JUNE 2019: The Mural, The Magazine & More!

June arrived with the Orpheum Community Hub Mural well underway and a featured spread in Albuquerque The Magazine. Taylor Hood, assistant editor, interviewed me in the beginning of April in my recently cleaned studio. He asked me how I ended up in Albuquerque and my life story ensued. Then a few weeks later, Reece Martinez, staff photographer, took great photos of the studio including a toolbox full of dribs and drabs. My favorite is the in-process photo on the splash page of the creative section of the magazine which you can see here. Go to abqthemag.com to subscribe to this beautiful glossy magazine devoted to my favorite city.

Meanwhile back at the mural site, the lift and the barriers arrived on May 23 and we start projecting the design at night and painting during the day while dodging traffic, rain showers, and the occasional crazy person, while trying to keep up with our regular life responsibilities. The photo below was taken yesterday from the Turquoise Museum parking lot. (Known locally as the Gertrude Zachary parking lot).

Featured in Denise’s Corner

Seven of Flowering Hearts, 26 x 40 inches, Mixed Media on Paper

This card was created in honor of my father who was the seventh son of ten children born in 1929 to a family of farmers and artisans. He was an avid gardener all his life, and as a social worker and counselor he spent his life helping others. He was especially devoted to children and the elderly. The background was inspired by a painting of birds in an acacia tree from the middle-kingdom-era Tomb of Khnumhotep III. Superimposed over the background is an image from a Ramses-era painting from Deir el Medina of a man irrigating his fields. I removed the man and used the orange wall and the tree leaning into the painting from the right. The gardener and the arrangement of hearts came from the Seven of Pentacles in the Rider Waite Tarot. The pentacles were transformed into bleeding heart flowers and the gardener became my father, whom I often observed in this pose, leaning meditatively on his spade, shovel or rake, and gazing at the garden. Finally, as in all the Heart Suit paintings, swords pierce through the hearts. In this instance I was thinking about how growth often comes after one’s heart is broken.

Below are three landscapes showing now as metal prints from the Tree (or Club) Suit. The original are sold, but you can click on each painting and find links to prints and other products.