Luis Jimenez...

He died in 2006.  A tragic accident that claimed his varied and storied life.  He was an amazing artist.  American by birth, but Mexican by birthright.  I came to know him in a more formal capacity but if you knew Luis, nothing was ever really formal and he was a man unconsumed with deadlines or fictitious timelines generated by pretty much anyone.  He was constantly getting into trouble for not meeting his contractual obligations.  And that wasn’t because he didn’t care, or wasn’t going to deliver the agreed upon art, he just always, very much, marched to an inner hum that perhaps no one else heard.

When I was in New Mexico I went to see his sculpture at the University of New Mexico.  While there were many places I visited while I was there, it was this place that I went to honor the man I once knew.

He was larger than life, and yet quite simple.  When he gave me a tour of his home and ranch one Saturday, I was amazed at his talent, his tenacity and his wherewithal.    And his humor.  He was ornery and always ready for a laugh.  I marveled at his ability to just be him, no outside influence was capable of making him anything other than Luis.  He was a force and that force prioritized art, walking with his goats, family and time spent in nature.

I didn’t know him well or very long, but the intimacy that developed over the time we did spend together was a feeling that has never left.  Our relationship, professional, but you couldn’t  help but feel like there was this transcendency to all of his relationships.  He was both absolutely present, and just a little gone.  It is hard to describe.  There are just people in your life that regardless of the time you spend with them, they change you, and Luis was one of those people.  He was a total soul.  He seemed to embrace the fragility of life with a gusto reserved for things not quite so delicate.  It was just who he was.

When I learned of his tragic death, I cried.  Not because our bond was so close, but because you just couldn’t help but love the man.  He just had this essence about him that was somewhat intoxicating and time spent with him always left you feeling better than you did before the interaction.

He gave me a drawing of his and signed it for me that Saturday so many years ago.  I framed it and it still hangs on my walls as it has in every house I have owned or lived in since.  His talents many and the subject of the piece he gave me somewhat macabre now.  The drawing is of a horse, not the Denver airport kind of horse, but a simple drawing of a horse.  Horses could be considered a theme for his life and his death.

I miss him.  His joie de vivre.  How much he occupied his whole soul.  How him he was.  He could be nothing less than everything he was...a talented, flawed human being doing his best at living life.  I am grateful I knew him.  I am grateful for the time I spent knowing him.  I am grateful for hiking up a hill on his ranch with him, while a herd of goats followed us.  I almost left that day with a goat...he was insistent on me taking one home.  We settled, instead, for the drawing of a horse, with his inscription “for Erin.”   I am grateful for the drawing, but the goat would have been pretty sweet.  I mean how many people could have said, “I owned a goat that used to be Luis Jimenez’s!”

Sometimes our contact with other beings is brief but life lasting.  And this is the impact Luis had on pretty much everyone he came into contact with...not always a perfect memory but no one could ever argue that any time spent with the man was anything less than perspective altering.

I hope you are making giant sculptures in the sky, Luis.  And that your herd of goats follows you always.  Thank you for gracing my life with your presence...