Living in an Art Gallery

By now most of you know that my good friend, Kim (see previous post A Very Mini Artists Colony in New Mexico), has moved over to Hand Artes Gallery (see previous post Change, Lovely Change) to watch over it while Bill and Margaret Franke, the gallery’s owners (see previous post Disparet Pieces), are in the Mid-West for the winter. He’s acting as caretaker/gallery host/artist in residence for a couple of months. But the gallery is just one minute, maybe two, down my road. So I’m frequently over there for supper, lunch, or to taste some new treat Kim has cooked up. Kim is an amazing chef, as most of you already know (see previous post Adventures in the Art of Bread Making).

Let me set the scene for this particular day, which happened to be yesterday. It was cold with a storm moving in promising snow–perfect for enjoying something very special in the gallery’s kitchen.

You’ve all seen this wonderful room by now, in various posts on the blog, warm not just from its wood burning cook stove, but from years of loving use…

Kim had been cooking for a couple of days, making a Borscht he hadn’t made for sometime. (Don’t expect a recipe in this post. He was test-making it to try out the proportions first. The next time will be yours, I promise). A few hints though… he starts with a beef broth…

… and beets, of course… and cabbage… and, and, and… later, I swear.

So I headed over to the gallery to have the first Borscht of my life. Amazing when you consider I’m half Russian (my father’s parents were born in Lithuania). And just as I arrived, the sun broke through the clouds. This is not the gallery’s entry, but the light was so beautiful, playing on this particular wall. It’s actually a shot of the kitchen and, seeing the gallery from this angle really gives the old adobe house a sense of being a home, I think. In fact it has been for decades… a wonderful home and then a “live in” gallery for 25 years.

Bear in mind that the shots I’m showing you of the gallery were taken after hours and none of the lights were on. I rather like that…

… wandering around through the rooms of a wonderful art gallery when it’s closed, lights off …

This is where Kim LIVES! In fact, other than the kitchen and the bath, the primary living space is a suite of rooms upstairs…

… so the entire old home, with some additions, has become a gallery. Isn’t that just the coolest thing?

I love wandering around while Kim is cooking…

… who wouldn’t? Right?

It’s all sort of softly dark and very quiet… private…

Kim is surrounded by art. During the day he paints in the great room, or the piano room as it’s called (sorry no pics of that… Kim’s easel is down there, in fact its his working studio, and I respect an artist’s right to privacy; to create without the pressure of snooping eyes), and he lives upstairs, surrounded by art there as well… when he’s not in the kitchen that is….

… which brings us back to the kitchen and the Borscht…

Sorry, my dears, but I took no more photos. I arrived back in the kitchen, fragrant from days of cooking, to steaming bowls of Borscht being served up. I watched as Kim dropped dollops of sour cream into that gorgeous purple stew and then I sat to eat.

There is no adequate description I can give but, truly, when I took that first taste of Kim’s Borscht, something stirred deep in my soul. It went straight to my heart and filled me. I was home. I was ancient. I was my father; my father’s daughter. Lost in a moment of magic, I let the Borscht take me back–to Russia, to struggle, war, escape. I stood in a planted field, recently harvested. I breathed the air of my family. I felt my heritage, in that one profound spoonful of soup. It was only seconds and I can’t tell you how or why. And I don’t want to analyze it. This time I just want to let it be.

May I offer each of you the moment that was given to me, by a friend who cooks in the old kitchen of an art gallery, the gallery he calls his home.

Love to you all,

Jeane