NEED SOME PRAYERS
Whatever your religious and spiritual beliefs may be, I would really appreciate your saying a prayer for my darling wife Melinda who will be having eye surgery at the University of North Carolina on Monday. Her left eye will hava a cataract removed and receive a new lense. While everyone says this is a relatively routine procedure these days, Melinda faces a special challenge.
She has almost no vision in her right eye, so this operation on her left is the one big chance to see better in the future. She has gone through weeks of concern about the possibility (one in a thousand) of something going wrong and then facing a future of virtual blindness.
Melinda and I have three adopted kids in India and we have visited them a couple of times. All three are Tibetan refugees and one, Wangchuk, is a monk in a Buddhist monestary outside Mysore. Melinda also sponsors four monks at the Drepong Losling Monestary further north. Because of our years long association with the monestaries, we have been assured that prayers are being said in every Tibetan Buddhist monestary in India.
Here in Santa Fe, they are praying at Santo Domingo Pueblo and a Hispanic women's prayer group. So please join in and add your best thoughts and wishes and prayers to the collective energy that will accompany her tomorrow. Many thanks for your blessings. Stay tuned for a report.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
SUCH A GUY, THAT ENRIQUE!
SUCH A GUY, THAT ENRIQUE!
Well it took me long enough to find the time here in San Miguel de Alliende, Mexico to post a report of our visit with Enrique and Silvia Zepeda in Mexico City last week end. Vacations like this are not what they used to be. I'm sitting here in my third floor writing studio. I can hear Cuban music from the Jardin (main plaza) because the annual Cuba Fest is on. Melinda is joining friends for lunch but I begged off to work on editing Artful Dodgers and I'm surrounded by a computer and three telephones. What's wrong with this picture?
OK. Enough whining. Rather, I'll think about Mexico City and the marvelous time we had with Enrique and Silvia and their two very bright boys (8 & 11). We spent an awful lot of time in the car (Enrique and Silvia were tireless in dealing with the traffic) but saw a lot of really terrific art as well. Of course we had some memorable meals, saw the sites and thoroughly enjoyed the delightful family. For me personally, however, the time that Enrique and I spent looking at his Dali collection of artworks and books, talking Dali subjects, comparing notes on the various players in the Dali market and sharing as only two total nuts on a subject can, was invaluable. Silvia looked slightly perturbed/bored a couple of times, but we tried not to impose too much on the lovely ladies. Especially as both are so much fun and so interesting themselves. (Silvia is a sparkling doll!)
Enrique really knows a lot about Dali, Mexican art, the art market and a host of other subjects. With a career as a diplomat, a career with the Attorney General's office and a career as a lawyer, he can speak on almost any topic. He is never separated from his iPad (probably even in the shower) and he has the world at his fingertips. This is the type of intellectually stimulating person I most like to be with. This was our third time together and I'm looking forward to more. We've tentatively set our next visit for Santa Fe.
At the Bellas Artes (national gallery of art) and the Museo Dolores Oumeda, Enrique and I had a terrific opportunity to look at art together--especially Diego Rivera--and compare notes. I love doing this with another art expert because I always learn things I didn't know and learn about how much the other person knows. With Enrique, it was especially rewarding. That man knows alot. He also has a very good eye and brings a lot of perspectives (especially historic) to viewing art.
Better still, he fully exemplifies the first part of my motto:
Well it took me long enough to find the time here in San Miguel de Alliende, Mexico to post a report of our visit with Enrique and Silvia Zepeda in Mexico City last week end. Vacations like this are not what they used to be. I'm sitting here in my third floor writing studio. I can hear Cuban music from the Jardin (main plaza) because the annual Cuba Fest is on. Melinda is joining friends for lunch but I begged off to work on editing Artful Dodgers and I'm surrounded by a computer and three telephones. What's wrong with this picture?
OK. Enough whining. Rather, I'll think about Mexico City and the marvelous time we had with Enrique and Silvia and their two very bright boys (8 & 11). We spent an awful lot of time in the car (Enrique and Silvia were tireless in dealing with the traffic) but saw a lot of really terrific art as well. Of course we had some memorable meals, saw the sites and thoroughly enjoyed the delightful family. For me personally, however, the time that Enrique and I spent looking at his Dali collection of artworks and books, talking Dali subjects, comparing notes on the various players in the Dali market and sharing as only two total nuts on a subject can, was invaluable. Silvia looked slightly perturbed/bored a couple of times, but we tried not to impose too much on the lovely ladies. Especially as both are so much fun and so interesting themselves. (Silvia is a sparkling doll!)
Enrique really knows a lot about Dali, Mexican art, the art market and a host of other subjects. With a career as a diplomat, a career with the Attorney General's office and a career as a lawyer, he can speak on almost any topic. He is never separated from his iPad (probably even in the shower) and he has the world at his fingertips. This is the type of intellectually stimulating person I most like to be with. This was our third time together and I'm looking forward to more. We've tentatively set our next visit for Santa Fe.
At the Bellas Artes (national gallery of art) and the Museo Dolores Oumeda, Enrique and I had a terrific opportunity to look at art together--especially Diego Rivera--and compare notes. I love doing this with another art expert because I always learn things I didn't know and learn about how much the other person knows. With Enrique, it was especially rewarding. That man knows alot. He also has a very good eye and brings a lot of perspectives (especially historic) to viewing art.
Better still, he fully exemplifies the first part of my motto:
If a person has integrity, nothing else matters
If a person does not have integrity, nothing else matters.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
MIA CULPA - AGAIN
MIA CULPA - AGAIN
No sooner had I returned from Mexico City and a splendid visit with Dali collector and scholar Enrique Zepeda, than I received an email from him pointing out that in my last blog posting I had referred to him as "Ernesto Zepeda".
Ernesto Zepeda is an Argentinian painter who lived for years in Santa Fe. I saw him frequently, we talked often and I consider him a fine man. Even so, he is no Enrique Zepeda, who continues to impress me with the breadth of his general knowledge, his insightful awareness of most things Dali and his generous kindness. I'll be posting a blog later today describing the fun and intellectual sharing of our visit, but for now, I want to sincerely apologize for referring to him by other than his correct name--my friend, Enrique Esteban Zepeda Vasquez.
And by the way, if anyone knows how I can insert the accents that a name such as Enrique's should properly have, please send instructions to me at artpro@bernardewell.com. I do not have Enrique's technical prowess. He carries an iPad everywhere and can make it do wonderous things.
No sooner had I returned from Mexico City and a splendid visit with Dali collector and scholar Enrique Zepeda, than I received an email from him pointing out that in my last blog posting I had referred to him as "Ernesto Zepeda".
Ernesto Zepeda is an Argentinian painter who lived for years in Santa Fe. I saw him frequently, we talked often and I consider him a fine man. Even so, he is no Enrique Zepeda, who continues to impress me with the breadth of his general knowledge, his insightful awareness of most things Dali and his generous kindness. I'll be posting a blog later today describing the fun and intellectual sharing of our visit, but for now, I want to sincerely apologize for referring to him by other than his correct name--my friend, Enrique Esteban Zepeda Vasquez.
And by the way, if anyone knows how I can insert the accents that a name such as Enrique's should properly have, please send instructions to me at artpro@bernardewell.com. I do not have Enrique's technical prowess. He carries an iPad everywhere and can make it do wonderous things.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
HOLA FROM MEXICO !
Hola From Mexico !
Here I again sit in my third floor writing studio working on the rewrite of Artful Dodgers: Fraud and Foolishness in the Art Market. With a terrific torta Cubana and a Cerveza Pacifico close at hand, gentle breezes wafting in from my roof-top terrace and all of San Miguel de Alliende around and below me, I am reminded of the thought that "the best revenge is to live well". So how am I doing?
With the promise of a luxury bus ride to Mexico City on Friday and several days with my friend Ernesto Zepeda, the Dali collector and scholar, the nastiness of Fine Art Registry and those associated with them seem a very long way away. A host of strong and supportive comments have come in from people who really do know the truth, but the settlement agreement in a recent lawsuit precludes me from publishing them. Pity, but it's the cost of deciding that no matter how badly I've been treated, no matter how many lies have been posted about me and no matter how flawed other "Dali experts" may be, I just don't want to spend the next three years of my life in a lawsuit proving myself right. The people who really matter and the people who really do know don't have to have me prove anything to them. I'll concentrate on living well and try to keep the poison extruded by others out of my life.
Oh, by the way...... One comment sent to this blog by someone too chicken to identify themself (although it's obvious who it is) referred to my posting in which I said I had never worked for Park West Gallery and said that I was lying. NO. I have never worked for Park West Gallery. I have only been retained as an independent Dali expert and believe me, that is a whole different role, especially when my reputation is everything and I shall never be influenced by a client to report opinions that I don't fully believe are true. Ever notice how those who don't understand integrity assume that everyone else is cheating?
So, about Artful Dodgers..... The rewrite (always a part of the process) is going well even though at one point I thought I might be in the position of Felix Mendelssohn who said after completing his Italian Symphony, "Of everything I have written down, as much was deleted as was allowed to stand."
Unraveling Dali's Les Caprices de Goya
Recently I received an interesting assignment. Actually, they all are.
Janice Embry Brown, docent extraordinaire at The Salvador Dali Museum, was asked a question about the printing methods used to produce the 80 prints of the Dali suite Les Caprices de Goya. She, always wanting to give the full and correct answers, passed the question on to Professor Elliott King who suggested she ask me since it is an area of my specialization.
Before leaving Santa Fe for San Miguel I did my research, copied entries from the two catalogues of Dali prints and other printed references and added notes from my files (the most extensive in the world) on my personal examination of a suite of the prints.
I found that the catalogues, as usual, were confused. Dali et Les Livres came the closest. My determination was as follows.
Salvador Dali obtained a set of reproductions of the eighty Francisco Goya images from the Musee de Castres--the Goya Museum--about two hundred fifty miles southwest of Paris. Between 1973 and 1977 he created drypoint plates which, when printed over reproductions of the Goyas, produced eighty two-artist prints. These were then hand colored with watercolor applied through stencils at Atelier J. J. Rigal.
The prints exhibit printed facsimile Goya signatures, titles and plate numbers, drypoint signatures of Dali and pencil signatures of Dali. The total edition size is 250 sets.
If you have any further explanation, additional information or new perspectives on this one of innumerable Dali print enigmas, please pass it on to me at artpro@bernardewell.com. I always appreciate such contributions.
Hasta Luego!
Here I again sit in my third floor writing studio working on the rewrite of Artful Dodgers: Fraud and Foolishness in the Art Market. With a terrific torta Cubana and a Cerveza Pacifico close at hand, gentle breezes wafting in from my roof-top terrace and all of San Miguel de Alliende around and below me, I am reminded of the thought that "the best revenge is to live well". So how am I doing?
With the promise of a luxury bus ride to Mexico City on Friday and several days with my friend Ernesto Zepeda, the Dali collector and scholar, the nastiness of Fine Art Registry and those associated with them seem a very long way away. A host of strong and supportive comments have come in from people who really do know the truth, but the settlement agreement in a recent lawsuit precludes me from publishing them. Pity, but it's the cost of deciding that no matter how badly I've been treated, no matter how many lies have been posted about me and no matter how flawed other "Dali experts" may be, I just don't want to spend the next three years of my life in a lawsuit proving myself right. The people who really matter and the people who really do know don't have to have me prove anything to them. I'll concentrate on living well and try to keep the poison extruded by others out of my life.
Oh, by the way...... One comment sent to this blog by someone too chicken to identify themself (although it's obvious who it is) referred to my posting in which I said I had never worked for Park West Gallery and said that I was lying. NO. I have never worked for Park West Gallery. I have only been retained as an independent Dali expert and believe me, that is a whole different role, especially when my reputation is everything and I shall never be influenced by a client to report opinions that I don't fully believe are true. Ever notice how those who don't understand integrity assume that everyone else is cheating?
So, about Artful Dodgers..... The rewrite (always a part of the process) is going well even though at one point I thought I might be in the position of Felix Mendelssohn who said after completing his Italian Symphony, "Of everything I have written down, as much was deleted as was allowed to stand."
Unraveling Dali's Les Caprices de Goya
Recently I received an interesting assignment. Actually, they all are.
Janice Embry Brown, docent extraordinaire at The Salvador Dali Museum, was asked a question about the printing methods used to produce the 80 prints of the Dali suite Les Caprices de Goya. She, always wanting to give the full and correct answers, passed the question on to Professor Elliott King who suggested she ask me since it is an area of my specialization.
Before leaving Santa Fe for San Miguel I did my research, copied entries from the two catalogues of Dali prints and other printed references and added notes from my files (the most extensive in the world) on my personal examination of a suite of the prints.
I found that the catalogues, as usual, were confused. Dali et Les Livres came the closest. My determination was as follows.
Salvador Dali obtained a set of reproductions of the eighty Francisco Goya images from the Musee de Castres--the Goya Museum--about two hundred fifty miles southwest of Paris. Between 1973 and 1977 he created drypoint plates which, when printed over reproductions of the Goyas, produced eighty two-artist prints. These were then hand colored with watercolor applied through stencils at Atelier J. J. Rigal.
The prints exhibit printed facsimile Goya signatures, titles and plate numbers, drypoint signatures of Dali and pencil signatures of Dali. The total edition size is 250 sets.
If you have any further explanation, additional information or new perspectives on this one of innumerable Dali print enigmas, please pass it on to me at artpro@bernardewell.com. I always appreciate such contributions.
Hasta Luego!
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