#kevinhoth

After some time regrouping at home with the folks in Wisconsin, I decided to move to New Mexico sight unseen. I stopped and visited with friends and family along the way in Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and New Mexico. I speak Spanish and had always been fascinated by Native American culture so New Mexico seemed like the perfect place to become a resident. I spent several weeks driving around the state before finding an ad in Taos for a spare room. I lived in a small adobe cabin at the end of El Salto Road in Arroyo Seco which is a tiny town on the way up to Taos Ski Valley. I lived with a fellow ski bum and an old slightly schizophrenic woman from San Francisco. Her car - an old International Harvester - was stuck on our road for the winter so we would give her rides into town. She drank too much and would complain about all the secret agents watching her in the local tavern. She did cook for me on occasion which was nice. My “room” consisted of a futon mattress in the middle of the living room surrounded by rugs that hung from the ceiling. I was working as a valet at Taos Ski Valley which did not allow snowboarders. I had to drive to other resorts to get my turns in. I got tired of my job and roommates and decided to leave and visit my friend Kristin who was living in Gunnison, CO. 

1. Taos plaza.

2. Self portrait in Arroyo Seco cabin.

3. Below: two drawings I made while living in the cabin. They have a lot of similarity to native american symbols and minimalist forms in the pueblo pottery.

1994 - one step back before moving forward.

From the time I was very young I drew and painted. I won my first art “contest” in 1st grade with a drawing at the Wisconsin State Fair. 

Over the years, I became somewhat skilled at it and later my favorite type of drawing was figure drawing. This tied into my fascination with the workings of the human body that had come out of my Anatomy and Physiology class in high school. The first drawing here is from my Figure Drawing class in college. I felt very accomplished and my professor gave me a lot of compliments which didn’t hurt. 

My high school art teacher had actually chosen me for an art program whereby select students from around the Milwaukee area were bussed down to the Milwaukee Art Museum one day a week during their last semester of high school. It was called Art Satellite. The art museum was our classroom and we would get art history lectures as well as technical lessons all from within the museum. it was one of the most formative experiences in terms of my relationship with a museum collection. My parents had always been very involved in the arts in Milwaukee and they had even served on various boards at the museum when I was a child. The Milwaukee Art Museum will always feel like my home art institution. The smell of it is almost as familiar as my childhood home.