FEBRUARY 2025 NEWSLETTER

GRAY FOX

by Britt Zaist

I met a nice man at a friends´ dinner party who wanted me to draw a gray fox for him. I am used to having clients provide the photos to work from. It was a busy time at the gallery (Galeria Izamal that I managed for 29 years) and I didn´t feel like going thru the research work for a gray fox. So, I stalled… He didn´t come back to SMA again; but he did send with his friends an enormous, expensive wildlife coffee table size book for me to select the gray fox photos to draw from. I honestly still didn´t want to do it. More time went by and the book remained unopened in my studio.

Then these same friends told me that their friend had cancer and was having a hard time paying his bills. I felt awful because he had bought this expensive book for me to keep and to draw from. I opened it right away– found photos to work from and drew a number of drawings of a gray fox. I scanned them to him to make his choice from and said I would send that piece in “his” book free as a gift from me. But it was too late. The nice man had died.

Eventually the drawings all sold…no doubt to people visiting the gallery who thought it was a dog. With my work-you never know… When we moved, I gave the book away to another artist who did wildlife drawings. I told him this story. He said it was sad that the man never got the fox drawings but that someone somewhere was loving them. That´s nice but I still feel badly about not doing his work promptly and for accepting his book.

**“FLACO”** ink gesture drawing pet portrait commisson

**“LOS NOVIOS”** original ink gesture drawing for Valentine´s Day by Britt Zaist

Happy Valentine´s Day

Please follow Britt on Social Media

JANUARY 2025 NEWSLETTER

**BRITT 1987. oil 12 x 9.5 in.**
**by Debra Deutsch Oliver. Work in progress.**

**BRITT 1987. oil 12 x 9.5 in. by Debra Deutsch Oliver. Finished Painting.**

**Britt & Henry Halloween Party 1987. Photo.**

COMING INTO MY OWN

by Britt Zaist

There is a story behind Debra Deutsch Oliver´s painting (from a photo) of me wearing Frederick´s of Hollywood (the iconic, irreverent and irresistible lingerie brand of the 60´s) in public at a Halloween party in the late 80’s.

I married young to an engineer. My clothing and attitude were suitably and definitely “Preppie”. In those days, wives did as their husbands expected and when I inherited a lot of money, my husband felt it was time for him to quit work. So, we sailed for 3 years and then on my request moved to NYC for another 3 years. I studied at the Art Students´ League of New York and everything started changing as I came into my own. I had a name – I wasn´t just “Bill´s wife”. But still being “Bill´s wife” I left NYC for Raleigh, NC for my husband´s new job offer. The second day there, I went to an art exhibit and met the love of my life, Henry. From there-everything is history. But a very different one from the first go-round. This was a crazy, exhilarating time for all of the taboos to be tried. One of the many was wearing this ensemble that I only fell out of twice!

Debra (Deutsch Oliver) likes to paint people dancing. At an art opening, we talked and I told her that I had a great dancing photo for her to paint. And she did as a gift to me. This will be an incredible memory in paint of a daring time of my life that I have no regrets about.

I will throw in one more dancing photo of another time wearing a sequined backless gown - ridiculously expensive- to go to an art ball with another man because I couldn´t be with Henry that night. There remains another story.