A New Language

Bom dia e bem-vindo!

Unfortunately, this first blog is not what I have promised you on the homepage. It is not directly about Portugal, its people, its language, its culture and customs, its history nor its places. I feel really badly about this. I hope you do not feel fooled nor tricked.

Nonetheless, while this first blog is not what I swore to deliver, it is about our initial time in Portugal during the pandemic and how our experiences here have begun to change us. It is, as well, about how this recasting of ourselves is transforming our perspectives on pretty much everything, including Portugal. While I have been speaking for “we”, for myself and Zé, and we are both being recast, from here on out, however, it will be my own voice that you will hear.

Two Long Years

The pandemic has been wrenching and disruptive, to say the least. It has smashed and remade my outlook on myself, others and the world, as perhaps it has for you as well. My perspective now seems that it is warped(?) or enhanced(?) through some kind of shaken kaleidoscope. It is disorienting.

Things, people and experiences seemingly have more color, more complexity, more texture, but is it real? Understanding and then explaining/sharing these “then-and-now” differences has challenged my vocabulary. I am at a loss for words to describe my experience; somehow they — the words — seem like faint clones of encounters and feelings.

I have found some semblance of balance and equilibrium in the making of art — both through photography and painting. I think it was Jackson Pollack, one of my favorite 20th century American painters, who said, “art is a way of coming face to face with yourself”. Art, for me, has become the act of learning a new language in order to reintroduce myself to myself as well as to the world.

Coming Face to Face with Myself

I am, by nature, deeply introspective and introverted. The pandemic lockdowns and isolation, therefore, have been both a blessing and a curse. The pre-pandemic world did not give much berth to folks like me, so a blessing; but then again folks like me need self-correction in the mirror of others, so a curse.

Again art has helped. The act of introversion — making the art — is balanced in the act of extroversion — sharing the art as an invitation to conversation, critique and mutual understanding. For me, making art has provided balance during a time of upheaval.

Art arises, in my experience at least, from my own deeply introverted ruminations on what I see and experience. Each piece emerges as my unique and, I have to admit, my sometimes odd take on reality. I might shine a light into a corner but the light might miss the rest of the room. Then again that corner might have been overlooked for sometime.

Eye Opening

The act of sharing these artworks has been equally eye-opening. It has been affirming, yes, and for that I have yearned and I am grateful. More importantly, it has been a process akin to faceting a gem from a raw lump of stone. The sharing has yielded some back-and-forth, give-and-take and even rough-and-tumble. Each exchange, while not necessarily improving my artistic abilities, has sharpened my ideas and my perspectives as well as broadened my vision and my understanding. For this faceting I am equally grateful.

In many of my blogs, including this one, you will see my artwork, sometimes photographs but many times one or more paintings. These images are part of my new kaleidoscope, that is, the new language through which I can share my, our, experience of living in Portugal. The old adage bears truth, “a picture just might spare you a thousand words”.

Plus, if, as Pollack says, art is a conversation with myself, then it is as well a face-to-face with others and with the world around me. Art is a way to explain myself, to share myself, with others. It is my lens onto the world as well as a new vocabulary that allows me to more fully communicate, both speak and listen, to the world. Let me explain.

Saving the World

Every morning when Zé first gets up he plays ten or so games of solitaire on his tablet while still in bed. This is before he does anything else. When I hear him rustling about, I bring him his first cup of coffee and a piece of dark chocolate to go with it.

While he sips and savors, I sit on the side of the bed. We chat a bit about the dreams we might have had last night as well as the contours of our upcoming day. Inevitably he says, “I have to get back to saving the world”. He means that he must complete his daily rounds of solitaire.

For Zé this is just plain, simple truth. Solitaire soothes his mind and pushes away unwanted and unnecessary thoughts. It creates his safe place. His playing solitaire is a constructive and an affirmative act. Readied, he then faces the world.

When I had decided to do a portrait of Zé it was to capture my understanding of the person whom he is. I flashed-back to Caravaggio’s Saint Francis in Meditation. I had seen this painting in some small town museum near Milan. Saint Francis stares intently downward. He holds an alabaster-white skull in his hands that refracts the light back onto his own face, illuminating it. One understands immediately that Saint Francis is caught pondering the mysteries of human frailty and temporality, his and everyone else’s.

The image I had in my mind for Zé’s portrait was in a darkened room where the light of his tablet dimly bathes his face. He sits, he is focusing intently, and he is saving the world.

Art, An Act of Self-Discovery

Painting Zé in this way revealed a bit of his soul to me. Perhaps, actually, it is more accurate to say that the act of painting opened my soul to him. I came to understand, to appreciate, that his morning rounds of solitaire were mediation, an emptying so to have space for what the day ahead might offer, whatever that may be, whether good, bad or indifferent.

This would be plain, simple piffle if Zé’s life after getting up out of bed and moving through his morning ablutions did not reflect such. It does. Zé is a person of great sensitivity and kindness and, equally, of strength and tenacity.

He gently captures spiders, flies and ants, and he addresses them with enormous mutual respect as he repatriates them outside. His pockets are full of peanuts and as he walks they tumble out for the birds and the squirrels. We are vegetarians and have forsaken plastics for our sakes and the sake of the planet because of his lead. Each day he walks the mile to carry our prior day’s organic food waste to the community compost bin.

Saving Yourself

It is only in having painted Zé that I more fully appreciated both his vulnerability and the strength of this vulnerability. Seeing him in the reflected dim light of his tablet, I have come to understand the potency of small acts. I understand now, as well, that saving the world is ultimately the act of saving yourself. I reclaim my power and act on that power to do what I can do rather than raging at what I cannot do.

Jane Goodall, the great primatologist, has said, “I can only do what I can do, and I can do no more”. Doing the little things that we can do, as she has done and Zé does each day, makes all the difference in the world. It saves the world. It is saving me as I come to better understand my limitations as well as my power.

Right Out of the Box

When I first started to paint I wanted to do something great, right out of the box. I wanted to test my skill and talents against the great masters of the 16th and 17th centuries. I wanted to create my own Dutch masterpiece.

As laughable as that is, and it is ridiculously silly, I know how I learn. It is the difficulty and the challenge of a task and my drive toward perfection that together animate me. I do not claim that these are good qualities but simply part of my approach to life as well as to learning.

I had seen a photograph of a bouquet of flowers in a New York Times article about great florists. It inspired me. It would be the centerpiece of my Dutch-inspired still-life. There are a pair of antique glasses that I own. Also there was a vase I had seen and photographed on a visit to the Rijksmuseum a few years previously; the same with a beautiful wooden bench in the Alcazar from a few months earlier. These would complete the composition along with some of our books as models for old tomes.

Learning a New Language

Bruegel has nothing to worry about from me. So much is “off” about this painting that I hardly know where to begin my own critique. Should I start with the blasted shadows that make the vase appear to list left? Or the shadows thrown by the book on the right that I just could not get right after hours and hours of attempts?

I was right, however, about my learning style. The process enthralled me enough that I worked nine-to-ten-hour days. Fumbling about I added, erased, rearranged, tried this and that to create perspective, learned the importance of shadow, and became utterly frustrated by the importance of shadow.

I learned through the fumbling and the frustration that painting helped me create a different type of narrative, one in a language distinct from writing. I discovered, in a way I had not realized before, that visual art told a story that did not translate well into words; the paintings and photographs provided me a new and complementary vocabulary. Gee whiz, I thought, Dr. Seuss and all those Caldecott and Newbery winners had been right all along! Of course they were.

More importantly, I have learned so much more about me through the process, which has nothing to do with the quality of my art. I learned that I wanted to share what I was seeing and what I was experiencing in Portugal, which has become the purpose of Portugalizar. I also learned that I was short on the words to translate and to share these experiences with others; I was stumbling. In the end I had to decide which is more important, form or substance, that is, sharing a perfect picture or sharing my story?

Just Okay Is Good Enough

The photographs and the paintings that I will share with you throughout these blogs may not be all that good. While I am an enthusiastic artist, I am self-taught and I am still very much learning and discovering. What you will see is far from perfect: perspectives are out of whack, shadows are all over the place, features are distorted but not intentionally (I am no Picasso!). I am, however, having a great time learning new tricks, especially as an “old dog”.

My art is not perfect and does not need to be. The act of painting Zé helped me to see him more clearly and to understand him a little more fully; as well, I was able to see myself in his mirror. When I finished my Dutch masterpiece, I had some new vocabulary with which to share myself with others as well as to better understand what others reflected back to me.

The act of making art helps me to share our kaleidoscopic story in Portugal a little bit more fulsomely with you. In addition, I hope the making of these paintings is teaching me to be a more attentive listener; I think it is.

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I have enjoyed shooting them and/or making them. Perhaps you will find them additive to the blogs. I hope they do not distract from what I am trying to share with you about Portugal. Let me know in the comments section as we go along.

Next week, I promise, the blog will be about some more direct aspect of life in Portugal. Até breve!