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Linda Durham discusses her memoir in an online author event with the Santa Fe Public Library
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Linda joins Lisa D Liguori and Linda Waldo on their podcast, Living Visibly Over 50, to chat about her memoir Still Moving, and her life.
Ten years ago Linda Durham closed her internationally acclaimed art gallery in Santa Fe after 33 extraordinary years, propelling her from the highest echelon of glamorous inner circles into an ocean of bewilderment and loss of perceived identity. In this intimate chat Linda talks about how being shaken to her roots helped her find herself again. And again. What is our identity ? Do we actually need one ? Linda Durham’s fascinating memoir Still Moving answers some questions and asks more, available from local bookstores, online and from Linda herself www.lindadurham.us  Linda in her home, photo by Gabriela Campos “I always have this little exercise of mine: the three steps of what you want to achieve,” she says, fussing with the umbrella at an outdoor table. “You have to identify what it is you want to achieve. Then you have to declare whatever that is. Then you have to proceed.”
Linda Durham talks about how living authentically is the path to self-discovery and self-understanding with Dare to Authentic host Mari Mitchell.
Recently, a feature writer from New York Magazine called. He wanted to interview me for an article he was researching about my former employer, Forrest Fenn, art dealer and author of “The Thrill of the Chase”. Forrest’s photo-filled memoir included a poem offering intriguing clues to a treasure chest filled with gold and valuable artifacts that he claimed to have hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Several people lost their lives in pursuit of the loot. Threats and lawsuits were detailed in the news. For years, the treasure eluded the treasure hunters. Was it a trick or the truth? After all, Forrest was a consummate showman and trickster. I can attest to that. In the late 1970s, I served as the director of research at Fenn Gallery. One day, Forrest popped in to my office and handed me one of his personal note cards, the size of a business envelope. “From the Cluttered Mind of Forrest Fenn” was printed at the top of the card. In brown ink, Forrest had drawn a Picasso-esque image of a man’s head. Next to the head, in his distinctive hand, he had written, “Do Unto Others, Then Bug The Hell Out.” I remember putting that “work of art” in a file somewhere. I wish I could remember where… At the fancy book launch for “The Thrill of the Chase”, I stood with Forrest and a crowd of his fans and followers. He put his arm around my shoulder and announced to the fawning and adoring group, in a winkingly boastful voice, “I taught her everything she knows.” (long pause for effect) “but not everything I know.” Shortly before he died, Forrest announced that the treasure had been found. Very little proof was shared. Theories abound. Forrest Fenn was a valuable mentor of mine at the beginning of my thirty-three-year career. He and his action-packed, treasure-filled gallery awakened a passion in me that had lain hidden somewhere in the depths of my undiscovered self. He kickstarted me onto my long and winding art dealer’s path; a path filled with all manner of business peaks and valleys. I’m grateful to have experienced that information-filled year as his eager learner. Wherever you are, Forrest, I hope you’re astonishing the crowds! Click the image below to read the article...  Click to Read the Article "Fenn took a roguish approach to life and to facts. “It doesn’t matter who you are; it only matters who they think you are,” he once said. Linda Durham, who interned with Fenn before going on to found her own contemporary-art gallery, recalls seeing an Egyptian sarcophagus displayed at Fenn Gallery with a sign that read DEACCESSIONED FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM. She knew this to be a fiction. By sheer coincidence, the case had once belonged to her: A customer had given it to her when she was an Egyptology-interested Playboy Bunny. She’d had it X-rayed, and she knew it contained a mummified baby crocodile. After she sold it to a private collector, it eventually found its way to Fenn. When she pointed out that the British Museum story was false, he became angry. “He had no idea where that came from,” Durham says. "
Linda Durham — provocateur, a major force in the Santa Fe art gallery scene, world traveler, seeker, and author — continues her in-depth conversation with Melanie in this episode.
Creative thinking, a positive mindset, trust and faith, and the other side of fear are touched on as Linda continues to share just a few of her astonishing life experiences. “There is something comforting about the passage of time, about aging, about entering a phase of life known by various names that I’m learning to embrace.” ~Still Moving, by Linda Durham
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Wonder & WanderA collection of thoughts, musings, and milestones from author, wonderer, and wanderer, Linda Durham. Archives
June 2021
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