If you put one color shape against another color shape, you´re making an illusion.

Philip Guston

 

     Dear Fran,

     I have submitted a painting to the Alcalá Landscape Contest (Alcalá de los Panaderos they called it) and most likely it will not pass the first screening. I'll tell you why.

     The image is the vision that I wanted to paint of the section of the Odiel river as it passes through Gibraleón, but, deliberately, on the plane of the canvas there is only one layer of color in each of the parts of the work. This is generally not well seen by the more orthodox masters of painting — the jury.

     The illusion that Philip Guston talks about is achieved by superimposing layer after layer of colors on the canvas and I — I don't know if I'm making a mistake or not — have not followed that rule. Have I risked presenting my 'Río Odiel IV' in a way that we could call superficial?

     The answer in a week.

     Y. a.

     Mary

 

Forbidden to get on the bus with that canvas!

     Dear Fran,

     my Fagin project is giving me a lot of satisfaction, but at the same time some troubles.

     Yesterday afternoon and despite the fact that five or six people were going to travel on the bus, the driver — as the captain of the ship — denied me entry because I was carrying a 89 x 116 cm canvas.

     It was the first time that this setback has happened to me, since on other occasions, even once I entered with a 130 cm canvas, I had not had to suffer this unpleasant situation.

     The driver did not know or did not want to tell me what the maximum measure was to be able to access the bus and he only repeated and repeated that the company's ‘normativa’ did not allow it. I told him that if the bus was full I understood that, but with five or six people I would go to the end of the vehicle, without bothering anyone, but no. The ‘normativa’ was him at that time and I couldn't get on the bus.

     What did I do? I let the impenetrable captain drive off with his boat, his bus, and boarded the next nº20 five minutes later, greeted this time by a pleasant smile from the new driver. There were no problems.

     Y. a.

     Mary

 

The Remains of the Day

     “That´s what we fought Hitler for,after all. If Hitler had had things his way, we´d just be slaves now. The whole world would be a few masters and millions upon millions of slaves. And I don´t need to remind anyone here, there´s no dignity to be had in being a slave. That´s what we fought for and that´s what we won. We won the right to be free citizens. And it´s one of the privileges of being born English that no matter who you are, no matter if you´re rich or por, you´re born free and you´re born so that you can express your opinión freely, and vote in your member of parliament or vote him out. That´s what dignity´s really about, if you´ll excuse me, sir.”

From Kazuo Ishiguro´s beautiful and haunting The Remains of the Day, page 196.

Today we are in a situation that could lead to a conflict similar to the one experienced in 1939.

With some frecuency, in history, events tend to repeat themselves, although with different protagonists.

The current tsar is acting in the same way as the Nazi Adolf. He started a few years ago changing laws and appointing puppets in the government to stay in power, imprisoning or poisoning dissidents and even invading nearby territories while we, condescendingly, waited for it to stop at some point…

Now we find ourselves with the encysted problema and on the verge of any unforeseeable outcome.

P.S.- Excuse me if I reserve what I think may happen in a couple of years.

From my Borstal

LDR

The Ramains of the Day.- Ishiguro, K. Faber and Faber, London, 1989

 

I haven´t picked up

     Dear Fran, I haven´t picked up the brushes for a month or more, but I haven´t stopped painting.

     Y. a.

     Mary

 

The song thrush

     Dear Fran,

     yesterday I had a thrush in my hand. Well, it was actually about five feet from my hand.

     I was pleasantly surprised when, walking through a small square, I came across this vivacious bird selecting and swallowing some hackberries, those small sugary fruits with a certain aftertaste of dates. He fluttered through the lowest branches and that is why I was able to enjoy for a few seconds — I do not know if it would last a minute — of that winged marvel.

     Fran, it is been a long time since I went out to the field and with this small dose that this overwintering has given me, I will spend a few days remembering the frozen forests of my land.

     Y. a.

     Mary

 

Social Outcasts

Page 136 'The Road to Wigan Pier'

 

«It was in this way that my thoughts turned towards the English working class. It was the first time that I had ever been really aware of the working class, and to begin with it was only because they supplied an analogy. They were the simbolic victims of injustice, playing the same part in England as the Burmese played in Burma. In Burma the issue had been quite simple. The whites were up and the blacks were down, and therefore as a matter of course one´s sympathy was with the blacks. I know realized that there was no need to go as far as Burma to find tyranny and exploitation.»

 

Sorry for not giving you a background, my dear chum, but without realizing it I´ve reached chapter IX of 'The Road to Wigan Pier' and I think I´ve discovered the pearl of this book, at least until what I´ve read.

 

(This, while apparently there´re already more than 90,000 deaths on each side of the war in Ukraine, and the joys and sorrows only come from the footballers of Qatar, that country that trades with the rights of people based on money. It´s clear that morality is like a seasonal garment: when you´re interested, you wear it; if you´re not interested, don´t use it)

 

Page 137

 

«Therefore my mind turned immediately towards the extreme cases, the social outcasts: tramps, beggars, criminals, prostitutes. These were ‘the lowest of the low’, and these were the people with whom I wanted to get in contact.»

 

In these paragraphs of this chapter we find the germ of Orwell's best-known works: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

From my Borstal.

LDR

 

Orwell, G.- The Road to Wigan Pier. Collins Classics. London, 2021

 

Door by the River 

Dear Fran,

I would like you not to take what I am going to tell you as something pretentious —you are aware that I hate vain people—, but yesterday, at the inauguration of the La Rinconada painting prize, I had a feeling that I had not had in competitions previous. It was the first time that when entering the exhibition hall I noticed that my work (inspired by one of the American expressionist artist De Kooning) did not clash among the other 13 finalist paintings.

In fact, before proclaiming the two prizes of the night, I was hoping that one of them (of course, the second) would go to me; and even when they announced the name of the second prize, I thought that maybe I could be the first winner!

Door by the River

As far as I know, about 70 works have been submitted to this contest and mine was hanging in the magnificent Sala Maga.

The exhibition will remain there until next November 13. Do you decide to visit it?

Y. a.

Mary