Skip over this paragraph unless you absolutely want to know more about me than you need too….I like to refer to myself as a ´failed artist´aka designer.  It usually shuts down the conversation I don´t want to have about my own paintings, photos and sculptures.  After I decided not to spend the rest of my life as a buyer for Neiman-Marcus circa 1980 and I decided not to kill myself over a botched love affair (reminder to self never keep a diary). I became an artist.  I had the angst and the poverty and the look. I worked in the best gallery in Houston and then the worst in NY.  And that´s when I realized that whether the work was good or not I could make it on my social skills and good looks but I was never going to be the next Cy Twombly or Julien Schnabel…and that´s all I wanted to be. So I went to work for a famous designer open envelopes and collecting cynical thoughts and practices.  The botched lover offered me a trip to Europe where we stayed in Andy Warhol´s apartment and I met a Persian artists where we stayed in the Luberon for a weekend.  Then off to Porto Ercole to the Robilant´s house before a week in Rome and Gaeta with Twombly himself.  Then a love affair the best friend of the botched love that took me all over Italy and back home to Paris to what became my home.

Art was something sacred in Texas to be handled with kid gloves.  In college I spent my spare time at the Kimball which has more beautiful and spiritual light than any building I know. I knew I didn´t want to be a Texas or Southwestern artist so I took off for NYC and that is where the scales fell from my eyes.  But I love to visit artist studios whether they are successful, unknown or somewhere in between.

FYI…Every year in the winter there is a benefit tour of artists studios and you can watch Allison Wattie´s blog for the details as she organizes it.  There is a Noche Blanca twice a year on the summer solstice and one in the winter (google is your friend).  An evening when the galleries are open and there are special events in the parks and theaters.  Many artists open their studios for the white evenings.  The Mayor´s office publishes a map and there are buses that make all the stops in centro historico.

Merida has become a destination for artists and art lovers and even a few failed artist are starting to move in and thrive.