Pablo Solomon
When you grow up in a poor Houston neighborhood the son of a sharecropper and a railroad worker, work begins young and is a necessary part of life. Throw in religious beliefs that basically preach that God wants us to work and do our best, and that any sort of frivolity is sin, well you learn to work young and you throw your energy into it.
For as long as I can remember, I worked at full speed. I tried my best in school and I always was trying to make money. I had my first bank account at ten years old. Add to this, that I had a natural talent for art and was using any open time for drawing and painting and needless to say I became a workaholic.
Meeting my wife Beverly was a match made in heaven. Not only did she fulfill all my romantic fantasies, but she shared my vision of work and success. She was a model and soon became successful in sales and marketing for such companies as Diane von Furstenberg, Revlon and Ralph Lauren. We were working and saving.
Between the two of us, we always had three "real" jobs, a business (selling antiques and other decorations to restaurants) and were promoting my art. We would try to see each other for lunch when Beverly was in town. Other than that, our life together was mostly in the bedroom ( thank heavens) and on rare weekends when we both had free time. Our friends actually made fun of us because we always had something going, did not spend a lot, of money and were sacking away what we made into investments.
However, we both shared a dream. We wanted to move to the beautiful Texas Hill Country. For years, we looked for property whenever we had the time. Then it happened. We came across our dream property. It was a beautiful old stone house built in the 1850s by a famous Texas Ranger. It sat in the middle of lots of 50 acres with a clear spring fed creek, big oaks, limestone cliffs and beautiful views. As we first entered the house with its beamed ceilings and stone walls, we could see through the next room and out some open French doors into a beautiful stone walled courtyard with a spring fed fountain. We looked at each other and just knew we had found our home. Ten minutes later, we bought the place. The real estate guy could not believe it. It was very much in need of repair and had been on the market for years.
So we sold our interests in Houston, quite our jobs and moved to the country. We thought that we would spend a year or two doing all the necessary fix ups and then return to the rat race and use our new home as a weekend home and retire here.
Well, when you finally break the addiction to work and city speed life, you realize that taking life a little slower and concentrating on the things you love---in our case my doing and Beverly promoting my art---is really the best life.
Oh, it took a while. but we both finally accepted the concept that it is actually OK to end the day with some energy to spare. We also realized that our investments that we had worked so hard for were doing what we had hoped that they would do---supplement my income as an artist. The amazingly good part is that with Beverly being able to fully use her skills in promotion and me having the time to turn out the art and designs that I so love, our art business has become very profitable and successful.
Since devoting full time to my art, I have been featured in books, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and even film. My work is collected around the world and we had many wonderful experiences.
Twenty years have passed since our breaking our addiction to work and we are happy, healthy and even more successful.And the best part is that we have time together.
pablo solomon Beverly Solomon
musee-solomon
Lampasas, Texas
http://www.pablosolomon.com musee-solomon@earthlink.net