The Path

"Traveler, your footsteps
make the road and nothing more;
traveler, there is no road
you build it as you walk

As you walk you build the road
and when you turn your head
you see the path you will never
step on gain.

Traveler, there are no roads
only wakes in the sea"

Excerpt of "Traveler there is no road", by Antonio Machado.

This is one of my favorite poems by Mr. Machado, the whole poem is beautiful, but at the same time very sad. It was made into a song many years ago by Joan Manuel Serrat, and it was listening to this song that I started working on this piece. It reminded me of my life 6 years ago, before we moved here; more complicated (and less lonely) times. I like the metaphor of the path and how each one of us makes his/her own, because that's how life is, and the idea that it exists because we are willing to walk on it, until we realize how it ceases to exist once we've traveled on it...who could have said it better?. I did this piece thinking about this particular poem, it is in a way a self portrait or, should I say, auto biographical. As I begin a new period of my life, I look back at my old trail disappearing before my eyes, realizing, at the same time that I can't go home again; the only way to travel is forward.

Nerve-wrecked

OK, I did it: I applied for a gallery (I still have to wait for their call for an interview) I'm really nervous, about it. I hadn't felt this anxiety in a looooong time (University, actually). This is the part I dislike the most about doing art: being evaluated. Drives me crazy!!!!. I haven't heard from them for the interview (of course not, I only sent them the form yesterday), and I start wondering how long it's going to take to hear back from them, or if they decided to "google" me (yes, I do show up when you write my name and "art" beside it...go figure), saw my web page (or this blog, for that matter) and decided it wasn't worth their time to call me back (I know in my mind this is probably not the case, but my inner paranoid won't listen to my brain!!!). So, here I am, anxious and expecting the worst (but secretly hoping for the best)...What to do? I guess I'll go paint my anxiety away...

On a happier (and more relaxed) note, I finally got in touch with the people from Whole Children, in Hadley, MA and donated a painting (the one shown above) for a fundraiser they're having on Nov. 15th. I didn't send the other one I mentioned in a previous post (see "Donating my Art"), because they were asking for smaller pieces, around 9"x11" and that one is around 16"x20", which is much larger than they were asking for. Instead, the one I dropped off today is 10"x16" (its a monoprint on rice paper), which is closer to the size they wanted. I usually work on much larger pieces, so I only had a very few paintings to choose from...anyways, they seemed happy I was donating the piece, and that's what matters. I hope the fundraiser goes well. I'm happy I could help.

So, off I go, happy but anxious, to the studio...it's going to be a long night...

Sorting Laundry

It's been a while since I posted anything (bad Marilyn!, bad Marilyn!). Its just been a crazy last couple of months and quite frankly, I've had a ton of ideas but for some reason haven't gotten to them. This one is my older dog, Moshis ( we found him at our University campus in Caracas in Sept 1999). We were folding our clean laundry one day (on our bed, as we usually do), when all of the sudden he jumps over the piles of clothes and lands softly and cuddly in the middle, covers his nose with a t shirt and falls asleep for about an hour!! (talk about a dog's life). So, I reached for the phone, snapped a quick couple of pictures and started working!. I used acrylic inks (I'm in love with the intensity of the colors) and some pastel on watercolor paper and this was the result!. (Oh, and in case you're wondering, we had to work around him to fold the rest of the clothes).

Under the Tree of Life

I had this idea in my mind for a while, now...I just hadn't had the time to sit down and think about how to manifest my idea in a graphic way (this is always the hardest part for me always). The symbol of the tree of Life has been used in many cultures and has a variety of meanings, but in most cases it serves as a link between three worlds: Heaven, Earth and the Underworld and it is the line of balance that unites the three realms.

I painted the three figures in the bottom representing humanity, or at least those members of humanity in search of balance and integration with the world, the beads represent the wisdom that could be obtained during the search for balance and which will ultimately lead to it (I used beads as a reference to "The Glass Bead Game", by Herman Hesse, he's one of my favorite authors).

With this piece I wanted to convey a sense of reverence towards life and the world, and stress the need we have (specially right now) to achieve balance within ourselves and with the world around us.

Andante

Well...where do I begin?. This piece started as a creativity exercise. I wanted to paint something using hardware brushes (car detailing brushes, stuff like that). So, I started playing with the paint, very slowly. Once the background was done, I started looking through my drawings (yes, the ones I still haven't categorized, photographed or touched), and I found a pose very similar to this one, so I started developing, the shape, using a lot of paint and water. Finally, I used charcoal to give her a more defined outline (and features). The result is very surprising to me, because when I use this technique, I usually end up doing "nightscapes", but this time, this image appeared in my mind and slowly started to flow on the paper. I named her "Andante", because that's what it felt like while I painted her,very slow, peaceful, meditative... I guess this is a risk one runs when painting to music, right?. But I like it, because it loosens me up and helps me drown that silly little voice that keeps telling me I'm not good enough.