EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 For more than five decades, Hal Marcus has been a visual ambassador to the Borderland, capturing its spirit and its color on canvas. Now, Marcus is entering a new chapter: one shaped by a cancer diagnosis that changed everything. Earlier this year, doctors told him he may have only months to live. But instead of retreating, the 72-year-old is doing what he\u2019s always done, turning life into and using this moment to fuel a powerful new phase of his creative work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am counting on a huge miracle, granted, but I’m also preparing for going on a long journey,\u201d said Marcus during a recent interview at his studio in Sunset Heights.<\/p>\n
Marcus has been making art nearly every day since he was sixteen. A cancer diagnosis hasn\u2019t changed that. If anything, it has only sharpened his focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey gave me six months to live. It was four months ago, and I’m more healthy now than I was four months ago when they diagnosed me,\u201d said Marcus. \u201cAt least that’s my perception. I haven’t put like an x-ray camera into my body, but I’m telling you, I’m here, I’m alive. I wake up at two o’clock in the morning and go in my studio and I’m creating new art, and I’m here with you. So, I think that that’s proof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hal\u2019s life has been marked by both commercial success and creative freedom. For more than thirty years, he\u2019s owned and operated the Hal Marcus Gallery. He\u2019s also helped create the Sunset Parlor, a space for live music, wellness and community. But since the diagnosis, the urgency to keep creating has intensified.<\/p>\n
\u201cI finally, just like three weeks ago, came up with the idea that my medicine is to do whatever I need to do to make me happy, to enjoy every single moment and to spend as much time in my studio,\u201d said Marcus. \u201cAnd that’s my medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus says much of his resilience comes from the people around him. Supporters, collaborators and friends who continue to show up. One of them is Luke Lowenfield, who partnered with Hal to create a series of children\u2019s books rooted in imagination and kindness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he’s taught me is that \u2018Luke, if you love to write, you’ve got to write every day. You’ve got to do everything as a writer. That’s what you’re here to do.\u2019 And so, I think that’s going to be his legacy is he has modeled for us all as an artist. What an artist does, lives with passion and artistry every day and does everything as an artist,\u201d said Lowenfield. \u201dAnd so, I think his legacy will be to tune in to your heart’s desire, tune in to the purpose for which you are here and do that with the people that you love all day, every day. Commit yourself to vote yourself to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it’s such an interesting thing because I do have those two parts of me where the daughter wants to control and fix and tell them what to eat and tell them what to do and freaking out,\u201d said his daughter Leilainia Marcus. \u201cBut then I have to step back and be the human, having a human experience with this person I admire and look up to as not attached to him as my father. And I just feel so much beauty. So much beauty in the way that he’s experienced life and that he’s transformed his own life and my life and the people around him. He walks into a room and the energy of the room changes. And that’s been since before I can remember.<\/p>\n
And his wife, Patricia Medici, who for decades has been the steady hand behind the business side of Hal Marcus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s one of the things Hal has a great support team with his family and his close friends. And he revels in that. He knows it,\u201d said Medici. \u201cAnd it makes him happy too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lately, Hal\u2019s work has taken a new direction. Birds have become a central theme. Symbols of movement, fragility, and freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s a part of my evolution at the stage in my life where I’m getting closer to heaven or I’m getting tuned in more with the freedom,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cI’m saying is that whatever your issue is and you always wanted to do it, do it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also cutting up his old shirts, repurposing the fabric into layered, mixed-media panels. Pieces of his own history stitched directly into the work.<\/p>\n
And now, Hal is choosing to share his diagnosis publicly. Not for sympathy. Not for pity. But as an invitation. A reminder to do the thing you love, while you still can.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people ask me what can I do to help you, because they’re always saying, \u2018Can I bring you something? Can I do something for you?\u2019 Well, (my daughter) had a good idea. She’d tell me, \u2018Just tell everybody to do what they love doing.\u2019 You know, and whatever obstacles in your way, forget that, just do what you love doing. And if they can understand that message, that’s going to help me out a lot,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cYou know, because I don’t need anything, you know. I mean, I need your love and your prayers, yeah, but, you know, I’m a happy camper.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Hal Marcus, that means showing up to the studio. Every day. And continuing to tell the story of this place and his place within it, for as long as he\u2019s able.<\/p>\n
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