Final posting from Sant Fileu de Pallerols

Final piece finished our last day in residence in Sant Fileu de Pallerols

Among the last of the Sant Feliu de Pallerols Series

Untitled as of yet.  Still in process.

The work is progressing. I hope to finish these two before ending our residency in San Feliu de Pallerols this weekend.  Have installed myself in a bodega room as a studio in the 10th Century masía farmhouse.  

Many side trips to inspire anddistract. Will be off to the south of France for a couple of days with Isabel.

in process

Two new bases started today

These two fields each have several layers of acrylic paint and semi-transparent medium with detailed forms started, marks, shapes and cells adopted like stepping stones across the water.  Forms are emerging via pareidolic gazing...no idea where they will go just yet; trusting the unseen, letting the eye connect the dots, so to speak.

I thought I would include these preliminary images for those asking about how I work.  Each is about 75 cm x 105 cm.

Ruins and Ancestral Forests

Ruïnes i boscos ancestrals (Ruins and ancestral forests)

acrylic on canvas, 50 cm x 75 cm, 2012

Though this part of Spain has few old growth forests, the hillsides are lush with growth and mature stands of "encina" oaks, not to be confused with encino live oaks of California.  Old people remember when there was almost no dead wood on the forest floor because, especially during the Spanish Civil War and likely before, every scrap of wood was burned for cooking.  Recent forest fires in this region have been rampant and dangerous. The other reflection embedded in this work is the sense that any tangle of woods here could easily conceal stonework from the Romans, the Visigoths, etc.

First layer; lacks contrast, warm tones, a more integrated composition.

Hospitality: Masía with Three Cypress Trees

Hospitalitat; Masía amb Tres Xiprers
acrylic on canvas, 75 cm x 105 cm, 2012

Another variation on the theme of an ancient stone masía farm house with cypress trees, all in the context of my current meditation on the impermanence of human constructs.

Sabina, my 84 year-old, deeply Catalan mother in law, reminds me that three cypress trees (xiprers in Catalan) means one is offered hospitality.  One means visitors are welcomed to visit.  Two means they are also welcomed to eat, three that they are invited to stay for the night.  Isabel was quick to point out that grave yards typically have many, which just goes to show you the famous quotation "fish and guests stink in three days" sentiment of Mark Twain is rather universal, here given a rather nice Catalan ironic twist, from the gentile to the ominous.   In any case, Sabina suggests the title for this painting includes the word hospitality (hospitalitat), hereby entered and recorded, without a hint other than this note about the ultimate hospitality one might be afforded.  On a sweeter note, she also noticed what appears to be many bridges and arches (true enough) signifying the nature of hospitalitat.

Have been working on some little watercolors on the side.  Here is one mounted in a beautiful leather bound journal that Rosa and Ramón gave me.

Watercolor Journal started in August 2012.
Hand bound leather cover journal of cotton archival paper.

WAKE UP, O IRON! Masía Conte y Almorgaver Desperta Ferro

Masia Almorgaver, Desperta Ferro, acrylic on canvas, 75 x 105 cm

The masía where I am living was once the home of the tyrant and feared Guillem Galceràn de Cartellà, lord of Hostoles, known as Count Awaken the Iron”, and was leader of the terrifying military group known as the Almogávares during the conquest of Sicilia (1282-1302).  The Almogávres were mercenary soldiers known for the ferocity and cruelty.  The cry desperta ferro (awaken the iron) is in reference to swords being drawn. 

Here is some information lifted from the web, offered as light reading:

Negative connotation of Almogavars

In the region of Thrace, a popular saying included: may the revenge of the Catalans fall on you. In Bulgaria, the expressions "Catalan" and "Son of Catalan" mean "wicked man, soulless, torturer". This negative connotation reached beyond the boundaries of folklore to influence poets such as Ivan M. Vazov in the poem Pirates, first published in 1915. Vazov includes the Catalans with the Turks as the greatest oppressors of the Bulgarian nation. In the region of Parnassus, the following saying is popularised: "I will flee from the Turks to fall into the hands of the Catalans".Almogavars were also known as "catalans" in Byzantine Empire territories. The presence of the company left its mark on the folklore and the popular legend of the different regions where they spent, including as far as the Balkans and Greece. Devastation caused by Almogavars troops has created a negative connotation in some locales.

Currently, in Albania the word "Catalan" means "ugly and wicked man." Likewise, "Catalan" or "Katallani" is designated in Albanian folklore as a monster with one eye, reminiscent in many ways the Cyclops Polyphemus. This cyclops is represented by a wild blacksmith who feeds on human flesh. He also has no knees, so he can not bend, and long legs like masts of a ship. He faces a young hero named Dedaliya. This tradition, in various versions, is usually called by the title of Daedalus dhe Katallani, Daedalus and Catalan.

[edit]The battle cry of the Almogavars in Catalan

Aur! Aur! Desperta ferro!

Deus aia!

...

Veyentnos sols venir, los pobles ja flamejen:

veyentnos sols passar, son bech los corbs netejen.

La guerra y lo saqueig, no hi ha mellors plahers.

Avant, almugavers! Que avisin als fossers!

La veu del somatent nos crida ja a la guerra.

Fadigues, plujes, neus, calors resistirem,

y si'ns abat la sòn, pendrèra per llit la terra,

y si'ns rendeix la fam carn crua menjarem!

Desperta ferro! Avant! Depressa com lo llamp

cayèm sobre son camp!

Almugavers, avant! Anem allí a fer carn!

Les feres tenen fam! ^[12]

Meaning: Listen! listen! Wake up, O iron! Help us God!...Just seeing us coming the villages are already ablaze. Just seeing us passing the crows are wiping their beaks. War and plunder, there are no greater pleasures. Forward Almogavars! Let them call the gravediggers! The voice of the somatent^[13] is calling us to war. Weariness, rains, snow and heat we shall endure. And if sleep overtakes us, we will use the earth as our bed. And if we get hungry, we shall eat raw meat. Wake up, O iron! Forward! Fast as the lightning let us fall over their camp! Forward Almogavars! Let us go there to make flesh, the wild beasts are hungry!

Masía and Cypress Trees

Just a start...

In Catalan culture the presence of one cypress tree in front of a house indicates visitors are welcome; two means they are invited to stay for dinner, and three to spend the night: more means they are welcomed to stay as long as they wish.