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Sunday, June 11, 2006

My Favorite Artist


It is a great time to share a little bit of my dad with you. His birthday is this week he will be 82! I spent last weekend helping him take some of his paintings to a library in Rancho Santa Fe for a showing. He has a small collection of about 20 paintings there for a month. He shows his paintings but will not sell them. There are more than 70 works at his home gathered like old friends he is not willing to part with.

He has such an insightful way of seeing things. It is surely my favorite thing about him. When I look at art with him he can see so much more in the work than I would have ever picked up on my own. He knows the colors that the artist originally started out with, he minds the brush strokes, play of the light and the particular way the colors are blended. He doesn’t always see things in life the way I see them, but I have learned to respect and appreciate that.

He is an amazing teacher to me. It has been a precarious balance of lessons ranging from what not to do in life, by his own example, and how to pull from within the courage to walk the line that needs walking. The most valuable lessons he has taught me are about the frailty and preciousness of relationships. How they come and how they go. How quickly they can be lost and how courageously they can sometimes be won back, if the timing is right and you are willing to risk and love.

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