I've been remodeling parts of my house and also took a trip to Santa Fe and surrounding areas so no blogging for sometime. 

The trip to Santa Fe was very informative.  There are some 300 galleries there and one can be overwhelmed by so much art.  One can see virtually all of them by walking since they are located so close to each other.  I didn't go into all the galleries because there wasn't enough time.  But I did go into as many as I could that were showing representational art--perhaps as many as 50.   And it was virtually all what I would call "good art".    With few exceptions the artists I saw were very accomplished and there were several quite famous ones showing there.  Just some of the names I knew were: Scott Burdick, David Leffel, Daniel Greene, Hal Greene,  Gay Faulkenberry, Kenn Backhaus and more.    I even saw an original drawing by Camille Pizarro.
 
I was expecially moved by Georgia O'keefe and her work.  As I moved through the museum filled with her paintings, the landscapes really got to me.  It was almost magical how her work distills the landscape into the simplest shapes but retains enough information so it is clear where she was painting.  Her use of color was the same.  Very straight forward and pure.   I'm sure that my work will be influenced by her in the future. 

Now I know why many artists choose to move there.  The surrounding area is a painters paradise and I got to see and photograph a lot of it.  I even did some sketching when I got time.  To do it justice I'm thinking of living there for several months.  I certainly won't be unique in that desire since many artists going there for the first time have returned, many permanently.   North of Santa Fe lies the Rio Grande valley and the Chuma valley and I saw a lot of both.  You could paint for a lifetime in just those two places.  We went to Ghost Ranch and saw where O'Keefe lived and painted.  It's a wonderland of interesting places to paint all by itself.  In addition to all of this the people in Santa Fe respect art and artists.  It's truly an art town.  You will see some paintings of this area on my websites soon.