Shorter Posts

This is the final image of my transformation of Paco’s aunt. The first impression of her when he showed me the original portrait six weeks ago was not pleasant. The lack of warmth in her expression reminded me of some nuns I had the misfortune of encountering during childhood. “People are misbehaving somewhere,” she seemed to be thinking, “and are going unpunished.”

During her life she was called, Pura, short for Purificación. The Pure One. How does one live up to such a name? In the Catholic tradition, a soul that is not sufficiently “pure” at the time of death has to spend time in Purgatory to make the soul worthy of entering into heaven. When I began to repaint Pura, I had no idea of where we were going, except that I just wanted to treat her gently, with care. So I gathered my colors and brushes and we began to wander away from Purgatory. It was a surprise to paint trees and night and the moon around her, as if they welcomed us. Then came snow and clouds, then the edge of the sea. Everything began to feel like an embrace.

I tried to paint edges of energy, shapes in-between: between autumn, winter and spring, between day and night, between the sea and the forest, the organic and the mechanical, jewels and leaves, the lights of a city landscape. Or is that shape at the bottom of the canvas just a circuit board, or a strange pinball machine?

In a few days I’ll be leaving Pura and her nephew here in Valencia to return to my home in California, to a different, beautiful bardo. So this not a final image. It’s just where I have been able to pause a bit from painting us.

Everyone who is reading this is doubtless aware of the catastrophic storms and floods that have crippled a large part of the Province of Valencia here on the Mediterranean Coast of Spain. I post this photo of me (and Susanne Moisan, my friend from Hamburg, Germany) to assure all of you kind people who have sent worried emails inquiring about my health, safety and whereabouts, that all is well here in Valencia city. We have been spared the worst of the disaster. More posts will follow. Thank you for caring.

One of the many things I learned from my students during the years I taught classes in watercolor, figure drawing and oil painting was that often the biggest obstacle the students faced was their own fear of making mistakes. It seems natural that we want to impress a teacher, to get her or his approval. So we draw and paint the best we can and yet we discover that we are more apt to create mistakes and messes than artworks we can be proud of. Often my attempts to console students who were struggling (without exception, all were struggling at some level!) were successful, especially when I used baseball as an example. “If you get a hit once every three times you step up to the plate, you are considered a superb player. But this means you have failed two out of three times! How do you accept such failures? This is a question only you can resolve.”

Keeping messes and mistakes in mind, here are the latest phases in my transformation of Paco’s Aunt. Into what, you wonder? Well, I wonder too. But the deeper I wander into the woods, the more it seems that the painting is not about about her being any “thing.” It’s more about her having been, and now becoming . . . I’m hoping to answer questions, resolve mistakes and have a finished painting within a week or ten days. Thanks for your patience.

Meanwhile, I offer these latest changes for whomever might need some encouragement. If a painting is not a struggle, then what’s the point? Aren’t our imaginations always prodding us ahead of ourselves and our skills as artists always lagging behind? Isn’t this is just life, totally normal?