The colors of Santa Fe

So here I was, third day in an on and off pain. Trying to accomplish something on the home front during the off moments but they had been too few. Drugged but still waiting for the damned medication to work. With one eye, I was watching an episode of Take Home Chef (2005). I couldn't help noticing an interesting looking participant. Sort of a spaced out, long haired and very silent guy with no trace of smile on his face. He looked kind of Italian with thick black hair well down his back. How bizarre, I thought. To put a guy like that on the show where Curtis Stone already has a bit of a problem doing enough talking to actually keep the viewers from dozing off. (Believe me I do like Curtis, wild hair and cute smile, it's just that he's not the most talkative guy on earth.)

So I open my other eye and notice they're working in quite a stylish kitchen, and Curtis is holding a huge drink in the loveliest shade of hot pink, accented with bright green. Now these are definitely the colors you want to see on a cold November night. I turned up the volume. They were baking trout in clay wrappings which they hand decorated. Curtis did the scales and fins, so his wrapping looked like a regular fish, while the guy did a snake and complained that Curtis' wrapping was nicer. Some more cooking followed, then the silent guy took Curtis for a stroll near some art galleries and showed him an impressive, bold painting of which, apparently, he was an author. Aha. That might be why everything looked just right around his place. Wrapping up the episode, a lovely wife showed up with two daughters and they all sat down to eat outside a house painted in vivid colors, shining in the blazing sun. I was most pleased. A total eye-candy and the nicest family ever.

I was so intrigued who the silent guy was that I googled him as soon as his name appeared on screen. He turned out to be a well known Native American modernist painter from Santa Fe, Darren Vigil Gray. How strange that he would appear on an episode of Take home chef but he did. Looking at some of his works cheered me up even further, for one thing, I find the images of American desert extremely energizing. So if you need some color to lift yourself from November darkness, I believe these will do it.

Hiding Places of Natures Power #4 (2006) acrylic on canvas



untitled, acrylic on canvas



At the Gathering of the Clouds #1 (2007) acrylic on canvas



I Will Paint an Angel, acrylic on canvas



View of Abiquiu, oil on canvas



Morning Song (2007) acrylic on canvas

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