El Paso artist Hal Marcus has never been big on following orders.<\/p>\n
And he has no plans to do so now \u2014 not even after a terminal cancer prognosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m living life to its fullest,\u201d Marcus said from the second floor of his studio on Oregon Street. \u201cMy wife (Patricia Medici) and I have been going to San Diego. We have our favorite little hotel room that we\u2019ve been going to for 25 years. We hang out on the beach for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus, 74, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Aug. 12, seven months ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Marcus has created a new series of art using angels as his inspiration.<\/p>\n
Photo by Ruben R. Ramirez<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to MD Anderson, with the best doctors in the world and they said, \u2018This is what you have, this is how long you have to live and you need chemo.\u2019 I said, \u2018No, I\u2019m not doing chemo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, Marcus leaned on his creative energy and spirituality as his medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m enjoying life every day,\u201d he said, his dark, sunken eyes contrasted by his brightly tie-dyed linen shirt and vibrant colorful paisley scarf. \u201cI put in 10-12 hours a day in my studio, wake up in the middle of the night, eat whatever I want. I call my own shots. That\u2019s what\u2019s keeping me so inspired. This is my medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus, a self-taught folk-art artist known for his vibrant, colorful, and often cubist-influenced depictions of the Borderland, chose the treatment that was right for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cOncology told me they wanted to put a port in and that I would have a 30% chance of living. It would extend my life another six months,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to put poison in my heart, no way, Jos\u00e9. They had the wrong guy. They were very respectful, but I wasn\u2019t going to do that to my body.\u201d<\/p>\n
His medicine is his brushes, paints and palettes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people go to chemo, I go to my art because it\u2019s full of love,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s powerful. That\u2019s why we\u2019re here. Lots of times we don\u2019t understand it or don\u2019t ever think about it. The more we give, the more we help each other, the more enriched your life is, the healthier your life is, the more spiritual you become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prognosis inspires creativity<\/p>\n
Since the start of the 2026, Marcus has created 12 works of art using pieces of his old shirts with paint, on a canvas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started a whole new type of art,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cI\u2019ve been saving my old shirts for 25 years. When they start to wear out, I just sew them up. I couldn\u2019t throw them away so I put them in a box, thinking one day I would make art out of them. After I was diagnosed, one day might be sooner than expected, so I brought them all out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He’s never felt so motivated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been inspired my whole life, not to the degree that time might be running out, but all of a sudden, death is knocking at my door,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you are in the state of creativity and doing something new, it becomes the medicine that helps you heal. Lots of people, when they get diagnosed, they go into a depression. Not me. I say, I\u2019m going to live life to the fullest, every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus takes a short break, walking around the studio, drinking coconut water. He stops as a thought pops in his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are statistics for people with cancer who go through treatment, 22% live, some of them get sick,\u201d he said, pausing before sitting down again. \u201cBut I\u2019m not a statistic. I am outside the box.\u201d<\/p>\n
His positive outlook on life has not only improved, it has increased his life satisfaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy doctors say that they don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening, but they wish more of their patients would do what I\u2019m doing,\u201d said Marcus, whose gastroenterologist is Dr. Jesus Guzman.<\/p>\n
His new series of art includes angels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking a lot about angels,\u201d he said. \u201cAngels are God\u2019s helpers. I\u2019m being helped a lot by angels right now because so many people are praying for me and thinking about me and wishing me well. They are guiding me, which is why I\u2019m so healthy today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcus\u2019 work has traditionally featured themes of peace, love and community heavily influenced by his childhood experiences in Ju\u00e1rez, Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve become more spiritual because in my belief that the world was created by love; if I love you and I love my fellow man, and I love the universe and I love creation and I have gratitude, those are all things that make me healthier,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are things that I\u2019m grateful for. I have been working on this even before the diagnosis, so I have a lot to be proud of. I was on the right track.”<\/p>\n
Marcus was born into a working-class family in Kern Place.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad had a little grocery store on Mesa and Robinson; we all worked there,\u201d he said. \u201cOur family has been around since the early 1900s. We are Jewish and Arabic, we were merchants and immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n
He watched his father, Morris Marcus, build the business and that motivated him to exert more effort in his love of art.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been painting almost every day since I was 16,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople say that I\u2019m talented but it\u2019s 10% talent and 90% hard work. Everybody is talented, but do they do anything with it? Do they dedicate their life to it? Do they spend time doing it? Not many. If you have talent but you don\u2019t work, nothing is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Work ethic is generational, a trait that Marcus has passed down to his three children.<\/p>\n
His son, Marco Marcus, aka Dr. Flaw, is a comic book publisher; daughter Adelaide is an artist and dancer who owns Full Moon Ranch in California; and Leilainia is a wellness expert and co-owner of Sunset Parlor, an event and wellness venue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI call him the eternal optimist, that\u2019s how he has always been my entire life,\u201d Leilainia said. \u201cNow, facing the hardest challenge he has ever had, it is still there. It\u2019s really ingrained into who he is; it\u2019s not just a fa\u00e7ade, he really is an eternal optimist. He looks at the bright side of everything. It\u2019s not like this toxic optimism; it really is going in looking at the situation and figuring out the opportunity within it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Refusing chemotherapy, Marcus credits his art and spirituality as his medicine.<\/p>\n
Photo by Ruben R.Ramirez<\/p>\n
Looking outside his second-floor window, Marcus can see Downtown El Paso, Hueco Tanks, El Paso High and Mt. Cristo Rey.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where he draws his inspiration.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a young man, I went to Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth, but I couldn\u2019t get an art show,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then when I did, they took it down early, they disrespected my art, I didn\u2019t sell anything. Nobody showed up. That broke my heart. As a young man I dropped out, turned on and tuned in, as we used to say in the \u201960s and \u201970s.\u201d<\/p>\n
He returned to El Paso and rented a studio in Canutillo for $100 a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked and I worked and I worked,\u201d he said. \u201cI said \u2018screw the establishment.\u2019 I knew one day I would own an art gallery and I was going to treat artists the way they should be treated. I was going to respect them and compensate them. I was going to be a good art dealer.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has represented between 200 to 300 artists in the past 30 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been wonderful,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cI have mentored a lot of them, I\u2019ve exhibited their work. They have a lot of respect for me, and I have tremendous respect for them. We are the only art gallery in town that sells early El Paso and early Texas art. I\u2019ve had artists who have worked with me for all 30 years. It\u2019s been gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are no plans of closing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have over 350 works of art,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I should pass away, my kids are going to take over the gallery and I\u2019ll turn my home into a museum. It\u2019s in my legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunset Parlor, the Marcus studio and the Hal Marcus Gallery are all within a few feet of each other on North Oregon Street.<\/p>\n
Leilainia Marcus said her father\u2019s unwavering, resilient belief that positive outcomes are possible, regardless of challenges, setbacks or hardships, has been empowering.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us really know what our deadline is,\u201d she said. \u201cBut when someone tells you it might be sooner than expected, it really helps you to either amp up your game or just give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her father choose to amp up his game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is doing what he loves every minute,\u201d she said. \u201cI can only imagine what he is going through and the struggle of it. But he looks around and he loves the people in his life, he loves the life he has created and what he has surrounded himself in. He lived it his way and he is doing it his way, still.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hal Marcus takes another deep breath, looking around the studio, reflecting on the life lessons he has learned, searching for the silver linings in this difficult situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone tells you you\u2019re going to die, you\u2019re going to start thinking real seriously about living,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do you live the fullest? You\u2019re kind to others, you think about your life. People have heard about what is happening to me, and they are reaching out and praying for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pauses again, reflecting on how his circumstance can inspire others with a hopeful, forward-looking perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single day there are blessing in my life, every single day. I have so many friends in the right places. I have a good name, I have a good reputation,\u201d he said. \u201cIf someone finds themselves in a similar situation that I\u2019m in, I hope they follow the same path. I hope they find something they love and pursue it. If they always wanted to garden, do it. Maybe that will help them live longer and happier.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Marcus, it\u2019s his art that has kept him going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t suffer any side effects from what I\u2019m doing,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a lot that I can complain about, but it\u2019s kept me alive. I may walk a little bit slower, but I\u2019m able to come to the studio and work 10 to 12 hours a day. This whole thing might be a blessing. Everything that happens to you is some sort of blessing, even when you don\u2019t realize it. All of this has given me energy. All of a sudden life is condensed, and the attention is on me because I\u2019m going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"El Paso artist Hal Marcus has never been big on following orders. And he has no plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[73409,138,140,139,18206,73410],"class_list":["post-183378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-angel","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-gratitude","tag-optimism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}