What a difference!

For quite a while, my dearest daughter has been cooking for us. She is good at it, she has a good sense for it. But most important, she has changed the way we used to eat. Not different recipes, although she has added some new. The most important thing is: natural ingredients.

For example, today we had a pasta. Just spaguetti with mushrooms. But there is a big difference in using comercial tomato sauce and natural tomatoes. 

Teacher's work

    Not so much work for the past couple of weeks. Well, personal work, because I have had the typical work at the university for a semester end. Just the daily sketches.

    Teacher-artist, something common for many artists. It's hard to balance work in both sides. Since last year, I have had the chance to keep my work as a teacher and as coordinator of an academic area, and my personal work as an artist. Anyhow, there are times when the academic work tend to gain weight over the counter part.

    I like my work as a teacher. I have been teaching for more than 30 years now. I started to teach before I could consider myself an artist. But the academic work have increased in time and importance. It doesn't mean that the art work is not important, but, for the time being, the academic work is first.

    Non the less, the work continues. I will be showing with my wife next year  in August (paintings). I would like to have a solo exhibition, but I haven't found the place, yet. And I'm preparing work for a solo exhibition for 2016, when I will be celebrating 30 years of our arrival to San Luis and 30 years as a professional artist.

    As the Spanish singer, Rossana, sings: despacio pero sin pausa (slowly but with no pause).

    

Lost and found

    Some time ago I received an e-mail from someone unknown to me, Liliana Loredo. She works at the Francisco Cossio Museum, here in San Luis Potosí. She wanted to tell me that they had a forgotten painting at the museum:

    It is a painting made in 1992 called "El sillón rojo". It is from a series made from photos of Sonia, a friend now living in Monterrey. I did many drawings, some were published in the Tierra Adentro magazine. The last time I remember the painting was at El AGORA-DIF, a place where I used to teach figure drawing back in 1994-97. Then, I lost track of it.

    The e-mail was certainly a nice sorprice. Liliana Loredo was telling me that I could pick it up or, if I wanted, donate it to the museum, where they have allready at least a drawing by me. Sincerely, I was so happy, that I told her I would pick it up. Giving it a second thought, I decided to give it up. After all, it was lost for me.

    Well, today the papers for the donation were signed, and the painting now belongs to the Francisco Cossio Museum, where I had my first solo exhibition. The architect Francisco Cossio was in charge of the place for many many years. I believe that if it werent for him, the place wouldn't be a museum now. He was an art lover, and thanks to him I exhibited there three times. I'm happy that the painting is in the Museum collection.

Loup at the studio

Photo of the week - 1

I have decided to add a pic of the week. One photo per week that I want to share. So here is the first one, and is one that shows the mood of the holidays: Loup and me taking a siesta.

So I didn't mention it!

Las year in June I had an exhibition. Scrolling down this blog, I discovered I didn't metion it here. Sorry if I don't do a translation (usually I write in English and then translate it into spanish) but here is the link:

Escribanía

Mirada Contenida - works

Here are some of the works.

70's collection.

Oil pastel and coloured pencil.

17 1/2 x 23 in.

Things from the wind.

Ink

11 1/2 x 8 6/8 in.

From grandma's stuff.

Oil pastel, coloure.d pencil.

17 1/2 x 23 in

From Maruca.

Coloured pencil.

17 1/2 x 23 in.

From the glass I see through.

Pencil

23 x 17 1/2 in.

Another part from the 60.

Ink

23 x 17 1/2 in.

Small obsession.

Ink

23 x 17 1/2 in.

Pipes 2

Ink

8 6/8 x 11 1/2 in.

Mother´s gift.

Coloured pencil

17 1/2 x 23 in.

Mirada Contenida

Last Thursday 3 was the opening of my exhibition by the name "Mirada Contenida" (Restrained Look). There are 13 drawings in oil pastels, pencil, cloured pencils and ink. The subject is about things I have as part of some collection. But they are not collections of precious things - even though, they can be. Rather, they are charged with feelings and memories, nostalgia for dear relatives or friends.

After the last exhibition, in which I used calligraphy and ink drawings depicting ideas and thoughts, this one is about things that can be toched and felt with you fingers. The still life is not something common in my exhibited work. I keep on drawing from life, it is something I like. One teacher once told me that a true artist had to have the hability to draw from life, so I kept on. But to show a group of still lives is something different. So that is the reason for the name, restrained look. The eye is focused in a liitle space that contains some known elements. 

The tecnique is also of some importance. Oil pastels were used by me back in the 70's. I used to do work in coloured pencils during my training years at the university. As for the pencil and ink, they have been a constant in my work. All of them were perfecf to the task, to draw my stuff.

For the time being, I'll keep with the subject. I have to go further, I want to explore much more things I have to try to outcast the spell they have on me.

On teaching

Somehow, I have been influenced by some teachers. I couldn't say that is why I became one, but certainly has been a reason to keep in the trade. There is a chance to make a change in the lives of some of the students, let them discover new things, something in them that pups up after a talk or a class.

    I discovered art by a book given to me at prep school by my ethics teacher. The paintings of Modigliani may have never been so illuminating in my life if Gonzalo Lara didn't give me that book. When living in Washington D. C., the same teacher asked me to write for the paper of the same school, so I started to write. Something that was encouraged by Mr. Harding at St. John's College High School when reading American Authors.

    Alejandro Gonzalez Danieli let me savor the joy of writing short stories at the university. An idea could turn into a story, so I could tell whatever I wanted to say, hidden in the text for others to discover.

    There are some whose names just can't remember, but that made a difference. Like my drawing teacher at The Corcoran School of Art, that let me discover the great beauty of the human body, and the joy of drawing the figure.

    I don't know if my work as a teacher has made a difference, but, sincerely, that's what I hope.

Image: http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/art/all/41904/facts.modigliani.htm

Crêpes de huitlacoche

    Today I had for dinner Crêpes de huitlacoche with chipotle sauce, and a little glass of tequila - un caballito. Of course it was delicious, but I wonder, who was the brave who decided this kind of food was right. Huitlacoche, or Cuitlacoche (corn smut), is a fungus that grows into corn - Ustilago maydis. It doesn't look nice, as some people had told me. I just could say it looks kind of strange, maybe because I've seen it since I was a little boy.

    The colour of huitlacoche is between dark purple and black, with some tones of green, and the yellow from the corn. It tastes kind of earthy, and it's prepared fried with onion, some garlic and tomato (at least in my house). Just some huitlacoche in a tortilla is great. Of course, some chile has to go with it. It seems impossible not to have chile with our meal. Now, using a crêpe instead of a tortilla makes it different. I have had it with white sauce, and it's very nice. With the chipotle sauce it's magnificent!

    One time, a frind from my wife from chile, visited us in Mexico City. There were two things that shocked her: The first one was in a short trip to an avocado orchard. After some minutes riding, she said with amazement: "When does the city ends!". The second one, with some distaste, she said that everything we eat was tortilla with wathever in it and chile sauce.

    That second statement may be truth, but Mexican cuisine has much more to offer. But yes, we love to eat tortillas, as well as tamales, sopes, pelliscadas, panuchos, bocolitos, migadas, gorditas, tlacoyos and many  corn based dishes. The chile sauce is, or chiles prepared in many ways, always on our table (and there are many varieties of chile with different grades of "picor" or hotness).

    At the end, every culture favors some food, some ways of cooking. I like many stiles. For instance, I like very much Japanese cuisine, some other times I feel like eating pizza with beer. What I had today for dinner is a mixture: a classic French or Belgium dish with tipical mexican ingredients.

    ¡Salud!

    

IDLENESS

I heard many times that idleness was something bad. You should not be idle at all cost. That kind of personas are bad, idleness brings nothing but bad things. You must be actice, always doing something. In that way you avoid bad thoughts and bad habits.
So I decided to start doing things, like listening to music, sit down and enjoy a beatiful view, I sat quietly to have a hot cup of tea or to watch the stars in a warm night, draw the people at a plaza  full of trees. What was the answer to all my actions?: "Do something, stop waisting your time!"
WOW! I thought I was doing something. Sitting and watching a beatiful view wasn't doing something? Neither enjoying a nice cup of tea in a confortable chair? Drawing people in a quite afternoon under a tree wasn't enough?
No, those weren't the kind of things they wanted me to do. That was waisting the time, my time, That was idleness, and I just discovered I love it. Loosing my time let me think and make up stories. It allowed me to draw soemthing I discovered, something that amazed me. Or I could sit quitely smoking my pipe.
What's wrong with idleness? Well, it is very dangerous. You may become an artist.

Like a string.

Today I read: "To exercise right mindfulness, the mind must be neither too taut, nor to relaxed, like the string of a vina." (Kalu Rinpoche). 

(Respirando. Ink and watercolour on paper)

I wonder, what kind of tune am I playing?

ch ch ch changes

For some time I've been saying that my work should have a change. That drawing and printing is something that I should be doing. It's not that I'm not painting any more. I just have to remember the great experience of painting murals.

Some where I read that Albert Einstein, a fellow pipe smoker, said: 

"If you want different results, do not do the same things"

So what is it tha I have to do different?

I have a beautiful etching press. Small but beautiful. I bought it many years ago, even before I learned etching. At school I did some prints, xilograhies. But they where printed by hand. It was some two years after arriving at San Luis that someone offered me this heavy machine. He needed money and he was asking for not much money. The press was built by one of the best contemporary printers in San Luis, José Faz. It was his first ever made press.

I have used it many times. But some five years ago, after rearrenging the studio, ther press was left unattended. It looked like anothes piece of furniture to keep papers, books and whatever needed a place. 

Well, a week ago my wife and I decided to clean the press and give it a good place. Somewhere that could be right to work at. That meant to change also our working tables, the extra furniture, move the books on the press to another place, decide which papers are ok and place them in the right place and throw to the bin many, many things.

The place is small, but we didn't need to add anything else. Just re-arrange. Today I finished the work. Here are some photos.

In the last one its me, happy after the work done. Next week, there will be some new prints.

Calligraphy

Me?. Ink and watercolour on paper.

As a student od Graphic Design I studied calligraphy. I just loved it. I bought many differents pens, nibs, inks, papers. I was hooked. When my son was born, I used to do some calligraphy work for some universities and a  a theatre critics' association, doing some diplomas. I can say now that sometimes it was the only income, so I was grateful I did my homework.

Now, in doing the new work, my interest for lettering and calligraphy is back. I'm practicing in a daily basis. Hopefully it will pay off. At least in giving me pleasure.

Ruizlimón

Walking at night

Filemon, my lovely schnauzer, is now a grown dog. We keep on walking, something we both enjoy. But even though I like to do it early in the morning, during  the past months has become a night walk.

At morning I like to hear the birds singing, while everything else is so quite. The rising sun shows a soft light, and the wandering gives a fresh start to the day.

At night...well, we walk. No day light, no birds singing. But, sometimes, you may look at a glorious moon. 

New drawings.

I've been working in a series of drawings in watercolour and inks, using some calligraphy. I´m happy with the results. I'll keep on doing some more, although I'm starting to work in some still lives.

Writting

Here I am. Thinking about Käthe Kollwitz. Trying to write something about why some artist end working in graphics instead of painting. Why? Well, because I like printing. Because my mother used to tell me that instead of trying to become a painter, I should keep on drawing and printing.

Reading about Kollwitz in an exhibition catalog, I came to know that she thought that she was good at drawing and graphics. I wonder, why I keep on trying to be a painter? Maybe my mother was right.