miguel

The Meeting

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The Meeting – Oil on canvas – 28 x 32 inches.

Twilight falls over the city and soon night will arrive in a swarm of stars. A woman descends the stairs toward the river and the Boatman who awaits his passengers. She can’t hear the voices of the crowd of souls that surround her, nor can she see them. She feels alone, but she is not afraid.

Who is she? She could be anyone: an office worker in an insurance company. A soccer mom from the suburbs. An off-duty police officer. A tourist from anywhere in the world. On the other hand, she could be Everyone, even the artist who painted her.

To the Boatman, her identity is not important. He waits for her with the same indifferent patience as he waits for everyone else. Does she have enough coins in her purse to pay for the voyage? Sufficient coins or not, he will wait.

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More images on my website: johnmichaelkeating.com

My Friend Paco

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Paco – Watercolor – 14 x 17 in.

Quartell is a coastal village north of Valencia. I was there visiting my friend Carmen. She thought Paco and I could be friends. We found him with two lovely women in a crowded outdoor café. Rosa and Gema were gracious and curious. Not Paco. He smoked a cigar, his green shirt, the color of lettuce, matched his green shoes, and he was not interested in me. To a passerby, it appeared that five friends were amiably sipping wine. Not so: Paco and I circled each other like a couple of wary dogs. Carmen had told me that villages too small for a doctor would employ an Ayudante Técnico Sanitario, who helped with childbirths, administered vaccines, inoculations, set broken bones, etc. Paco was the local ATS, as well-known as the mayor. Villagers stopped at our table to chat.

“What brought you to this non-touristy place?” the women asked. I told them in my rudimentary Spanish about several previous visits to Spain. Paco was unimpressed. I began to wonder why I wanted friendship with someone who didn’t. Then he leaned across the table with a challenge: “So if you have already been to all those places, why do you keep returning to Spain?”

I was on the spot, but suddenly remembered a pun invented by my brother, Tim. “Porque soy un Espinaco,” I blurted: “Because I’m a Spainiac.”

A chorus of laughter from the women and the crowd at the adjoining tables because “Espinaco” doesn’t exist in Spanish. I silently thanked Tim.

The ghost of a smile appeared, then another challenge: “So, eh, what do you do in California?” By this time, I was fed up with thrust and parry and, sadly, had given up on being his friend.

“I paint pictures of naked women,” I growled, and then demanded in return, “So, eh, what do you do here in Spain?”

“I stick needles in people’s asses.”

More laughter, more wine. That was more than 30 years ago. We’re still laughing.

#saatchiart #art #artlovers #realisticart #artdaily

More stories and images at: johnmichaelkeating.com

Eva’s Gift

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When we talk about the art of photography, we normally use the word “take,” as in: I’m going to “take” a photograph of . . . . However, is it possible to “give” a photograph rather than to “take“ one?

For example, this photograph doesn’t tell us that the photographer and her subject are meeting in an empty loft that for more than three decades had been his painting studio. There had been drawing tables here, and easels, music, students, food, wine, filing cabinets, incense, fluorescent lights, models, shelves of books, watercolors of flowers and portraits of vintners from the Napa Valley. All these are now only ghosts in what had been the life of this place.

Nor does the photograph reveal that when he began all those years ago to construct this space, she had just been born. a baby less than a year old. The photograph also can’t reveal cobwebs and sawdust and give us the faint smell of turpentine, all that remains of what had been his creative and spiritual home for as long as she has been alive.

But here in the photograph, she is the artist, not he. It is she, not he, who notices that the colors of the building next door mirror the colors of his clothing. It is she, adept at probing below surfaces, who sees the shadows around him, and in him. She reveals what he would prefer to conceal: his own sadness and exhaustion in having so carefully destroyed what he had so carefully created.

He expects to get an image of him as he sees himself. She gives him an image of him as she sees him. He remembers hearing long ago that some so-called “primitive” people would not allow themselves to be photographed because they were afraid that the camera would take away a part of their souls. Her photograph does not take away a part of his soul. Instead, she gives it to him, her gift.

You can visit Eva’s website at evadejesus.com. Follow her at @neva.dacity and @grassv.alley on Instagram.

My own site for more images and musings is johnmichaelkeating.com.