Thirteen years ago I left my paintbrushes aside....I had done inks and watercolors from 1977 to 1985, then after mostly insignificant art experiments I had a brief affair with pastels on paper developed into a mix media, using fixatives on heavy paper. 1995 to 1996... then all was put on hold.
God had another plans. Earl Staley invited me to his art workshop class and I accepted. To learn and practice with acrylics with a master who has not let a detached retina stop his creativity and his passion for painting the Santa Fe mountains with the most hallucinating colors and pattern combinations....whose daily discipline goes by the saying that "Idle hands are the devil's workshop".
For first time in my life I´m doing landscapes in acrylic. I feel like taking shorthand in the midst of an electric storm....I picked a small canvas -10x8"- to stay out of trouble, but did not succeed: a small mountain with a lot going on sprang brushstroke after brushstroke...I was trying to correct something and the drama became more and more apparent. I was not attempting a confession, just a landscape, something "socially acceptable" "neutral". I was not not making a mountain out of a molehill, I felt like babbling with the acrylic and the brushes...more than once I sat back with an "now, what?"
The White Lady -Iztaccíhuatl in Nahuatl- appeared before my eyes with a storm coming quick with the South wind rushing the clouds. I tried to do some assessment of visual literacy on balance, perspective....I just kept filing the canvas with the palette knife and the brush. I noticed Earl had put the last Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the CD player. Some of the other students commented politely over my work....I was the first surprised.
Dad was a mountain painter...up to the end, his emblematic Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl silhouettes, stylized and repeated from different angles were his most recognizable watercolors subject. Maybe it is because there comes a time in life of a painter when repeating the image of mountains fulfils the need to stabilize a time of inner turmoil...to give perspective to a challenge. Dr. Atl, Hokusai, Cezanne, Earl Staley, José Hanhausen among many have painted mountains that are both inside their hearts and in front of them.
Will I become a mountain painter myself? Will the storm that will rage over Molehill Mountain will clear the sky for a new beginning?
As the first lines of Psalm 121 read:
I lift my eyes up to the mountains
Where does my help come from
My help comes from You
Maker of heaven, Creator of the earth
(....)
Oh how I need You Lord
You are my only hope
You’re my only prayer
So I will wait for You
To come and rescue me
Come and give me life
Maybe that plead is the shorthand message of my childish brushstrokes of the 10x8 Molehill Mountain.
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