Umi Raby...

Santa Fe
Erev Rosh Hashanah, September 13, 2015

Just got into town, and was out on the streets for a while, hoping to get a few good photos of Santa Fe before the holiday began.  Walking down Palace, Street, I took a couple of throwaway shots, but was bothered by the crowds gathering to watch an oncoming parade, so I made a seemingly arbitrary left turn onto Burro Alley, a small side street running for one short block between Palace and San Francisco Streets to escape the crowd.  There's not much on this little alley, but as I was passing the small, unpretentious Umi Gallery, a place that barely calls attention to itself, my eye was drawn to the lower right hand corner of the window, where I noticed a small, odd, unpretentious, convoluted little blue painting that caught my interest and drew me in.  I inquired about the painting,  but Umi deflected my superficial inquiries about price etc and set the small painting on a small easel in the center of the gallery, appeared to descend into something of a semi trance like state and proceeded to talk about the various quadrants and components of the painting I had chosen as a metaphor for my life;  how the various components spoke about my past, my dreams, aspirations, my perceived failings, my relation with my father, my daughter, my insomnia, anxieties, drinking, my future where all would turn out well, and a variety of other personal issues that seemed to make sense in the intensity of the moment.  But to even try to put into words the impact of Umi's uncanny diagnosis of my existential condition, based on my choice of a painting, would diminish it.

The experience was unexpected.  Silent and spellbound I sat, emotionally immobilized in a manner I was not accustomed to, exposed, revealed, humbled and overcome with a great sadness and surprise.  Somehow my choice of this image resonated with my soul in a way that Umi seemed to divine.   In Santa Fe, the third largest art market in the country with countless galleries dominated by oversized canvases, inflated egos, and mediocre art that overcompensates in size what it lacks in quality, the fact that I was drawn in by a dark little 11x14 canvas tucked away in the corner of the window on Burro Alley, was revealing.  In the real art world, the painting itself is the point at which the psyche of the artist and the admirer somehow connect.  As I passed by that afternoon, I was immediately drawn to something inexplicable and Umi appeared to understand this nexus, this portal into the realm that brought the creator and the seeker together, if only for an hour or so.

So I bought this little painting, this convoluted portrait of my soul, remembering little of what was said, but carrying with me the visceral experience it represents.  I was supposed to go for lunch at the Blue Corn Cafe for their roasted corn and chile chowder afterward, but now couldn't bring myself to go, which would have made the gallery visit just another activity and thereby diminished it, and besides, I was no longer hungry.

                                                                     Pablo