VP Miller Fine Art: Quiet Drama Unfolding and Death

What Real Life Drama Unfolds While We are Unaware of It?

Yesterday I logged on in the early morning hours, trying to get a head start to my work before my family awoke. It was Patriot Day, commemorating the 12th Anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and aboard the United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. Checking my email, I couldn't believe the huge alert signifying that I had malware on my website and it had to be fixed within 72 hours or I'd lose my safe security status. You can bet my heart was pounding, what was going on?

Checking further, the virus wasn't on my site exactly but on a linked badge I'd proudly place there - to that of Veteran Owned Business. It was on my blog page, too. They were under attack by some cyber cowards on the anniversary of 9/11! How many businesses that had linked to them now had linked malware to deal with? Google Chrome wouldn't let me see the page to remove it, it successfully blocked the offending garbage. I had to go to Firefox to remove the badges.

I checked this morning and while Veteran Owned Business site is now up and running their server West Host is experiencing massive issues and has been working 'round the clock for hours with "all hands on deck" (from their Twitter feed). Unfortunately, not all of West Host's clients are understanding... How will this affect their business and their client's business?

As unfortunate as all of this cyber bullying has been it is nothing compared to the news that I woke up to this morning.

Stunningly, on September 9th Winter Park artist Berto Ortego was found dead at the Grand Teton National Park, apparently by his own hand. What sort of quiet desperation was he living with to have carried this act out? I want to cry for the loss of such a warm, generous, talented spirit!

I met him several years ago during the very first time I ventured out as an adult to try "art" again. I went to a live model session at the Maitland Art Center; the idea being that you could draw or paint from life without any instruction provided. Berto was there, walking around talking with people. He saw one of my sketches and said, smiling, "Oh, you like to draw faces!" I remember being so surprised. I had felt like an out of shape new mommy in sweat pants, not like an artist, and here was a real working professional being friendly and acknowledging something that he saw in my work. I gave a quick back story and he encouraged me to keep coming (I didn't). I wish I could have told him how much I appreciated his warmth and how much it touched me, but I didn't see him again.

As beautiful as his work is, I prefer to remember him happy and working at his art. May he rest in peace.