Tuesday, January 02, 2007

I bought a painting

Some fifteen years ago I saw a painting in a gallery in Manila. It was an acrylic image of a native women and I fell in love with it. However, the thought of transporting her and paying so much for it stopped me committing a life time to her. But every time I went to Manila we met; it seemed that no one else wanted her either. Then upon one visit she was gone. And I wanted her more than ever. I have never seen her again. But I did discover other paintings by Mario de Rivera. I now own five to make up for my silly mistake. As my mother once said, 'Silly idiot. Let so many women slip though his fingers.' This painting is the fifth and is called Bosque Marurugi. I was fortunate, this Christmas, in dining at Mario's house with him & his family. Bosque [forest] was one of his new works on the wall. And I am now used to carrying paintings on planes. It has everything I like about Mario's work: textiles, weaving, women seen before, colonial faces, gold foliage, distant hills, butterflies and one or two annoying rocks to remind us that nature is not all beauty. It is so crowded that one can discover things later. I still search for her. And don't you see a piece of theatre here about lost love and weaving?

Happy New Year

This photograph is one of my better shots taken with my Ricoh in December on a glorious sunny day. The view reminds me a little of my home county of Cornwall. And its composition owes something to my theatre experience. Have something in the foreground to justify the background. That knife and fork suggest that the visual meal is there to be taken. This is some 40 minutes from Yokohama and is a special place.