We Are an Art Colony
By Mike Apodaca, High Desert Branch (“HDCWC”)
The lights dimmed and we were reminded by a ubiquitous voice, ala Mount Sinai, to turn off our cell phones and that pictures and video were strictly prohibited. We obeyed.
It has been ten years since my stepfather, David Apodaca, passed from this earth. At the time, my wife, Debi, and I made the commitment to take my stepmom to the Festival of the Arts and the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna in his honor. Each year seems better than the one before. What I didn’t expect from this evening—INSIGHT.
The topic for the evening was art colonies. The program began in France where Monet,
Manet, and Renoir were part of a collection of artists who stepped outside the rigorous, accepted conventions of art in the establishment and dared to produce what they saw in the world around them and how it made them feel. I read a book once about how Manet was rejected by the art establishment in his day.
Many such colonies erupted in the art world throughout history. One of the earliest was in Florence, producing such geniuses as Michelangelo and Leonardo. In the early 1900s, in America, bold artists like John Sloan and George Benjamin painted the unnoticed moments of everyday life, revealing the inherent value of these mundane events. New Mexico, Harlem, East Los Angeles, and Laguna Beach all became safe harbors for artists looking for new ways to express themselves.
While I watched this visually stunning presentation, it dawned on me—we in the HDCWC are an artist colony! The HDCWC is a community of creative artists who express themselves primarily in writing but also in painting, video production, music, etc. We even get together in various meetings to exchange thoughts on the trends in writing and art, learning from each other and sharpening our skills in the process. We edit, critique, discuss and debate. Mostly, we laugh and smile. We care about each other. We are friends with a common mission. I feel this energy growing.
Many of our writers are churning out their best writing ever. We are taking seriously the craft, doing what we can to learn and grow. And we are leaving our comfort zones, trusting one another, and attempting forms of writing unfamiliar to us, like poetry and memoir. Best of all, we are finding the joy of being heard. As we learn to better express ourselves, we are being noticed.
It will not surprise me if one day someone writes about the explosion of talent that burst forth from the High Desert in California in the 2020s. They will point out the explosion of craft, talent, and innovation that was inspired in living rooms and gatherings, in conversations and multiple drafts. They will talk about the HDCWC.
You and I are part of this creative explosion. We are a part of art history.
This essay first appeared as the President’s Message
in the September 2023 Inkslinger, newsletter of the High Desert Branch.