SOMETIMES, YOU HAVE TO PEEL AWAY LIFE'S LAYERS TO FIND YOUR DREAMS
Her first attempt at art was abstract. Leela Elizabeth Mueller Marcum was 2 years old when she pivoted in her high chair and smeared a ripe banana all over the stucco wall of her mother's kitchen in Los Alamos, N.M.
"I actually remember doing that, and I also remember feeling completely thrilled at discovering that I could put my mark on something," said Marcum, who painted mostly in watercolors during the 18 years that she lived on the Monterey Peninsula.
Since 2015 -- two years after selling The Works, the bookstore/coffeehouse they owned on Lighthouse in Pacific Grove -- Leela and Robert Marcum have been living in Santa Fe, N.M. (within driving distance of their three adult children and five grandkids), where she is reinventing herself as an oil painter and learning an entirely new color palette.
"I've had a big learning curve," said Marcum, who discovered that colors look much different at almost 6,000 feet, where the sun cuts through the thin, dry air with searing intensity.
"The Monterey coast has such a beautiful ambience because of the ocean mist," she said. "The light here is very different in Santa Fe because of the thin air and the dry climate. We don't have much mist, so the colors are more augmented. Everything here is more defined."
Her mother, Frances Mueller, was a school teacher -- artistic and creative, but not an artist -- and her father, Donald Mueller, was a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, helping develop the hydrogen bomb at the Los Alamos Meson Facility.
TEACHER
After the banana incident, Leela's art became more defined.
“I grew up sketching and drawing, being the class artist, enjoying that recognition. Being a second child, it was important for me to get some attention,” she said.
Becoming an artist was the dream through her high school days, but the idea never gained traction with her parents, who encouraged a more pragmatic career path.
“They didn’t think being an artist was a viable vocation at all. My dad always said, ‘You can be an artist when you become a housewife and have time for a hobby,” Marcum remembered. “That was the mindset of a lot of people back then.”
She earned a bachelor’s degree in humanities from Pitzer College in Claremont, moved briefly to Dallas, then returned to California, and settled in San Francisco in 1970. There, she met Robert Marcum, a corporate pilot, in a yoga group.
They married in 1974 and moved to Fresno, where he flew planes for an agricultural company while she earned a master’s degree in education from Fresno Pacific University and began teaching elementary school in Fresno. In 1997, when Robert was hired to fly for Gilroy Foods (now Con Agra), the Marcums bought a home with a bay view in Pacific Grove, and Leela began teaching special education for the Monterey school district. Over an 11-year span, she taught at Highland Elementary in Seaside, Del Monte Elementary in Monterey, and Olson Elementary in Marina.
Artist at last
“I went through all kinds of things before I could find my way back to art, but I always looked for ways to work it into the curriculum when I was teaching,” she said. She retired early from education to take care of her parents, who came to live with her in Pacific Grove. Her father died in 2004, her mom in 2006. In 2005, the Marcums became owners of The Works, which they operated for eight years. The business also featured a small art gallery.
“I would invite artists to show their work there for a month, maybe six weeks, which is how I met Cheryl Kampe, who had just moved there,” she said. “I told her how much I admired her watercolors — that I wished I had time to paint, myself — and she said, ‘When you get ready, let me know. I would love to paint with you.’ So, she became my first mentor after I retired.”
Marcum, Kampe, and a third local artist, Maria Poroy, became painting partners, took classes and workshops, had shows together, and joined the Central Coast Art Association.
“I actually got to serve as president of the Central Coast Art Association for a couple of years before we moved, which was a very rewarding experience,” Marcum said. “There’s so much local support among the artists on the Monterey Peninsula. I loved it and I miss it. I’ve tried to join a couple of art groups here in Santa Fe, but didn’t find them to be nearly as welcoming.” She has drifted away from the seascapes she painted on the Peninsula — still part of her inventory — and is focusing her attention on the rugged landscapes, flora, and fauna of Northern New Mexico.
