If you’ve followed this blog at all, then you know that my very favorite painter in the whole world is Susan Hertel, and that I now own and live in the house she built in the late 1980’s in Cerrillos, New Mexico, just south of Santa Fe. If you haven’t read about the divine way this all happened, you can by reading Miracles Really DO Happen — at least they do to me … That’s Susan to the left, in a self portrait. Susan loved horses and painted them, life-sized, a lot.
In the linked post above you will read about how I was not only led to this property by some amazing grace, but wound up with one of Susan’s paintings hanging on my dining room wall.
Susan was widely known and collected, and her works are very expensive so I could never afford one. Having one in my home is a miracle in and of itself. The painting that came to me was one half of a two-painting combo (called a ‘dip-tych’). Its counterpart has been hanging in New York City.
I guess the two were like twins separated at birth though because, through further miraculous events, I was recently asked if I would like to home the other half of the dip-tych. Now THAT’S a no-brainer. Wow, wow, wow, wow! So now I have both here at what was Susan’s home in the first place. Who knows, she may have painted them both in what is now MY studio. And we are pretty sure she’s orchestrating all of this from above.
Here’s what the paintings look like side by side (though awkwardly photographed, so you must use your imagination).
Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that the huge body of the black horse in the painting on the left is a dead ringer for that of my hefty mare, Bella, and I’m pretty positive my horse Copper slipped out while I wasn’t looking years ago and posed for the horse on the right!
Susan, may you rest in peace and happiness in the knowledge that these two paintings are in the home you built with so much love and caring, and that they are treasured beyond description.
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You can read a little more about the history of all this here:
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