What a life.

Most Thursday nights back home, I can be found strolling the streets of Old Town Scottsdale during their weekly art walks. Jazz bands, wine (for those of age, of course), cheese, and the Scottsdale socialites are also along these streets. But there is a particular gallery I stepped into which showed a generous variety of impressionist work from contemporary artists. The colors in each painting were most striking. And close attention to brushstrokes that respond to the subject matter and forms, not the artist’s overpowering style, was evident. Before leaving the gallery the manager asked me which caught my attention most. I pointed out a grouping of paintings of landscapes and cityscapes, interiors too, done in a style similar to John Singer Sargent. They were simply beautiful. Composition, color, brush quality, everything. Then the manager asked how old I was. 19 years old. Then he explained that the artist who I called attention to had just graduated college and is traveling Europe on a painting tour. She’s highly successful and is sought after by many galleries. Wow. Truly incredible – what an experience she is having! I’ve dreamed for a long time to live a bohemian life during the late 19^th century and paint my days away. But our 21^st century doesn’t allow for this lifestyle. However, this artist (whose name I can’t recall – her information is back home in a file I keep of artists’ postcards and contact info) is leading an altered form of this life. She travels to Europe, paints, sends her paintings back to the States, sells them, gets money, puts this money towards more travel expenses and living overseas, and continues the cycle over again. Now, she’s young and just graduated college, so I’m not so sure how long this experience will continue, but for the meantime is pretty cool. I admire her career. It’s not something I want to do for the rest of my life, but fantasize about traveling by safari in Kenya and Tanzania, trekking across the Sahara, or “gypsying” around Latin America – these are the places I’d go to paint. The colors and culture fascinate me and would provide fantastic subject matter and opportunities for my paint and brushes. And in the midst of my painting I could live like Karen Dinesen in Out of Africa on a plantation aiding the locals, or like Hemingway. By the way, let me point out that Out of Africa is my favorite book, and the movie’s a classic for me too. Enough daydreaming. I really respect this artist whose work I came across back in Scottsdale. She’s ambitious and leading a life not set by a cookie cutter like many who graduate and find a job and apartment. The idea of it is refreshing and inspirational.