Working Artist on the High Road to Taos
But something vital I’ve come to know is this: no matter how hard it is to hold on sometimes, we are not disposable. Our selves, our dogs, our relationships, are not to be shunted aside when they become too difficult.
Ramsay’s wild patients represent the untamed world we’re running out of space for. So she takes them deeper into the mountains and forests, back to where she hopes the sweep of time may forget them. Winston Churchill famously said that “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” And mercifully, Dr. Kathleen Ramsay does just that. She continues.
When asked what she thinks her biggest contribution is to her community, Kathleen Ramsay says that it is her Cottonwood Veterinary Clinic in Española, New Mexico. It’s a fairly rural area, and quite poor. She says, “Probably 60% of people living there make $10,000 per year.” And she has personally seen to it that her community can afford the very best medical care for their animals no matter their status and means.
… and standing in the middle of that street, with no traffic, in the midst of all those abandoned buildings, the mercantile and houses, it was so quiet… It was almost as if I was sensing the silent footprints of a world now out of fashion.
This fear feels so old. Its birthing place nestled within the ancient history of man I’m thinking. We all must carry it, some sort of constantly on-guard defense system that will make us ready when the inevitable strike comes.
… this is where I caught my first true glimpse of me. THIS is where the abstracts were born. But I wouldn’t fully understand it until this very moment as I write it out to you.
A birthing that necessitated pain, as all birth does, was taking place and I was in it. I was coming into ME. And my paintings reflected all of it–the growth, the pain and the confusion.
