Author: miguel

In Valencia there are at least a dozen bridges that span what used to be the river Turia. This sketch of El Puente del Mar dates from 1988, during my first visit to that lovely city. The bridge was built nearly 400 years earlier in 1591 to replace the previous wooden structure, destroyed by one of the region’s frequent floods.

Bridges: The city in northern Illinois where I grew up many years ago boasted four. They spanned the Fox River but not one was graced with an image of a saint. Nevertheless bridges still enchant me. Saints too. So you can imagine my fascination with this bridge in a Mediterranean port on the other side of the world.

I loved to draw the statues under their protective canopies, their baldacchini. I had little interest in the identity of the saints themselves, more interest in what roles they play. What do they symbolize? Bridges cross voids; ideally they create connections, trade and other peaceful relationships between people and places that are separated. The statues offer their blessings and protection to everyone who travels across to the other side.

In Autumn of 2024 when I made this drawing, news of the November elections in the US were a staple of European media, so living in Spain gave little respite from the flood of fear and hatred coming from demagogues and would-be dictators. But drawing can be an act of meditation: it offers time to reflect and contemplate. I was drawing bridges and saints in a city far away from my home. But in that home, saints and their benedictions had been forgotten long ago, and in my imagination, all the bridges were in flames.

After the fall, after you slam onto the cement and sit in shock, immobile, how awful is the damage? Any bones poking through the skin? Any bleeding? Other than your pelvis and a bump on your head from the ladder, is there any other pain? Can you wiggle your toes? Do you call an ambulance first or your wife? Where is your cell phone?

Multiple fractures of the pelvis, too many for surgery. After four days in a trauma ward, an ambulance transfers you to a rehab facility. The physical therapist examines your chart. “Seven fractures of your pelvis,” she says, “including Lumbar L5, Pubic Ramus Rt., Interior and Superior, etc. You sir, are my broken man.”

Not since you were an infant have you been so helpless. You cannot sit up, let alone stand up, or walk. You cannot dress yourself or go to the bathroom by yourself. During the following weeks you learn the names of your drugs: Tamsulosin, Apixaban, Mehocarbamol, Melatonin, plus Oxycodone HC1, and Lidocane Patches for the constant pain.

The marionette. Where did it come from? Already here when you arrived? Does anyone other than you even see it? Yesterday one of the nurses glanced in its direction, stared, shrugged, then continued making beds. For the most part it remains silent except, in the middle of the night, it emits faint sounds of a harpsichord.

Then this morning, in the dark, a little wooden hand raises your chin from the pillow. A whisper: “The Sun is coming! Melting snow will nourish the oak tree and turn the gray world into green. You will walk out of this place. You will dance again.”

Then: “Take me with you! Don’t leave me alone!”

In creating this post, my intention had been to show, as I had promised in an earlier post, images of Saints on a Bridge. Well, that changed. On a recent visit to my local market, I noticed a single flower alone and forlorn alongside a display of a dozen fresh bouquets. It was a paperwhite, a leftover from the Christmas holidays. Flowers don’t speak English, of course, but the feeling I got from this one was, “please take me to your studio and draw me before I die.” So I did; here is the sketch.

A surprising thing that often happens when I’m working/playing is a kind of inversion: I draw a tree or a person or a flower and in return, it seems to draw me. In this sketch, I began drawing stems and blossoms, but as I listened, I gradually shifted focus to the bulb and the roots. Why, I don’t know, I was just letting myself be guided. I’d like to say, “I thought such and such,“ but these aren’t thoughts; they’re more like insights or imaginings: “A flower has no purpose other than to be itself, a flower. To exist with its fragrant petals for its own sake, for it’s own short life. This sketch is like that. It has no purpose other than to be what it is, a kind of “paying attention.” It will not appear later in a painting. It’s just the record of a man with a pencil and some colors observing something that interests him.”

What I learned from the flower is this: “I need three things to live: sunlight, water and dirt. I rise out of darkness and dirt, just like you humans. You expect enlightenment and illumination to descend to you from above like the Holy Ghost, but it also arises, like me, from below.”

Next: Saints on a Bridge