Desert Flower Art Gallery in Big Spring TX
As a boy growing up in West Texas, I was fascinated by the simple beauty of West Texas. The desert, the sunsets, the starry nights, were a constant inspiration. As I grew older, the paintings of Ed Cross, Texas artist, became my inspiration. Ed Cross’ paintings were bold, colorful, filled with emotion. I especially remember his painting of a young girl riding a bicycle across a desert landscape.
The first thing you learn when you go out into the desert is that everything takes a lot longer than you think it will. The first night we didn’t even make it to the 10,000-foot level. We were tired, cold, and hungry, and decided to lie down. Our tent was at the end of a ridge, and the wind came up and blew us right off. We woke up, had breakfast, and were ready to continue hiking. It took hours to go down. We kept stopping to look around. It was so desolate that I was thinking, “I wish I’d brought a book.”
We reached the Colorado River. It was 10:00 AM. We hadn’t covered a quarter of a mile. We stopped in a tiny dell for lunch; it was 1:00 PM. We hadn’t covered a tenth of a mile.
After lunch we hiked on. The afternoon started late, and it was still hot, so we stopped early to rest. It was 8:00 PM. We hadn’t covered half a mile.
We kept going. The moon came out, and the stars came out, and we saw the Milky Way. The desert looked beautiful. It was 11:00 PM, and we hadn’t covered a mile.
An artist gives you the universe.
The desert flower art gallery in big spring texas
A painting by the great Dutch artist, Paulus Potter, hangs at the Desert Flower Art Gallery, in Big Spring, Texas.
Potter painted this beautiful landscape in 1631, when he was only 13.
In 1632, the Amsterdam merchant, Hendrick Cornelisz van Haarlem, bought the picture for 16 guilders, the equivalent of 60 dollars today.
Van Haarlem was a very wealthy man.
The picture hung in his house in Amsterdam, and ever since, it has appeared in many catalogs of Dutch paintings.
But no one knew who the artist was.
Until 2007, when one of van Haarlem’s descendants, Paulus Potter van Haarlem, was searching through the records of his family, and found a 1632 inventory, listing the painting as “A landscape by an unknown artist.”
The van Haarlem family had kept the original receipt, and later, the receipt for the sale of the picture to the Rembrandt Museum in Amsterdam.
By comparing the two receipts, Paulus Potter van Haarlem was able to identify the painter as Paulus Potter.
Paulus Potter was born in 1605.
He was probably the son of a butcher.
The Potters were poor, and before they moved to Amsterdam, the Potters lived in a small village called Sneek in the Netherlands.
In 1617, at the age of
In March 2005, the Desert Flower Art Gallery opened in downtown Big Spring, Texas. I owned the gallery and was its artist. We sold handmade jewelry, original paintings, and sculpture.
This was our second gallery. Our first burned down. We lost all our stock, and suffered some fire damage. It was just bad luck.
