miguel

A Street Story: Barrio del Carmen

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An artist who draws or paints on the street– and who expects to survive– learns of necessity to develop a kind of radar, an early warning system. An indoor studio is a space you can control; it has a door you can close, and if necessary, lock. Out on the street however, you’re vulnerable to whomever is passing by, to someone who simply wants to strike up a conversation, or to offer a critique of your painting, or of your life– or of their life. Or perhaps they want to harangue you about whatever might be bothering them, or if your back is turned, to sneak off with some of your brushes or your water bottle or a couple of tubes of paint.
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The Red… and Time

Thought and Memory

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Wondrous animals abound in the tales of northern Europe: Fenrir, a malevolent wolf who devours the hand of one of the gods; Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse; and Jörmungand, the serpent that encircles the world and that ultimately kills Thor in the battle of Ragnarök, the defeat and death of the gods.

Perhaps because I have been studying crows and ravens for nearly forty years and feel they perch deservedly on the top branches of avian evolution, my favorite animals in the northern stories are two ravens, Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory. Odin taught them how to speak and so every morning, they soar out into the world, returning at dusk to perch on his shoulders and advise him on what they have learned.

In my painting they appear to travel into both the past and the future. The knowledge they bring back to Odin gives him Awareness, but not, unfortunately, the power to change the course of events. In the universe of the northern gods, as well in our own world, nothing– not even our gods– is more powerful than Fate.