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.

Sunday Pond

Summer is here! the days are so sunny around here, its easy to forget about winter for a while. One of my favorite things is to go bike riding, I love all the fresh air, the view and let's face it, I need the exercise.

We usually ride on a bike path, this painting is based on a photograph I took of the lily pond on the path, the best part of the ride! So enjoy the sun, the beach, the long days, the ice cream and just being outside!

Dreams

"What is life? A frenzy
what is life? An illusion
A shadow a fabrication.
And the biggest good is small.
Your whole life is a dream
and dreams are only dreams."

Excerpt from "The rich man dreams in his wealth", by Pedro Calderon De la Barca.

What can I say about the inspiration for this piece? It is about our belief in things we think impossible when we're awake. What if our dreams were our lives and what we call dreams, our real life?.

The Survivor

"I return with overwhelming hope
and the ghosts I took with me
and everyone's slums and the friend
that used to be here but is no more

we are all broken but whole
decimated by forgiveness and bad habits
a little more worn and wiser
older and more sincere

I return without duel and it has rained so much
in my absence in my streets in my world
that I get lost in the names and confuse
the rain with tears

I return/ I want to believe I am returning
with my best and worst history
I know this road by heart
but I still feel surprised"

Excerpt from "I want to believe I am returning", by Mario Benedetti

I believe we are all, in our own way, survivors. We all experience loss and despair in different ways (a death in the family, a near death experience, wars, illness...), we all have to confront fears one time or another and although we may come from different backgrounds and the losses and the fears are different, our response is almost the same: we adapt to survive.

This poem is about coming back from exile (Benedetti had to leave his country during the dictatorship in Uruguay), but to me, his words have always given a voice to those who have survived an ordeal (be it exile, death, disease or war) and as a result found themselves changed; not quite unrecognizable but very much unlike the person they used to be.

When I finished this piece, I couldn't help but think of this poem, the image of this being coming back from the unknown, unrecognizable, leaving behind the very thing that changed him and coming back to the world as we know it, not as a different person, but as a different version of himself. What will the road home look like through those new eyes? what does the world feel like on that new skin? how will he use his new voice, unknown to everyone, even himself? what will he see the first time he looks in the mirror? how much of himself did he leave behind? and how much of the experience that changed him is coming back with him?.