I’ve missed you. It’s been too long. For that, I’m sorry.
Over these last few months, as my new store got off the ground, I’ve affirmed a deep seated conviction. Life and art are not that different. Creativity is inherent in everything we do and art is not dependent on media. My store, Utopia, is as creative as my sculptures, my canvases, and my books. It evolves, changes, and grows every day. Because it does, I do. The relationship is symbiotic.
It’s also all consuming. Last weekend, my husband and I got away for the first time since the business opened. We drove south and camped in the Cibola National Forest near Magdalena, NM. The experience, as always, revived us.
On one of our walks, we ventured over a fence and discovered a couple of crumbling homesteads. After exploring one of them — rickety stairs, creaking floorboards curled up at the ends, stained concrete walls tinted and worn by time and weather, we hiked further up the trail. Turning to look behind us, we stopped short. The breathtaking view of red rock cliffs towering over the ponderosas juxtaposed against the ruinous cabin impressed us deeply. It seemed, in that instant, that our lives are infinitely small. We are only the dash between dates and everything we strive for is irrelevant compared to what will endure beyond us. Then we shook our heads, kissed briefly, and proceeded up the trail.
This world, this land, this beautiful sky are vast and powerful. What can any of us do that can compare? Write a book? Bear and raise a child? Scratch our names and a date into a cliff?
The only thing I can think of is love. Love our people, our planet, our creative endeavors. The forest and its towering cliffs are, by nature, impassive. We get to choose.
