I heard a bunch of folks get called that today—over 60 of them, actually—”recognized and beloved artists of Taos.” These are all people right here in town donating one 6 x 8 inch art work each for a fundraiser. Each piece costs $125, which I am assured is “less than the cost of dinner for two.” The cute part is, you don’t know who made it, because the signature’s on the back. This makes it something of a game. (No, wait, come back!) You and your friends knock back a few glasses of wine, buy a few paintings, and see who gets the one by the actual Rich Artist and who gets the one by the guy in the tree.
Sure, I get how someone could be a “beloved artist of Taos.” It must be cool, being beloved and all, having your picture in a book beside the dusty oak-and-leather chairs in front of the fireplace. Still, and what the hell is wrong with me, I know, but if someone called me a “beloved” artist of any damn place, I’d need to pull serious prank or possibly arson. “Pablo Picasso, beloved artist of Paris…” See? NO ONE WOULD BE SAFE.
So I won’t be going, and neither will you. We’re tough bastards out here, they won’t let me down. Things could get ugly, though, after the shrimp.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Oh, always the guy in the tree!
This being Taos, he’s probably named after a tree, or maybe an herb. Met a dude named “Fennel” the other day, but he wasn’t an artist. Okay, not true, but I gotta start writing this down.
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