The first gallery opening I attended. Smashing art by Hunt Slonem, photography by Tim Hardy. Conversation, champagne, and what we all need, social engagement. Unlike a concert, or theater performance where you are seated next to someone you know, art galleries are a sensory of interaction with the artwork, the guests, and the elan of the space. Madison gallery was a warehouse, exposed twenty-foot ceilings, enormity of space, and minimalism in furnishings. It feels like an indoor park.
Once a gallery lover, then a gallery owner, and now seeking a job in a gallery. I joined the mailing list of a dozen galleries, realizing resumes are sifted through by AI and not the owner.
My love of photography began at a museum observing the work of Edward Weston. I used this line when selling my photography in Santa Fe” Photography are stories on the wall., not just the photo, the photographer. Of course you can say the same about a painter, but for me, catching a moment in time, that will never be repeated is poetic.
One guest that visited my gallery said this to me, ” Photography isn’t art.” He was famous, not as an artist but the son of John Huston. I cannot recall his explanation, but I have heard this statement several times and that is why there are so few photography galleries.I’d open one again when the if’s are removed.
One of my favorites by Jim Marshall. Jim caught Bob in a private moment, and let him publish it. An early concert, 1963, with already famous Joan Baez.Fuzziness is my fault.
ED CARAEFF PHOTOGRAPHER- He came out for the opening, a really nice guy. We played Hendrix every day for 6 months.
PHILIP TOWNSEND AT HIS EXHIBITION IN SANTA FE, NM. A PRINCE OF A MAN. WE SOLD ALL HIS STONES, BUT 4 THAT I KEPT.
JIM MARSHALL-Only he could get Dylan to smile. Jim, the legend rocked the gallery, the most eccentric man I ever met.
JIM MARSHALL.
BARON WOLMAN. The man who ignited Gallery Loulou with his introductions and faith in my passion.
LEFT TO RIGHT. MAN, unknown, my pal Blair Sabol, Jim Marshall, Ali McGraw. I get chills looking at this adventure. OPENING NIGHT IN TAOS, NM.2007
JERRY SCHATZBERG, ICONIC PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILM MAKER WHO DID MORE THAN PUSH THE ENVELOPE. HE PUNCHED IT. I JUST SPOKE WITH HIM, 99 YEARS OLD, CLEVER, HUMOROUS, ALL THERE.He exhibited in the gallery and we became confidants.
AND OF COURSE FAYE. WHOM HE ADORED AND TOOK HER TO HIS CAMERA.
After spending several summers at Saratoga Race Track, I discovered I loved thoroughbred horseracing. All my life, Iโve been a spectator of the performing arts. I never watch any sports on television, and I only attend baseball games when my father needs a companion. The art of performance is what led me to experience the racetrack as live theatre.
ย ย ย ย ย ย The racetrack is the stage, the jockeys’ are the actors, and the men and women who fill the bleachers, picnic grounds, Turf Club, and private boxes are the audience. The racehorse is the star celebrity.
The admission tickets, like any show, are based on your seating. You can walk through the gates for $3.00, or you can buy a Box for $100,000 a year. The collage of human emotions, drama, suspense, and danger, are key components to good theater.
Gambling personifies the Shakespearean twist of the racetrack. High rollers and drugstore cowboys wager to win. Some men walk out with a grocery cart of recycled cans, some walk out with enough money to buy a racehorse. They leave by the same gate, and the next day, they come back for more. But why, I ask, is thoroughbred racing not considered an all-around American sport? Why donโt jockeys get athletic respect? These two spheres of lightning truth struck me while I trampled through the mud, one rainy August day at Saratoga Racetrack.
I asked around for opinions. The Governorโs bodyguard remarked that it was a good question. He did not think gambling was the reason, because people bet on sports all the time. He thought maybe that it was because as kids we donโt learn to race horses, like baseball and football. “The public is naรฏve about Jockeys, because they have never raced.” Another answer I heard was that 200,000 fans fill a ballgame on any given day, and that those numbers donโt compare with horseracing.
ย Iโm not a bettor, and I donโt ride very well, but I am a drama whore. I took my notebook to the Jockeys’ room to ask the Jockeys’ what they thought about this irregularity in sports. Jose Santos had a few minutes to spare.
โJose, do you feel like America thinks of you as an athlete?โ
โWe donโt get the respect that we should. I think itโs the gambling. This is the greatest racetrack in America, and there is gambling in every sport, but when you come to the track, you see it right there, and people cannot avoid it. Pound for pound, we are more fit than most athletes.โ
I asked Jose what he does aside from riding. He jogs three miles every day, and walks for a mile. He reminded me that if he goes down with the horse, his strength is what gets him back up again. Another misconception is that jockeys only ride for 2 minutes. Well, the race is 2 minutes, but they ride every day of the year. They do not take breaks.
“How does the public perceive you?โ I asked.
โIn Europe they are treated like movie stars, over here the Jockey is just another person, and in sports, the Jockey is low. I wish we had more respect, but we donโt get the publicity.โ
This feels like the guts of the truth; our little minds like to align with other like minds. The leaders of the pack go to football and baseball, and the media follows behind.
Jose remarked that the only time he felt real enthusiasm and support was when he won the Triple Crown. Otherwise, they get a little column in the paper with the results. โThe Racing Form is 100 pages, and nothing is written about us.โ
โWhat if there was a Jockey Magazine?โ
โWell, that would be great, then the companies would be interested, and weโd get sponsors. When I go out to the park and run, I wear Nikes.โ He chuckled, and I lowered my head in shame. My bet is that this can, should, and will change.
All I SEE AT THIS HOUR IS
dinner for most of the USA. Imagine all those people, dining in separate uniqueness. The walls of imagination merge with internal images, from the media, personal experience, and true life stories. What I think of at dinner time is never the same at ten oโ clock in the morning. The labyrinth of safety, family, friends, security ALL colliding with the unknown, seems to be the most innocent of emotions. It is also a time that springs bright-eyed realizations, recognition, and a time when our mirrors move toward us. Who we surround us with is who we are.
The wind is sullen as it has gone from the spruce tree outside my window.
I want to get up and take a long walk, listening to the sound of my own steps on the brick walkway. I walk outdoors onto my steps and sit on a pillow watching the birds flock to a fresh pour of seeds. The silence is like a mirror to me. This un-sound so clear and virgin in Santa Fe, brings me back to my adolescent years in Hollywood. The nights my father went out, allowing me the freedom to explore outside. I would run down Doheny Drive to Santa Monica Boulevard and just keep running. It was on those windy Santa Ana nights that Iโd run the longest. I was running because the need to express something was bulging through my soul. This night is like that, only I donโt feel like running, I am listening to the sounds of silence. Watching the shadows that look like ghosts, and the clouds that appear to have messages, and how everything is different when you are alone.
July is expectant there is expectancy everywhere you look. The blossoms on the tree limbs are blooming, the birds have evacuated their nests and begin singing early in the morning, and insects eject themselves from their hidden corners. I donโt know what summer is like for a man, Iโve never asked any man, but I am going to tell you what summer is like for one woman.
The essence is sensuous, and for a woman, it is an overture.
We strip down the layers of clothing; replacing socks with sandals, and sweaters with t-shirts. When I hear birds and watch them in the trees, I think of babies and innocence. There are flowers shooting through the heavy clasp of winter dormancy, and when they do, the colors remind me to replace all the black pants and turtlenecks with pastel shades of coral and blue.
The sunlight radiates through my skin and warms everything. My heart feels like it has has been through a tune-up. My body wants to dose in sea water, eat less, run up Canyon Road, listen to music, dine al fresco, and get pedicures. All of this preparation is to tune up the romantic notes and to get YOUR ATTENTION. It is time to bring you out of the garage, or wherever you go in spring, and to notice that we are blooming.
Surprise us with flowers, a new hat, or a picnic on the banks of the Rio Grande. Our attention is on our surroundings; we will want to buy flowers, and baskets and new cushions for the patio furniture. We change our lipstick color, comb our hair different, and we look for new ways of expressing how good we feel.
If you live in Santa Fe then you understand when I say slow down summer do not leave us.
โIs there any feeling in a woman stronger than curiosity? What would a woman not do for that? Once a womanโs eager curiosity is aroused, she will be guilty of any folly, commit any imprudence, venture upon anything, and recoil from nothing.โ
Excerpt from Guy De Maupassant, โAn Adventure in Paris.โ
I rolled the dice this morning; got seven. This always lifts me UN-proportionately to
the triumph. ย What is a seven going to do? Nothing. The dice don’t do it;ย what happens Is
I believe it’s a lucky day;ย like the wind won’t knock down my outdoor writing arrangement,
and I’ll be able to write for hours, and not be interrupted by registered letters, construction noise coming
from the new Drury Hotel,ย or tenant complaints.
Whatย we all treasure and wish we could stack up in a treasure chest is piles of peace from whatever our lives do to make us nervous, edgy, and cuffed. Or we stop the behavior which I think is more difficult.
If you’re a middle class, middle-aged person who expectedย to be retired in Costa Rica by now with a book and a bottle, then you have to rearrange the internal map.ย
I ‘ll never retire from writing; I hope one day I can live in my home again.
AS MUCH AS I DIG INTO FORMERย & FOREIGN DESIGNS, FILMS, BOOKS, AND ADVERTISEMENTS, I WAS BOUND TO FIND MY TRANSGRESSION LIFE.ย I LASTED FOR 9 SOLID MONTHS. ENOUGH TIME TO GIVE BIRTH TO ANOTHER REED.
East Palace Avenue Santa Fe (Photo credit: paigeh)
SMILEYโS DICE-ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS
By:Luellen Smiley
ย SANTA FE,NM.
Iโm sitting outside in a flowerless garden because no matter how many flowers I plant, they only last one season, if that long. The garden is erupting out of its winter coat, and lime green leaves, plants, and stalks will have to do for now. The sky that seals me in is licked with revisionary hope. The kind that comes back laundered and fresh after a chosen recess from believing in the possibility of a preferred life correction.
Behind the garden, a neighbor is drumming a soft tribal beat, and on Palace Avenue the choir is singing inside the Episcopal Church on Palace Avenue. Between these distinctive tastes, there are sparrows fluttering from fan to nest to fountain. The chattering sounds like; โhere she comes, donโt come over here, get out of my nest, watch out for that fat crow.โ
Itโs a mind drift, to be caught inย such UN-structured beauty, away from the manuscripts, remotes, doors, and phones. Itโs like being on an island out here. ย Everything we bring into our experience can be revised; a work of art, a way of speaking, thinking, portraying yourself, your way of loving, or lusting, and we all know about appearance, because our society shoves it down our throat.
Look at the possibilities in revising our patterns of behavior. What we accepted twenty years ago doesnโt mean itโs carved in our organs. We can transmute. The interior life needs lifting and tightening, just as our mind and muscles do. You wonโt find any immediate remedy, or advertisements, or books on the subject because weโre consumers of products that change and revise only the visible tangibles. I wonder if I traded in my eleven year old Land Rover for a new one if Iโd be really happy, and for how long? Or if I flew to Los Angeles and bought cartons of antiques, hats, and perfume if I would be grinning from ear to ear.
I begin with revising the way I experience Santa Fe. Iโve lived on the outskirts, like a storm that blew in and is waiting to blow out. It seems my storm is here for now, and so I let go of the criticism and intolerances. ย Beginning with my favorite activity, dancing, I returned to ย El Farol, my chosen dance hall hullabaloo, then to La Posada across the street and mingled with an assorted group of locals, guests, and actors, (who were real as pippin apples)spent a day cruzing the ghostly town of Madrid to experience the cinematic sparseness, and walked up and down Canyon Road one morning before the shops opened, and was greeted half a dozen times by strangers out walking, uniquely different in attire, disposition and stride. I love that about Santa Fe. You donโt conform, itโs a religion here!
My homework for the next few weeks is revising the interior doors of emotion, and the exterior doors of expression. Iโve set aside the memoir, (did I mention I started that again) after a publisher suggested major rewrites and editing.ย I mean you have to know when to give up because youโre not going to make the team.ย Iโm a six page essayist. If you get me into one hundred and fifty pages, I march all over the globe and lose the reader.
You guys are smart. You know all of this; Iโm just learning. I am a case of insufferable arrested development. If I felt my age, which most of you know, Iโd be looking at retirement brochures. Instead Iโm planning on breaking into new territory. Its a joke between my dreamer self and my inner critic, but Iโm not listening to the critic.
Today I swiveled in my desk chair trying to write the column I thought I was going to write. In between gazing out the window at sky scenery, I made oatmeal cookies, watched the birds, took care of business, had a hair cut, plucked at paragraphs from Anais Nin, and danced on the treadmill. The column didnโt come out of a conscious thought wave; it just rose up, after I typed the words, the throw of the dice. The odds were Iโd find my way from there.
My dad the gambler, who laid a bet on everything from sports, horses, gaming, to the Academy Awards and elections, taught me many valuable lessons. He actually told me once, โTake a chance for heavens sake! Go out and get arrested.โ He knew the odds of that, which is why he dared me. Life corrections begin with edits, then revisions, and then you have a new story!
ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 