miguel

Bridge

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As foolish as it may seem, I have been trying for years to paint things I can’t see. The word, “things” is hardly accurate because it’s a noun. “Verbs” comes closer to what I have been chasing, but how does one paint verbs? Here’s an example of an attempt from a while ago.

Earth: Nine trees in a row, except that they don’t act like trees; I wanted them to be transparent, like doors opening to reveal a blue sky.

Water: From the bottom left a coastline and sea waves intersect with the sky.

Air: A layer of high clouds floats into the scene from the top right.

Fire: I wanted to paint a lightning storm, but didn’t have the skill. So I tried to suggest fire’s presence by an orange glow in the sky.

Four elements coming together from three different perspectives. Does this convergence suggest the action of invisible forces? I had hoped that it would, but that was years ago, and I’m still trying to visualize what isn’t visible.

A Drawing While She Slept

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Her flight from the other side of the world was long and bumpy and she slept little. She was a traveler, at home anywhere, but this was her first visit to Madrid. In spite of her fatigue she managed to be bright and attentive at a little bar he had chosen for their lunch. After dessert, he guided her through quiet streets to the apartment, kissed her into the sheets, and left her to dream.

He wandered with little thought or direction and found himself at a table in an outdoor café near a Metro station. He drew with pencil and watercolor, ignoring passersby, trying to concentrate on light and trees, art deco ironwork and shadows. The more he tried not to think of her, the more he thought of her.

She stayed through August and September into Autumn. “You know I love your paintings,” she told him, “but more and more I love your messy sketches, like this Metro stop, your uncertainties and mistakes, your trying to figure out how to paint what you’re looking at and how you feel about it. Almost like these months we have been together, yes?”

Weeks of fleeting moments, light hearts and happiness together in the beautiful city she grew to love. Rain and chilly days and long nights came soon enough, as they kissed each other into tears and goodbyes.

The Road to Drumcliffe

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“Drink and carouse with Bacchus or munch dry bread with Jesus, but don’t sit down without one of the gods.”
— D.H. Lawrence

Most roads in the west of Ireland were designed for wagons and carts. If this watercolor were accurate, the car ahead of us would not exist, but instead, a flock of sheep. The composition needed a shape in the middle distance and a sedan seemed easier to draw than animals. High winds from the Atlantic and lonely landscapes are ever present here in this enchanted water-land of fens, brooks, ponds, rivers, lakes and bogs, and so are radiant greens, which I seldom managed to capture with my brushes.

Three brothers were traveling to Drumcliffe in a rented Mercedes to pay our respects at the tomb of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). His grave lies among a dozen others in an old churchyard under leafy shade with the mysterious shadow of Ben Bulben, the great mountain, in the distance. Yeats’ simple headstone reads:

“Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman, pass by.”

Four horsemen passing: Patrick, Tim, myself and our mystical companion, unseen but always present, the guide and protector of travelers, called Hermes by the old Greeks. Needless to say, he was excellent company during our travels.

The road out of Drumcliffe winds south along the windy coast. We had no destination in particular, just some fishing village or other where, at a pub, the locals would suggest a welcome place to spend the night, or perhaps a couple of days. Patience, Curiosity, and Gratitude are essential on Drumcliffe Road because the Road leads to everywhere: to Rome, to Mecca, even to Home. Even to “the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns . . . “