In 1954, while working at an advertising agency in New York, Adele LaBrecque moonlighted as a flamenco dancer. As part of the Metropolitan Opera touring company, she played castanets in the productions of Carmen and La Traviata in Canada.

A year later, in search of more adventure, she applied for a job in Saudi Arabia and was hired as a graphic designer in the public relations department at the Arabian American Oil Company, or Aramco. That's where she met her husband, Maurice P. LaBrecque, who was working for the same company in the data-processing department. They married in Zurich in 1959.

"It was serendipity. I lived in New York and never met anyone who interested me. I had to go to Saudi Arabia to find a husband," she said.

During the early part of their marriage, the couple traveled extensively throughout the world. In 1961, LaBrecque enrolled at the renowned Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, where she received her certificate in the fine art of French cuisine. She said, "My husband used to say that it was the best money he ever spent because he loved my cooking."

In 1962, the couple moved to Palo Alto, Calif., with their two sons, and Maurice went to work in the computer industry. In 1966, he accepted a position with Oasis Oil Co. in Tripoli, Libya, and the family lived there for the next 18 years.

"When we arrived, King Idris was in power. Two years later Moammar Gadhafi overthrew his reign. During the [Six-Day War] of 1967, all foreign women and children were evacuated. My two sons and I were flown, with one change of clothes, from Wheelus Air Base to Rome on a C-1 cargo plane," she said.

According to LaBrecque, there's a belief in the Middle East that graven images captured on film bring bad luck -- which turned out to be fortunate for her. She embarked on a career as a watercolor artist. During the
22 years the family lived in Saudi Arabia and Libya, she depicted life there through her paintings.

"Since expatriates weren't allowed to photograph the people, many of them bought my paintings as mementos before they returned to their home countries," she said.

Watercolor painting best suited LaBrecque's life as a homemaker and mother. "Unlike working with oil paint where you can go back and make changes, with watercolor there's no time to rework it, and since I had limited time, I learned to create a painting in half an hour. As soon as the paint dried, I'd have a sale," she said.

Adele Suska LaBrecque, who was born in New York in 1930, received her bachelor's degree in art from Hunter College in 1950. She continued her studies for one year and two summer sessions at the avant-garde, innovative Black Mountain College near Asheville, N.C. "That was an exciting time in my life. My studio was next door to Robert Rauschenberg's. He was the most friendly, helpful, outgoing person I had ever met. I also befriended Merce Cunningham, John Cage, David Tudor, Robert Motherwell, Cy Twombly and many other well-known artists," she said. (For more information on the Black Mountain exhibit currently showing at the The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, read the Nov. 11-17, 2011, issue of Pasatiempo.)

After their time in Libya the family moved to Winston-
Salem, N.C., where LaBrecque took a job as an editor in the public-relations department at Wake Forest University. When her husband died suddenly of an aneurysm in 1989, friends she had met in Libya who were living in Santa Fe urged her to come for a visit.

After three extended stays, she decided to move here in 1999. "Santa Fe is such a great art town with so many galleries; I immediately felt at home. I love the fact that there are so many cultural events taking place. I also appreciate that it's so easy to get around town, and I enjoy my volunteer work at the Lensic and Santa Fe Opera. But mostly, I love the people, many of whom are so well-traveled that I have found I have a lot in common with them."

Ana Pacheco's weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Sunday. She can be reached at 505-474-2800.