inspired venting (if you've nothing better to do)

After 2 weeks in the New Mexican desert, benefiting from it’s ethereal qualities, I wanted to share this balance and reality check experienced out here regarding: yes, life and our business in my momentary opinion.
If you don’t know this already, Santa Fe is next to NYC as the art capitol of this country. With Site Santa Fe among a zillion galleries and a lot of $ backing it all up… it draws artist and collectors from all over, as well as supporting the artists that grow and cultivate this community.
I came out for peace, to breathe the air, heal my self a bit spiritually, and to find inspiration once again, as occasionally need for yes, life and our business. I mean, it helps and I am gratefully aware that my time here was in an artist cottage and spent with 2 of the community’s top artists them selves…
The Santa Fean just came out with their 150 top emerging, established and most influential talent in the Santa Fe area.

My two friends were named. 1st is the 5 planet Virgo Jennifer Jospeh http://www.jenniferjoseph.com/
Who was named 4 times to be precise and brag.
This is a woman I spend mornings having coffee with, hiking with, occasionally sip tequila with and several very emotional times of my life with. She’s not only an artist, she a recovering acupuncturist, a tarot reader and healer, a political intellect, a NYTimes cross word devotee and a great friend…
She did several paintings of a new series during my stay. They just made me happy to see, they’re directly related to her new “love” and the softness shines thru into her work right now. Her art ranges from 3 dimensional acupuncture needle sculptures, to super contemporary paintings, depending on where she is in her life. Always they are consistent and layered and dimensional…

Not secondly is Tuscany Wenger, a true creative and artist-a natural nurturer and healer in her own sense, the kind you think of when you think artist: she comes up with these physical ideas, creations and fabricates them and I have no idea where they come from… she is a woman in the true mystical sense of the term.

She and Jennifer create art together sometimes and do occasional shows. She is also the wife of a longtime childhood friend of mine, Peter Johnson, the antiquity bookseller… talk about an interesting career… I should also mention, and here directly comes my real photographic influence and what set in motion my involvement today with the photo industry, my collaboration with Brooke and the birth of Tidepool Reps- Peter is a photographer. Actually, Peter is an artist. He is a writer, painter, drawer, sketcher, reader, philosopher, but originally and foremost a –photographer. He was the care taker, companion and scribe of the final words, thoughts, last wisdoms of Frederick Sommer during the final years of his life, until he died. And what a man that was! I had the honor of meeting him and being challenged by his wisdom – his usual “what do you do?”question, got me,… at the time??? I don’t know, you mean job? NO what do you DO????? It started a great long dialog of philosophy and thought and nature and what it is that makes you “ummm” feel inspired and a zest, not to be confused with happiness.. A whole other conversation. What drives you to "live" life fully...?

My life and photographic narrow mindness I can get into when I don’t look at the questions fully and honestly, was broadened, and a NEW APPRECIATION, A New way of seeing was helped to transpire …
Anyhow, check these people and influences out, if you need something to inspire or create questions or just get a new perspective on your own “art” and why you do what you do in your life… why any of us do this…

Now on the shuttle’s hour desert hwy drive to the airport, reflecting out the window towards the mountains I’ll leave behind for a while, I have the sensation and realization: I am taking what this land of enchantment has offered me: a piece of it’s healing magic, calming sprit, ghosts’s and living’s creativity… or I left behind a good part of my own baggage and agreements I’d once made, that I now recognize as lessons to be learned from and changed, and found other offers out there in the world… most importantly, found compassion.

Life is sometimes filled with pain and grief and fear and…it’s all temporary, really. They are simply challenges for our growth. So here’s a few quotes inspiring me lately:

Love is the willingness to nurture one’s own self and /or another’s spiritual growth. – bell hooks

"Whatever you have forgotten, you can remember. Whatever you have buried you can unearth. If you are willing to look deep into your own nature, if you are willing to peel away the layers of not-self you have adopted in making your way through the tribulations of life, you will find that your true self is not as far removed as you think." -- Meredith Jordan

Stop thinking. Everything is perfect. – PJ

I don’t know anything so, I’m gonna sit with this latest experience and carry it for a while, stay slow and nurture what’s important to me …whether I get clarity in substantial or fleeting moments, either way it feels good….

k of kandb