliding and slipping on the stone and rock, find a little used trail and keep heading southeast towards the Lamy train station, past a ranch that heads down into a canyon, barking dogs come out to greet you, they're friendly, but what a ruckus, yelping away a quiet hike, no wonder the indians kept dogs around ,there's no way to get within a half a mile of them, no matter, the rancher lets us cut through his property, his ranch in a clearing surrounded on one side by cliffs, with some interesting rock formations. we climb up, skidding on the sandstone, small caves, erosion cuts into the cliffs adding to the strangeness of the place. we call them indian caves but they're not, maybe some animals could live in the small holes, still it gives us great delight to sit on top of the cliffs and imagine we were an indian, and being alone here, it adds to the wonder and magic of the place. we sit for awhile taking it all in, it's the same as it was a hundred years ago, i pick up a stone, has another hand picked it up, noticed the curve? certainly other eyes have seen the same hills, stood up here, headed down the draw for an evening walk, or a hunt for rabbits. i'm not foolish enough to think i'm the only one who's been here. continue down the draw and you come to the train tracks and you've got another decision to make, you can forge on in to Lamy itself and to the train station and into the town, or you can shorten your trip by turning back and bushwhacking the way you came , climb and scramble up hill and head home that way, or follow the tracks up to the highway and head over the pass until you come to our road, Old Road South, and turn off the main road, highway 285. If you choose to head to Lamy, a typical northern new mexican town, the required church, the mix of decent adobes and semi falling ones, with 10 cars, 2 of which work, the rest modern sculpture, and a horse, or burro, dogs and assorted junk which adds pure flavor, and then make it to the station itself and stand on the tracks alone, you're transported to another time. stand on the tracks amigo, take off your hat and look north and south, it could be any western you've ever seen. high noon, 310 to yuma. i love train stations, that feeling of going somelace, the romance of leaving and returning, coming home, but don't tarry too long, you've got a long hike out of town, past that closed church in disrepair, past the old saloon, the Legal Tender, it's shut down too, and hike two miles down the long narrow road out of town, another vision right there to be chewed on, its not just a road, it's the road of life and you'll have time to think about it because you'll battle a head wind all the way home, up the pass and you better be in shape, or the pass will suck the life out of your lungs, eight miles round trip or thereabouts and then home to sit on the back porch with a beer or margarita, and you take stock of where you've been. it's right out the back door amigo, and think of all the characters you've just become, an indian, a cowboy, a traveler on a train, a searcher, a climber, a spiritual wanderer, a lonesome hero walking into the sunset down a long road and the views you've seen, blue sky meeting your hat, boots on the grey road, rust colored earth, veridian trees, the soft clay cliffs leaving scars of your climb, the shiny miles of tracks, a listing church, the saloon, shutters falling off, oh those honky tonk nights, with that little missy from Lamy, a long kiss under the full moon, your old red truck, waiting like a steed, hank williams on the radio and heading home. damn the next nice day i'm heading out, twenty steps and i'm on the road. i'm gone. jgk

home cooking

The brothers’ breakfast café on sundays is our church. We call it the brothers because three brothers own and run it, they’re there everyday, smiling, rain, or snow. We’ve run all over this town looking for the perfect breakfast and there are many good places, but we always return to the brothers. julie says they have the best coffee, but its something else we’ve decided. On one hand you can say its only bacon and eggs, and toast, anybody ought to be able to do a decent job, but after so many meals around town we’ve come up with our own litmus test, the food must not only fill up your body, it must fill up your soul and it must keep you full for hours. The brothers fulfills this most basic test. We don’t know how it works but it does. The service is spotty but cheerful, and the place gets crowded, long lines, hustle and bustle, your order can get lost in the endless flow of eggs, bacon, toast, rolls, home fries and you can end up waiting forty minutes and may have to go back and ask where’s my food, once or twice, but ultimately your order will come and you may get a brothers surprise, 4 eggs instead of 2, and a pile of crisp bacon that must have been cooked for the whole table and the kind of coffee so good you can’t make it yourself that good no matter how hard you try. How does this happen? We don’t know, but we ask ourselves this question over and over after we get tired of the place and try another, but guilty we always come back. I call it the proletariat mess hall, the people mobbing in like russian emigres , a wild looking crowd , long hair, mismatched patchwork clothing, beards, rough hands, bad makeup, wools caps poking at the ceiling and an almost feral milling around, everyone jostling for tables, our orders. The walls are a bright yellow, housing lots of local art. Some sundays this guy shows up and plays 10 notes on a trumpet and announces, lets have a hand for the cooks and we all laugh and clap... . We’ve decided its as much about the atmosphere as much as the food, something happens in there, we come out feeling all warm and homey, its as if you’ve been eating in your moms kitchen,and we all know mom didn’t always make the perfect meals, but it was home, and maybe that’s what they’ve captured there, not just the feeling of home..it is home, its their home and our home and they love it and do the best they can, as mom did and those of us who eat there know this and we overlook our orders being late, because just like home we know its all about love. And the coffee julie says. Jgk

the early years

the first studio, a garage with plaster walls, and black floors and a wood stove and tracklights, white footprints painted down the alley walk, letting the world know i was here, a sandwich board sign singing out in front, art for sale, i'm here, jamie is here. early am coffee at DTS the local most famous hip meeting place in the universe, all the writers, artists, actors, hey that's ali and tommy lee and gene h comes in in a slouch hat but don't bug me man this is santa fe and it's cool to not be famous even though you are, and we don't care every one is famous here and i've got my rat pack, patrick fitch the art dealer from hawaii, billy the writer and michael b, traveler and klaus kinski look alike, and victoria the photographer, and stevie m, the remodel king, and stacy the artist builder, and the conversation hot and thick ranging from art to music to travel, to writing to women to camping out and reading art mags and the coffee flowing almost but not quite as fast as the rap and then Mar back from hollywood and anyone else who wanders into our fly trap, pass the chocolate, and the noise rising and reeling ,the real church i call it, fitch and i are the princes, us being there everyday, we are the poets, tribesmen, fitch dressed in alfani hip and come on sit down what do you have to say? and i'm letting everyone know i've arrived, the savant artist is here, i'm here, jamie is here and Mar telling off someone he calls euro trash and eddie g getting in a fight with some guy in the parking lot over a bike and the cops coming and who is the best artist in town? and did you see that guys show and being dissed by artist L who won't talk to me and everday patrick fitch and me holding court. Damn, patrick i need another coffee, how about you?

santa fe and adobe

if i had to say something definitive about new mexicans, i'd say we are driven by our passions rather than making money. it's a joke out here that a job is just something we do that gets in the way of us living life. it's an obvious answer when you realize there's almost 20 thousand artists living and working here out of the 75 thousand total population. this number changes the balance of the whole soul of the place. it must be the highest percentage per population on the planet, and throw in the assorted shamans, healers,alternative health centers, yoga studios, inventors, green party, left over hippies, spiritual communes, writers, it must up the ante even more, making this huge a stew of floating creativity. how could any one work when we have so much art to make, plays to write, ideas to put forth? new mexicans are also fiercely independent, resourceful and funloving, and ultimately survivors, finding ways to live their lives in an economy where there doesn't always appear to be one. well that's not entirely true, we have some new homes being built, the restaurants, and of course the tourists, but these seem like small industries when you compare them to California's giant business engine, and it takes a certain getting used to in being able to live here. i was in the post office one day and this guy was telling joe the postmaster, joe i'm leaving, i'm moving back to Philadelphia, i'm going back to the united states, and joe responded, oh, you're coming out from behind the adobe curtain. and it is all adobe here, adobe in all shades, all colors, adobe, new and old and a hundred years old, santa fe being america's oldest city. new adobe, cracked adobe, patched adobe, falling down adobe, the supporting cast of brick streets, muddy roads, and everything brown, austere. it seems tibetans love it here. we have a whole mini tibet working at cloud cliff bakery. you either like adobe or you don't. to me there's something comforting about it, the houses look like giant loaves of warm bread, and the stuff is durable and cheap. i've seen it cracked, battered, almost falling down and yet holding together to form a wall or what resembles a wall and all you have to do is mix some more and add, its the recipe for life in santa fe. we invite the broken, the imperfect, our eye turns it into beauty. when stucco gets old it takes on a patina, a coloring, and you can tell its age from the patching, the knitting and kneeding done to the walls over the years and it then takes on a beautiful aged rustic look, and it has the most wonderful round feminine corners. stucco is applied by hand with trowels and is very unique and individual, it takes on the signature of its applicator, and to me there's nothing more wonderful than a team of plaster men gliding the stucoo on walls like butter on bread, the trowel, the hand and stucco as one. a good plasterer can put it on faster than it can be mixed, and still be resting while waiting for the next batch. its a thing of beauty and i love to get a coffee and stand across the street watching a whole crew mixing, climbing, troweling the stuff on the walls, a giant moving creative dance of the grey stuff. plaster speaks to me, its earthy, rich and sensous, it's durable, and highly flexible, you can mold it into any shape you can imagine and it will last forever, each plaster artist adding his handprint as its applied over the years. that's its beauty, you can see the hand of the maker in it. jgk

painting is as painting does

I haven't painted for awhile, been writing on my play, the show in LA, cracked ribs, the flu, a cold and lingering cough has kept me away from the studio, and how ironic, what i've wanted is happening, galleries are beckoning, there's a new atlanta gallery. the studio dark and quiet lays await, she knows i've been gone and she knows there's no days off from creating, most of the times you've got to clean yourself with dirty water, that's a blues man's saying that painting doesn't come easy, it never has, and never will. for every one good painting i've done i've destroyed 2 or 3 or 4. i forget that, the pain of nothing happening , yet you must face it, the possibility of all that time spent and being left with a big mess, but there's no excuses, no perfect day, tired or not, nicked up, lazy, don't want to, i'd rather do this, no way, you've got to serve your talent, wait too long, it can all go away you;ve got to be alone to do the masterworks, you've got to put your time in and time in and time in. john coltrane played every day, heroin addiction or not and you've got to and you've got to paint like it's your last gig. today i ended up with that brown mess and the same feeling that goes with it, the same question, will i ever do anything good again, will i be able to paint? and as much as it hurts to answer that question, i'll be back out there. it's what we do.jgk

cowgirl on the beach

she looked like the figurehead on the bow of a ship, and she was wearing a cowboy hat,a black sweater hung down around her like an oil slick and a summer crepey dress went down to her toes. it was all of twenty degrees out, literally, and on her feet were a pair of those rubber sandals, the kind you wear on the river to scurry across rocks and wade in water, and i looked twice, no socks, the white of her ankle almost shocking. me wearing my flight boots, leather biker coat, gloves, three pairs of long johns, a scarf tied around my neck. she was in the salad section when i first saw her, and we both ended up in the meat department, the hull of her big body sliding next to me, her face lined from the weather, the cowboy hat sticking off her head like a bowsprit, when i said, i cant stand to be cold, much less my feet, and she answered me in an english accent, i have hot feet. oh my god. im roaring with laughter. we re in santa fe. the land of eccentrics. i went over to the mirror in the frozen food section and looked at myself. you look julie said, pure santa fe, jeans with paint spots , brown leather flight boots, a wool sweater with moth holes and more paint spots, a hoodie poking out of the sweater, the black biker jacket with the scarf tied low on the neck, and my silver goatee. pure santa fe, pure artist. if my father could only see you now julie said, he'd what? i said. where do they come from? the characters, the broken, the lost, the dreamers, the shipwrecked foolish, hopeless romantics that life, ah life, has washed up upon the desert shores. what are we, the sockless, that make our way here? in the winter, as of now, it's a cold austere place, all earth tones, the freeze hangs over us, we complain but we stay, others go. does santa fe choose us more than we choose it, is it alive the desert, do the pantheist gods decide our fate by what we've done before we come? what works back in the world doesn't work here. the street whispers, the rope goes up, the rope goes down, santa fe chooses you. what does this mean? all i can say is the place throws you back on yourself, theres no where to go. its the inner journey, as my friend kai says, tapping his big chest, it's all in here, and if you can't face yourself and dont really, and i mean blood deep, really want to be here, need to be here, must be here, and love the hardships, the austerity, the loneliness inside youself as well as the beauty of the summers, the brilliant sunshine, the people in the watering holes, the art, the potential and the struggle of creation, santa fe will find you. the spirits will show you a way out and you'll go. the endless tide of the desert sands will pile up against your soul, against your car, the snow will come, the ice will hide and bite and your own needs, nay weaknesses will come and sit like ghosts and you'll be gone without a party, a celebration. the rest of us are too busy dealing with what we have to do to stay. it's a rocky business. santa fe, how i love thee, i feel thy embrace, you've given my soul shelter and challenged me, rewarded me for parts of myself i thought were dead, and i never knew were there. my arms have grown strong, my back is straight and i want my bones here in the same arroyo along with cochise. jgk

the art wars

Harrys. im digging into a pizza made by jesus, julie into chili chicken dish, ditto jacko, what about this negative art review about x, jacko asks, yeah well julie says zv gave him a negative review, it sparked some dialouge in the local art magazine. such as? well some readers response was really positive, i mean to the critique, that too much of the work here is soft and played out. ill bet x doesnt care, jacko said, hes making a ton of money, thats something altogether different i chime in, ripping off a junk of pizza and getting warmed up, i mean x can sell all the work he wants but a reviewer can says whatever they want. julie, says, its the only really negative review weve ever seen here, all the other reviews are over ridingly positive, even if we think the work is commerical and decorative, i thought it was a breath of fresh air. well jamie, jacko asks what do you think of x s work? compared to some japenese minimilist sculpture ive seen in washington dc, not much, its purely decorative, a replacement on a wall for a trophy fish or a lions head. it goes to show, jacko said, art is purely subjective. well i know one thing ,my pizza isnt, jesus makes a damn fine pizza and im warm inside and the argentine wine and the pizza are saying hello in my stomach, glad to leave any discussions about art to our brains, but it makes us all question whats going on here. i think its fine for x to show and sell, his gallery can do whatever they want, but wheres the alternative? i think thats what zv was saying, wheres the work that makes you think, confront you, show the human condition, represent our times? surely suffering and poverty must be shown, should art lead the way, pointing out our ills, our flaws, yet ultimately give us hope. i believe it should. of course theres room for x, he must make his buyers happy and happiness is part of the human condition. i think zv was trying to say we need both, we have to see everything, if there is this,there must be that, and maybe its not subjective at all, maybe its all about money and what will sell, and every artist will have to decide that for themselves, what they can live with. in the meantime im going to plow through jesus pizza, with a nice thin crust and eggplant and adding on some of julies chicken and sipping on a glass of red wine, ive just created a piece of culinary art in harrys warm cozy roadhouse. it feels fine and there s nothing subjective about that. jacko says, show them jamie, lead the way, hes got a poets heart and it cant be denied. salud jgk