What if...? Oh well...

What if… ? Oh well…

What if I hadn’t slept walked through high school and gotten something better than a “C”? Oh well, that was a long time ago and it doesn’t matter anymore, besides was I anymore oblivious in high School than anyone else?

What if I had a good singing voice instead of being able to draw? What if I could sing and draw? Oh well, I already have enough trouble staying focused. Probably the last thing I need is more options.

What if I had understood what was up when Ricky’s aunt invited me to give her a backrub? Oh well, I was sixteen and she was forty and it took a couple of more years for the possibility and then the certainty to enter my mind.

What if I had actually gone to class and hadn’t flunked out of Queensboro Community College? Oh well, it makes a good story to tell to people who are worried about their kids’ choices.

What if I had married Harriet instead of Andrea? Oh well, that would have been a mess too, just a different kind of mess. What marriage wouldn’t be a mess when you’re twenty-one?

What if I had stayed in NYC and tried to be a full time artist? Oh well when you come to a fork in the road you can’t really take it.

What if I had hung out at the Cedar Bar and gotten to know Jackson Pollack and Jasper Johns? Oh well, my career in education has been great and my chances of dying of AIDS or an overdose much reduced.

What if I had been as good a father as I aspired to be? Oh well my kids love me and I’m a better grandfather than I was a father.

What if I hadn’t been such a jerk in my relationship with Mariellen? Oh well, then I’d still be with her and wouldn’t be with Deb and I wouldn't have missed that for the world.

What if I had passed on the vasectomy and had a couple of more kids? Oh well, I got enough damn kids already and the grandkids keep coming. Talk about an embarrassment of riches!

What if my mother could hear me reading this? Oh well, she loved a good country and western song. Who’s to say she can’t.

 What if my knees hadn’t given out and I was still running? Oh well, at least I haven’t had anything replaced… yet.

What if I’d finished my PhD program at Brandeis? Oh well, staying 28 years in my job in Coventry resulted in a big pension that allows me to do pretty much whatever I want with my time.

What if when I got my weight down to 175 I’d kept it there? Oh well, who wants to live forever anyway?

  

What if I had stayed in Central America instead of coming back to The States? Oh well hay mas tiempo que vida.

What if I had gotten the job directing the American program at the Ecole in Switzerland? Oh well, now I’ll probably get to try another couple of years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America, besides all that chocolate and cheese in Switzerland would have made me even fatter.

What if I had read all the things on this list instead of censoring some of them? Oh well, dangerous writing, writing without fear, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up all your privacy.

What if I didn’t speculate endlessly about all of life’s missed opportunities? Oh well, what fun would that be.

When Artists Go Bad

When Artists Go Bad

While passing through

The Albuquerque airport

I saw Dale Chihuly in chains;

Thick ones on his wrists,

Thin ones that tinkled

Around his ankles

Checking his stride as he walked.

He was being transported

By federal marshals.

One was muscular, handsome, Hispanic.

The other wore a Hawaiian shirt

And an expression

That said

To maintain law and order

Murder is always justified.

In this context

Dale’s eye patch

Seemed somewhat sinister.

So did the tears tattooed

In the corner

Of his visible eye,

And the spider web on his elbow.

The artist and his two guards

Were given special handling

At security.

I lost sight of them.

But later they were seated

On stools at the counter of

All Aboard Noodles.

Dale was seated in the middle

Eating from a steamy glass bowl

With a porcelain spoon,

Slices of pink pork

Like poker chips

Floating in golden broth

White noodles looped

Like calligraphy.

Tying not to stare

I passed them by.

When first class was called

For my flight to DC

I made a last minute trip

To the bathroom.

Dale stood at the urinal

Dick in manacled hands

Pissing loudly.

The Hispanic marshal

Stood one step behind him

A respectful distance

But within easy arm’s reach.

They spoke like

Business acquaintances

Which I suppose they were.

“When we woke up this morning

I had to scrape the ice off

The fucking windshield.”

“Where did you guys

Stay last night, Los Alamos?”

“I don’t know where the hell we were.

He was driving.”

The marshal spoke perfect English,

But Dale had a heavy Spanish accent.

Strange I thought at the time

For a one-eyed glassblower

From Tacoma.

I wanted to say,

“Mr. Chihuly,

Over the years

Your art has given me

So much pleasure.

Thank you for creating

All that beauty.”

I wanted to say

“That bowl of noodles

Made my mouth water.”

Under the circumstances –

The US marshal,

The chains,

Dale vigorously shaking his dick –

I said nothing.

They walked out together

Law enforcement holding the elbow

Of a ground breaking artist

Gone bad.

I was filled with regret

For gratitude unspoken.

For passing on the noodles.

(I did spot Dale Chihuly in an airport recently, but it was Newark not Albuquerque and he was not in chains. I do regret not having spoken to him.)

Honduras, November 2010 - Part II - Cruz Bermudez

Cruz Bermudez is a self-taught artist who lives and works in a small, wooden house just outside of downtown Tela, a beach town on the north coast of Honduras. He is proprietor of an art gallery called El Aura, which takes up the living room of his house. Cruz, his wife Maria Lopez, also an artist, and their two young children, live in a couple of small rooms behind the gallery. Paintings are hung and stacked all over the house. The yard functions as a studio and arts workshop where Cruz, Maria and a couple of brothers from each side of the family gather to paint.

Cruz’ paintings are distinctive and easy to spot around Tela. Most of the hotels have a couple on display. Typically, he depicts life along the north coast of Honduras, especially the life of the Garifuna, an Afro-Caribbean community that has as much in common with the cultures of Haiti and Cuba as with Latino Honduras.

He paints men fishing from canoes and from the beach with nets, thatched huts, roosters, musicians and dancers. He is particularly adept at painting night scenes; houses glowing against near black foliage, deep blue water reflecting moonlight, clouds back lit against nighttime skies.

This is Cruz’ bread and butter work. There isn’t much of a tourist industry in Honduras except for the island or Roatan, but those who do travel on the mainland often pass through Tela. Hondurans of means, from San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa, also come to the beach here, especially for Semana Santa, the week of celebration around Easter. Cruz supports himself as an artist. He is proud that his paintings have been taken home to the United States, Canada, Germany, France and Spain, rolled up in tubes, stuffed into suitcases or back packs.

Certainly these are commercial paintings, created to sell, to remind people of their experiences in Honduras. However, within this context, Cruz is often after something deeper.

For example, in a painting he recently completed it is nighttime. Off to one side a man paddles a small canoe out into the bay to fish. In contrast to his adult responsibilities, four boys are playing on a pier. The two oldest boys, probably teenagers, are in mid air, having jumped from the pylons. They seem to be at that exact moment of weightlessness before gravity overtakes the momentum of their leap. The next boy in line is a little younger. He is considering jumping. It seems likely that he will follow the older boys and take a swim in the perfect blue of the nighttime ocean. The fourth boy, younger still, hangs back. His posture indicates hesitancy. He is not ready. Maybe he is too young. Maybe he is timid by nature.

Here in the guise of a lush painting for tourists, is a perfect portrait of that moment when you realize that your life is waiting for you. It is yours for the taking. Will you dive in? Will you hesitate, play it safe?

This description is based in part on Cruz’ explanation of the themes of the painting and in part on my extrapolation.

If this painting was hanging above your couch and you looked at it every day, I believe you would find yourself making braver choices. Even if you never thought of it metaphorically, you would develop a yearning to join those boys in mid air, in that moment where anything could happen and nothing is retractable.

Cruz has been an artist since he was seven years old. Throughout his boyhood he drew and sold a comic book featuring a character named Jeiko. Jeiko was a Honduran Tarzan. He was born in the mountains and could talk to the animals. His adventures included combat with giant snakes, plunges into jungle pools from the tops of waterfalls, and swims across crocodile infested rivers. He swung a mean machete.

Cruz sold photocopies of his comic to his schoolmates for one cent. He always had plenty of pocket money. His buddies pestered him, “When will the next one be ready?” There are no surviving issues of Jeiko.

Cruz has two children with Maria Lopez. They are eight and ten. He had them show me their drawings. Both the girl and the boy had drawn themselves trying on outfits from a closet full of colorful clothes. They draw very well.

Cruz has two older children from a previous relationship. I asked him if they were artists, too. He replied, “Yes they play guitar and sing. We are a family of artists. All of this - painting, sculpture, music - comes naturally to us.”

Cruz, who is 55, has been with Maria for seventeen years. I’m guessing she is fifteen to twenty years younger than him. I asked if she was already an artist when they met. He said, “She liked to paint, but didn’t think she could. Now she is better than me because women are more perfectionistic. I can do it if I want to, but it doesn’t satisfy me. In fact Maria’s paintings are meticulous and yet seem fresh and lively. She specializes in portraits of Honduran women often at work. These portraits have strong psychological and social resonance.

I told her that Cruz and I had been discussing why he paints and that I wanted to ask her the same question. She said, “At first, I painted because I liked it and to make money. Now I paint because I want to show how things are at this time in this community.”

After a couple of hours of talking, Cruz said, “I make paintings to sell, but I also make paintings for my private collection. These I make for myself and for my children after I am dead. I show this work to close friends.”

Cruz had shown me some of his private work on previous visits. This time he went into a back room and brought out a half dozen canvases. One is a large painting of a boat with slack sails full of refugees, people with sad faces making a desperate journey. The boat is becalmed. It seems to be making little forward progress. Cruz said the name of this painting is El Viaje de Esperanza (The Journey of Hope).

Cruz said that all over Latin America people are leaving one place and going to another in hopes of a better life. Hondurans leave for the United States or Spain. Haitians leave for the Dominican Republic. Nicaraguans leave for Costa Rica. Cubans leave for where ever they can land. Many die just because they want a better life.

“I painted this for my children because I hope they never have to make such a journey.”

Maybe all the best paintings are prayers.

I asked Cruz about his plans for the future. He said that he would like to be an artist outside of Tela, outside of Honduras, outside of Central America. Visitors have said they will help him organize shows in Canada and Germany. He said that he would like to have an exhibition in the United States. I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Here is a link to photos of more paintings by Cruz and Maria:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=251446&id=669761364&l=8a0dab474b

Road Trip - East Bound

Cross Country Haiku

I

Road Trip

Nevada

Poker, blackjack, slots,

Kids living on neon streets,

Too many hard luck tales.

I’m hot and dusty

Thirsty, too. My home is far.

Time to hit the road.

Utah

Seagulls of Salt Lake

Are polygamists and must

Moisturize their feet.

Sunrise in my eyes

I’m headed east, aiming home.

Sunset behind me.

Colorado

That road kill is huge!

What the hell was that before?

Deer? Moose? Harley?

Landscape fills my eyes,

Makes the miles pass quickly by.

The leaves are changing!

Nebraska

Windmills make lazy

Circles in the sky. Lovely!

Please, build one next door!

Miles and miles of corn

Grown to marbleize beefsteak.

Pollan says, “Eat plants.”

Iowa

Nina Simone sings

Out over the dry corn fields.

They never heard better.

Flat is not boring.

All around variety.

Sunflowers everywhere.

I had to get in

The word “prairie”. Now that’s done,

Good bye Iowa.

Illinois

East of the mighty

Mississippi the states are

Smaller. Why is that?

It’s a long, long way

From Reno to the east coast.

Half way in three days.

Indianna

Adult Super Store,

Huge sign erect in the sky.

Excited farm boys.

U.S. tis a mall

Same shit, under god, for all.

Small towns took the fall.

Ohio

Ohio, you seem

Surprised. Your two Os look

Like big popping eyes.

I’m so skinny here.

The rust belt comes in one size,

Triple XXX

I’m so skinny here.

Fried chicken is the state bird.

Fat is fabulous

I’m so skinny here.

Sandusky could be my town.

I got to loose weight.

Pennsylvania

Freight trains pass by me

Headed west. I am going east.

I can’t count that fast.

Coming back seems fast.

Faster than going. Tail winds?

Anticipation?

New York

New York, the cool state.

Just a corner of it is

Cooler than Texas.

Connecticut

Connecticut is

So, so sophisticated.

Would never date Georgia.

Crossed the U.S.

Fueled by Frappachinos.

Starbucks is my friend.

Rhode Island

Little Ol’ Rhody

In and back out in an hour.

That’s my kind of state.

Little Rhody! I

Land after adventuring.

Its good to be home.

II

The Social Lives of Cities

Charlotte and Macomb
Charlotte was sorry
About her night with Macomb.
She had too much wine.

But he fell for her.
She didn't return his calls
or answer emails

Spurned, he raged,
"Some day, some way, she will pay,"
Proving she was right.

Philadelphia and Cheyenne
Philly and Cheyenne
On a date. She swallowed hard.
His boots had gold spurs.

Cheyenne and Philly
On a date. He blushed red.
Her heels were six inches.

Philly and Cheyenne
On a date. Later, in bed,
They kept their shoes on.

Gary and Newark
Gary could be pals
With Newark. They both have abs
and bad attitudes.

Newark could be pals
With Gary. June at The Shore.
July at The Dunes.

Gary and Newark
Could be pals, but they would fight:
Knockwurst or calzone.

Akron and Bayonne

Akron and Bayonne

Had a bromance. Back slap hugs.

No way no kisses.

Bayonne and Akron

Had a bromance. Screw some girls

Brag who did it best.

Macho guys in a big

bromance. “Hey, look, once don’t count.”

“Especially drunk.”

Biloxi and Austin

Two towns up a tree

K-i-s-s-i-n-g.

One thing then another.

A well-known story,

A different order for the

Carriage and marriage.

Biloxi loved

Austin. Austin loved Biloxi.

But still, would it last?

Minneapolis and St. Paul
Minneapolis,
Long wed to St. Paul, yawns, sighs
Flirts with the waitress.

St. Paul, long wed to
Minneapolis, sighs, yawns
Knits for the grandkids.

The venerable pair,
With hearts full of love, know they
Will go on spooning.

Ode to an Aged Artist - Part VII

Thursday, August 19, 2010 - The Final Installment

It is time to bring this series of postings to a close. I hate to see Ode to an Aged Artist come to an end, but the painting, now titled Odas Elementales, is finished and it is hanging in the window of Annex Comics on Broadway in Newport, Rhode Island. It is a good place for it.

The proprietor of Annex Comics, Wayne Quackenbush, has been very supportive to the alternative high school, The East Bay Met School, where I work. He has provided internships to some our students and encouraged other students to display their artwork in his shop. If you are in Rhode Island and looking for a comic book/graphic novel/sequential artwork, you know where to go.

I have enjoyed the process of making and writing about this painting. The title comes from a series of poems by Pablo Neruda that I have quoted frequently in these postings. Odas Elementales is usually translated as Elemental Odes, but I’d translate it as Odes to Basic Things. In the making of this piece, I was trying to do the visual version of what Neruda does in these poems: describe everyday objects in an accessible style. The amazing thing about Neruda’s odes is that in one moment they seem to be nothing more than lovely, clear descriptions and in the next moment they seem full of deeper meaning.

I think of my painting as a self-portrait that I don’t appear in. I’m telling you about whom I am by presenting some of the everyday things from my life: roosters, elephants, the cup I drink my morning coffee from, the quilt design called tumbling blocks, Honduran clowns, some tile patterns that have stuck in my head, tomatoes from my garden, and a little doll bought in a tourist market in Guatemala. These things are present in my mind and attached to some of my sweetest memories.

Can you tell this from the painting? Do these objects seem full of deeper meaning?

Alive

This painting uses all the conventions of the old side show banners that lined circus midways advertising amazing and disturbing attractions. Like them, it is painted on unstretched canvas and has grommets for hanging it. I’ve copied the painted banner within the actual banner that these signs always had and also copied the style of lettering that would have proclaimed, Dickie the Penguin Boy, Jack Joyce’s Performing Horses, Amazon Snake Charmer, Huey the Pretzel Man, Rasmus Nielsen Scandinavian Strong Man, Professor Price Tattoo Artist, Alligator Girl, and Shella Queen of the Jungle.

(My reference was Freaks, Geeks & Strange Girls – Sideshow Banners of the Great American Midway, by Randy Johnson, Jim Secreto, and Teddy Varndell.)

Almost all of the midway banners contained another element, a circle containing the word “alive.” This appeared as assurance to the rubes who were going to pay a nickel to enter the sideshow that they would see the living, breathing, genuine article, not a painting or a statue or a work of taxidermy. However, I think it carries another meaning. I think it is a declaration of existence.

I’m alive! I’m here! I woke up this morning on the right side of the grass! How amazing!

And finally, it is all that matters.

Ode to an Aged Artist - Part VI

Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Tomato

it’s time!

come on!

and, on

the table, at the midpoint

of summer

the tomato,

star of earth,

recurrent

and fertile

star,

displays its convolutions,

its canals,

its remarkable amplitude

and abundance,

no pit,

no husk,

no leaves or thorns,

the tomato offers its gift

of fiery color

and cool completeness.

This is a fragment from Pablo Neruda’s Ode to the Tomato.

In the painting, will people recognize this heirloom variety as a tomato or will they think it some kind of little, red pumpkin? It would seem that this is what Neruda thought a tomato looked like when he wrote about “its convolutions” and “its canals.” I haven’t got anything against a big, perfectly round beefsteak, but I swear you can’t beat the flavor of these old varieties. Besides, they are much more fun to draw.

The tomatoes from my garden have been bringing me an inordinate amount of joy this summer. I’ve been eating about two a day, usually as tomato sandwiches for lunch. Here is my recipe: I get some good, crusty bread and saw off half inch slices. I spread the bread with some honey mustard to get off on the right foot. Then, I add cottage cheese, or humus, or avocado, or all of the above. Finally, I slap on a slice or two of tomato and finish it off with a generous amount of salt and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Of course a few strips of crispy bacon will make this sandwich even more memorable, but then there is not much that bacon won’t improve. I’ve been known to wash this down with a mid-day beer, but ice tea is good, too.

I’m getting close to being done with the painting. I think I can add details and polish it up in another day or two.

Ode to an Aged Artist - Part 5

(I figured out recently that if you click on the picture you can get a larger version of it. If you click on the enlargement, you get a good close up that will let you see the texture of the surface and the details of the painting.)

Monday, August 10

Here come the roosters! I love roosters. When I was living in Honduras they were everywhere and not a day went by that I didn’t actively admire them.

“Damn,” I’d say to myself or to Deb. “There’s a handsome bastard,” meaning I’d just spotted a rooster with dramatically shaped plumage, an eye catching comb, intimidating spurs, and a combination of iridescent colors that took my breath away. Some of these guys stood knee high to me. Occasionally, I’d run across an aggressive one, but usually they gave their full attention to scratching and pecking and doing the other thing roosters do. Only a few had the time to spare to charge a gringo.

I saw a rooster

with feathers of Spanish

luster:

black and white cloth

was the stuff

of its shirt,

knee britches,

and arching tail feathers.

its feet sheathed

in yellow boots

displayed the sheen of defiant

spurs.

The

proud

head

crowned

with blood

intensified

its scornful stance:

a statue

of pride.

I love Neruda’s “Ode to a Rooster”, but my perception of roosters is very different from his. The cock he anthropomorphizes so eloquently is a regal character, a kind of benign monarch or the barnyard. Neruda describes him finding a crumb of bread which he passes on to his hens, “keeping nothing for himself / but pride...”

I’ve observed a lot of rooster behavior and I’ve seen nothing that I’d describe as generous or even unselfish. In fact everything in a rooster’s behavioral repertoire seems to have to do with satisfying a limited number of biological imperatives: scratch, peck, scratch, peck, jump a chicken, scratch, peck, scratch, peck, jump a chicken.

Oh yeah, and crow. I don’t know what the biological imperative behind crowing is, but I’m sure there is one.

Remember learning that roosters crow at dawn? Forget it. They crow any damn time they feel like it. However, at dawn they crow in unison, every one in town and there are hundreds, thousands.

Interestingly, in the US, when roosters crow, they say cock-a-doodle-do, but in Latin America they say ki-ki-riki-ki.

Here’s Neruda on rooster sex:

swift movement

of love, ravishment

of feathered shadows,

I praise you,

black

and white

rooster,

strutting

sum

of virile rural honor,

father

of the fragile, egg…

He got the “swift”, “ravishment” and “strutting” right. The rooster jumps on the hens back, pens her head into the dirt, flaps his wings wildly three or four times, and he’s done. The hen gets up, shakes herself off, and goes back to scratching and pecking. The father of the fragile egg struts around bragging about what he’s just done. I know. I am anthropomorphizing, too, just like Neruda, but you watch a rooster right after he’s jumped a hen and tell me that he not thinking, “Yeah, baby! That’s what I’m talking about. I gave it to her good! Call me the love machine.”

Maybe roosters are viewed differently in every epoch. Writing in the fifties, Neruda described a dignified, benevolent, patriarch, a kind of pre-feminist cock. I’m a sixties/seventies/eighties kind of guy. I think about equality, self-determination, and empowerment for the hen. And yet I love roosters and think they are beautiful. Maybe my rooster admiration is post-feminist.

Ode to an Aged Artist - Part III

Thursday, August 4, 2010

San Simón, a.k.a. Maximón, has made an appearance. I was sort of expecting him to show up in this painting. So far he’s only an outline, but once he has a foot in the door, you can expect him to manifest himself in a more solid form.

Mam was the most beautiful man in the village. All the young women wanted him in their beds, feeling sure he would be more pleasing than their boyfriends or husbands. Those who let their curiosity get the better of them were not disappointed. All the old women thought he’d be a perfect son, more attentive than the ones they had raised. In fact Mam did go out of his way to do favors for the grandmothers. Rather than see one go hungry, he would spend half a day fishing for her and share the soup she made, sitting with her by her fire and asking her for stories of days gone by. He thatched many a roof to keep an elder dry.

Among the men he was also popular and respected.

How sad then that when the Spanish came ashore and the misunderstanding occurred about whom would bow down to whom, Mam was the first to die.

When the villagers heard the explosion from the arquebus and saw the top of Mam’s head disappear in a spray of blood and bone and brain, they didn’t wait around to see what would happen next. They grabbed his body and faded away into the jungle.

By evening, the people were miles down the coast. They laid Mam on a pyre and the priest set it on fire. All the women gathered around and sobbed. Quite a few men did, too. The tears quenched the flames and flowed over Mam’s body. He was wet and glistening with the tears of everyone who loved and respected him. Cry as they might, they could not bring him back to life. But, he was transformed. His body was changed from ephemeral flesh to one made out of clay, wood, bone, shell, and coral. As beautiful as ever, he became a muñeco that could stay with the villagers forever.

Since he was neither dead nor alive, neither fully on earth nor in the afterlife, not quite human, but certainly not a god, he became a go between, an intermediary. He couldn’t move so he was a good listener. If you came to Mam, spoke to him of your troubles or concerns, lit a candle so he wouldn’t have to sit in the dark, left him some whiskey, blew some smoke in his face, placed something sweet on his tongue, he would plead your case to the ones in charge on a higher plain. More times than not you’d find your situation improved.

Years went by, then decades, then a century or two. Most of the people who were there before the Spanish arrived died of small pox. The Catholic Priests didn’t like the people attending to Mam. They didn’t even like them referring to him, so the people started saying “San Simón” when they wanted to talk about him. For reasons that no one can remember they also started calling him Maximón. Regardless of what he was called, he went right on listening to peoples’ troubles, accepting their offerings, and doing what he could to lighten their load.

With San Simón, a.k.a. Maximón, you didn't need to be ashamed of your foibles. Nor did you need to be laid low by them. If you had a tendency to drink too much, get high too often, share your body too indiscriminately, suffer too much from love gone wrong, you could just turn it over to this beautiful, old muñeco and proceed unencumbered by regret or guilt.

As his body wore out, the people refurbished it. Eventually, he had more than one body and he lived in several locations.

Once in about 1963, a gringita with long, straight, black hair visited him at his house in Guatemala near the lake. She was sad because her husband had recently died in a motorcycle accident. She was a little drunk and a little stoned. She blew marijuana smoke in his face and sang him a song.

Oh but if somehow

you could pack up your sorrows

and give them all to me
You would lose them

I know how to use them

give them all to me

“Yeah”, he thought. “If I had a theme song that would be it.”

It took some time, but things got better for the young woman after that.

I'll write more about San Simón as he comes into focus.

Ode to an Aged Artist - Part II

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Tiles

I’m an hour into painting the third of four colors that will make the tile pattern under the elephant.

It is killing my back. I raised the painting, but I still have to bend over to work on the bottom. I’m into it so it is hard to make myself stop and take breaks to stretch. Is this painting worth a month of chiropractic adjustments?

The first time I can remember being aware of tile as a decorative motif was in Cuba in 1958. I was twelve or thirteen. I was living in Miami at the time and my dad was working as a mechanic for Pan American Airlines. There was some deal where airline employees could fly to Havana dirt-cheap and also get a bargain rate at Hotel Nacional. My dad went to gamble. While he was in the casinos, I wandered around Havana. I remember the tile that covered the facades of buildings and paved courtyards and plazas. My dad lost all his money and we went home early.

When I think back on this trip, two aspects of it puzzle me. The first is why my dad took me. It seems out of character. I suspect it had something to do with the endless machinations of my mother and father’s on again, off again marriage. Probably, I was thrown into the mix to balance the scale in someway, but what that way might have been is a mystery to me.

The second puzzling aspect is the timing. There was a revolution going on. I’m not sure of the season of the trip, but it was probably in the summer. Castro’s forces would triumphantly enter Havana in less than six months. From all the reading about the Cuban revolution I’ve done since, I know there were bombs going off in Havana, people being shot down in the streets. But there I was, an oblivious thirteen-year-old kid from the US, wandering down the Malacon, watching boys my age swim naked in the sea.

When I went back to Cuba in 2000 and again in 2001, I looked for the tile. It was there, but like everything in Havana, faded and broken. I took lots of pictures and tile patterns keep finding their way into my paintings.

This painting is a mess.

I always think that at some point during a project. Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes it is just me recalibrating my ego as I spend hours doing something that there is no reason to do other than that it brings me pleasure.

When a painting is a mess, sometimes I can fix it and sometimes not.

This picture has two chances to succeed. First it might end up being a good painting that I can show to people and get a smile, or a nod, or a conversation out of them. The second shot at success is that it can be a catalyst for this blog, a jumping off point for telling some good stories and sharing some thoughts.

Ode to an Aged Artist - Part I

Tuesday, August 4, 2010

I am working on a big painting in my studio. I’ve decided to document the making of this painting as part of Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man. Each day that I work on it, I’ll take a photo at the beginning of the session and write about the process. I’ll also share information about the imagery.

I am starting to think about this painting as a self-portrait that I don’t appear in. Sure, that is true about any painting, but this one more than others.

It is hard to paint and write at the same time. I keep needing to wash the paint off my hands before I can tap the keys.

I wish I had started earlier. I’m already a couple of days into the painting and some of the early laying on of color was interesting.

The Title

Over the course of his long career, Pablo Neruda wrote in many styles. At one point he composed a series of simple, accessible, observational poems describing everyday objects. In 1954 he published these poems as Odas Elementales, Elemental Odes. He was only 50 at the time and would live another nineteen years. However, these poems are referred to as “late career” works. One is called Ode to an Aged Poet and contains the lines:

There I left him

hurrying toward death

as if

death awaited,

she too, almost naked,

in a somber park,

and hand in hand

they would make

their way to

a decaying resting place

where they would sleep

as every man

of us

will sleep:

with

a dry

rose

in

a

hand

that will also

crumble into dust.

How’s that for looking mortality in the eye?

The Tiles

I started painting a tile floor underneath the elephant. To get the pattern I want, I will have to paint equal amounts, more or less, of four colors; purple, white, light green and dark green. I did the purple part and it took me an hour. There are three more hours to go on this one section.

Here is another nice mess I got myself into.

I saw this tile design in Guatemala and sketched it into a notebook. It has been in my mind since then.

The Elephant

Here is a paragraph from something I wrote when Deb and I came back from Botswana. I’ve only been to Africa once, for two weeks, but the images stick with me.

I was surprised by the emotion I felt at seeing the animals. The African Jacana was a brown so warm and rich it was reason enough to feel joyful. Giraffes were so improbable that they confirmed life is essentially a mystery that can’t be explained by theory or faith, a notion that brought with it a lovely melancholy. Many of the animals were giggle inducing, only one step removed from Disney cartoons. The monkeys, the mongoose, the secretary bird, seemed to be auditioning for the next version of the Lion King. The old elephants with their tattered ears and battered tusks seemed enduring in a way that only someone over sixty could really appreciate. They made me feel proud and courageous to be old and in Africa.

But this elephant seems to be wearing a lace unitard. What’s with that?