I was born into an artist family.  My father was a respected artist, and my brother is an artist.  I’ve always been sketching, had a pad and pencil within arms reach, and thought it was normal.  Doesn’t everybody do that?

Regrettably, I’m in possession of only one of my father’s paintings.  It’s my favorite work of his, but I wish I had more.  All of his other works are in private hands and I can’t get my hands on them.

Actually, it’s a funny story, but one may be in the possession of the art section of the Museum of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They don’t seem to know if they still have…

it in their archives, or what may of happened to it.  In other words, it’s long gone.

Back in the 5o’s  (the middle of last century), my father was hospitalized at the Veterans’ hospital in Albuquerque from a reoccurring war injury.  He was in the hospital for some time and did some painting while he was there.  Evidently, there were other artists there as well.  The Hospital decided to have a veteran’s art show and advertized it to help the war heroes sell their work.

Dad had painted a portrait of a “leather faced” Indian (as he described him) from a nearby reservation.  He exhibited the painting at the show and it caught the eye of an elderly gentleman who seemed taken aback by it.  Before the show was over, the two made an agreement and the elderly man left with the painting.

A short time after my dad’s release from the hospital, the elderly man passed away and left his collection of art to the museum.  I don’t know who this person was, but in the collection left to the museum was the works of Frederick Remington, Charles Russell, and many other great artist…and one painting of a “leather faced” Indian chief by a “local artist,” or that was how it was described in the newspaper reporting on the exhibit.

The newspaper reporting on the exhibition photographed a great row of paintings left to the museum and along with Remington and Russel they got a shot of my dad’s painting of the Indian chief (I saw it…it was right there in the newspaper!).  I have no idea how long the painting stayed exhibiting at the museum.  Regrettably, I was too young to care at the time, and I never knew who the elderly gentleman was that bought my dad’s painting, but later it came to be something to brag about.

“My dad had a painting exhibited in a museum” I would say.  Silently I would think with mind speak, ‘even if it was probably only for a day!’