La Finestra (window), acrylic on canvas, 75 cm x 105 cm, 2012

Working steadily to integrate my vision with local features.  Another one is on the boards.  These recent pieces measure about 105 cm by 80 or so.  Acrylic on canvas.  Am getting used to the Spanish "Titan" paint, having wanted to use materials from Spain.

I am interested in the structural geometry of antique windows and doors; how the stones are arranged since it informs the way I cellularize forms in my work.  This particular doorway is dated 1637.

One of many such doorways in Sant Feliu de Pallerols. 

Back to work....

Masía, acrylic on canvas, 75cm x 105cm

I am finding my way again, abstracting from architectural forms as structural armatures for the turbulent and complex energy fields that I find behind the appearances of things...a motif born of local observations of forms combined with the absorption of local color and light, transmuted through my vision...amplified and hopefully made luminous.  This first one is a bit like earlier work though I have sketches of more local forms that will make their way into more work coming...  In any case, I am working and feeling more confident, at home with my approach....my painting is best when is ephemeral, so says Isabel, a glimpse, a luminous memory of having partially seen something....the opposite of the kind of immutable stability and static presence of antique civilization. The tension between these two poles interests me greatly and I hope to do something with it in the work this month. 

Went to the market, bought fresh bread and wine (from a barrel into a portable container, vi negro...)  Had a vermut (vermouth) on ice with cold gambas with Isabel afterward...talked about the cultural differences between Spain and the U.S.  As a native Catalán who has lived in the U.S. much of her life, she remarked that while in the U.S. we embrace change, the Catalán and Spanish cultures are geared far more to stability, history, the unchanging...and that the landscape and pueblos are arranged in that way....the notion of wilderness is quite different.  Her mother, Sabina, age 84, remarking about the recent forest fires that killed several and occupied the news here for several days, that the (economically strapped) government should have cleaned the forests of downed wood before the fire....that essentially there are no forces of nature that the government should not be in control of.  The U.S. culture is, by comparison an adolescent, full of wild hope and expectation, still in touch with the uncontrollable aspects of our fate.  Yet we manage.

We watched Spanish TV last night of hand-wringing debates about what to do with the "crisis",  the economic need to streamline layers of government in the regional autonomies, to scale back on entitlements--and they despair that they won't be politically able to do so.

Sardana and Catalan Separatism

This weekend there will be a communal "sardana" dance in Sant Feliu de Pallerols where I am living.  I have heard of this particular tradition in the past but have never seen one.

Here is the poster for the Sardana and another about Catalan separatism, the local sentiment to separate Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalá, Cataluña in Castilian Spanish) from Spain.  Such feelings are made all the more intense by the meltdown of the economy and the historic productivity of Catalans vis-a-vis the rest of Spain.

Toward a motif, thoughts about tourist art making...

Incomplete large panel (about 105 cm x 230 cm) Acrylic on canvas

I hit the wall today after almost finishing a first multi-panel piece, per my earlier idea.  It may not work as planned.  I am sure it will pass, but I am today suffering a bit of ennui, a certain boredom with my own impulses. In short, I lack a motif that is adequately mine.

Moreover, I am musing about the entire notion of painting in response to locations, however exotic and beautiful.  As a month-long visitor, the best I can hope for is a sort of tourist response. I find my eye lands first on imagery that is frankly clichéd by over use and would likely end up made into a painting being pure kitsch.  I can't do it.  Even landscape painting is not entirely immune insofar as the genre is so overworked.  The art pales beneath the cliffs, the dark forests, the Roman arches, etc.  I felt this way once before in Paris after walking beside the Seine, seeing tons of historic art, the weight of history.

What to do?  Today I will reengage my work as I have been doing it for the last few years though with attention to the geometry, the bones of local forms.   Already I have sketched a number of architectural details that may serve my interests, provide structure and a sort of armature for the color and intricacy that interests me.  It may be enough.  Here are a few of my recent pieces, done before the trip to Catalunya. While a sense of landscape is, I believe, evident in highly abstract form, the play in color, the improvisation of internal structure and a certain luminosity is present and can be here too, perhaps with some of the special light I am seeing here.   

My open air studio on the grounds of a medieval tyrant

Outside the masía where I am working.
 In some areas the structure dates from the 1100s.

First session began; conversation with Don Josep (grounds keeper)

View from my open air studio.

First session amounted to a rough start on a landscape view from my outdoor studio.  Cypress trees in the fore.  Segues to a (now) rather abstract field.  Second day I added a graphic element from the local iron work.   Feels good to be starting at last....should be a product week coming up.

The distant butte above Sant Feliu is El Faro with La Salut hermitage, and the second, Col de Contrero, another hermitage, both with restaurants.  As another local commented last night, what are you going to do at a hermitage other than eat?

Speaking of which, it is great to buy wine (vi negra) by the liter in a jug...great wine and inexpensive.  Breads are also wonderful...and the manchego sheep cheese...very bohemian.  Great fresh veggies and fruit, etc.  I can get used to this!

Musing...

About to launch into the process here....but am this morning still musing about the approach a bit.  I would like the work this month to be something of a visionary chronicle, a collection of juxtaposed sub-compositions that read as a scroll of sorts....sumptuous and varied, incorporating some of the following aspects of mental, spiritual, social and visual life:

~ The natural world, likely mostly as landscapes; possibly botanical specimens, trees, etc.
~ The social world of my experience, likely to include portraits or partial portraits of Isabel, Sabina, Ruben, etc.
~ Concrete non-representational fields representing my interior life.
~ The cultural landscape, buildings, objects in their context in the environment
~ Pareidolic active imagination

Notes:

• Catalan iron work on windows
• The distant butte
• Cypress trees (reminds me so much of Van Gogh)
• The locals being "pescalunas", moon fisherman in the local myth
• Roman-era bridge

Typical Catalan window ironwork in the region.

Incomplete passage in first panel

Sketchbook pages

Am considering my options relative to a series of paintings while here in residence.  My favorite idea this morning is to do some composite multiple compositions such as I did a few years ago.  I want to represent several separate modalities (landscape, cultural references, abstraction, etc.) such as occurs to my mind in this setting.  I bought rolls of prepared canvas and plan to work on a work board with clips, offering the opportunity to compose freely and assemble the pieces later.  The advantage is that I can be a poet, in effect, combining imagery like words....in sequences that may startle, amuse or create quasi-narratives.   There is a strong school of landscape painting in the Olot area that I want to learn more about.

The week in Barcelona was quite hot and a bit hectic with family outings and such, but Isabel and I had fun and some great food.  Walked a lot, ate a lot....spent time with family a lot.   I bought paint, canvas and a portable easel and so am ready to roll.  We were staying with Isabel's cousin in the Saint Denis district of Barcelona in a high rise apartment building on the 12th floor (where we stayed last January too).  Very spacious and nice with air conditioning, a fantastic view and the Metro nearby.

The masía Aiguabella (beautiful water) Catalan) once the feudal home of a tyrant, now broken into four apartments.

We finally arrived in San Feliu de Pallarols last night by rented car.  The two hours or so from Barcelona by high speed toll road were easy and the landscape quite beautiful.   We are in the Garroxta of Catalunya in the foothills of the Pyrennes about an hour (or less) from the French border, not far from Olot.   It was almost dark when we arrived but we had a light dinner in the little town.  This morning I went for a hike to buy coffee while Isabel rested.  I am relieved to have entered the more productive time here and so am excited to get to work.  Turns out the masía (traditional stone farmhouse), where we are staying—and was recently updated into comfortable apartments—dates from 1100 AD!

(Aiguabella site with a history of the masía)

There will be several local festivals in the next few days, including a Sardana, all in the medieval town square.   There will also be a local feast on Sunday.  I am sure there will be much more happening in August since it is apparently the most touristic month.  Glad we arrived early!