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La Acordionista, my Last Sketch from Spain – Pencil, ink, watercolor - 5.5 x 8 inches.

It is always a pleasure to arrive – anywhere - in Havana or Reykjavik, or Rome. It’s a special joy to arrive in Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The city has welcomed me for more than 30 years. Of course, the opposite is also true; leaving is invariably sad. Especially when you say goodbye to friends.

What makes Valencia feel so open to foreigners like me? Diversity: every day in the streets and stores, you hear the languages of immigrants from China, Venezuela, Germany, Pakistan, Lithuania, Japan, Romania. And every day you encounter those immigrants while you are doing the most mundane things., like sharpening knives. For the past few days I have been saying goodbye to such friends, old and new, with the added sadness that these goodbyes might be the last. So farewell to:

Paco and Maye, my hosts for the last two months, Álvaro, knife-sharpener without equal, Chelo, expert herbalist, who also sells incense, Jorge y Gustavo, brothers, in whose store I buy most of my brushes and colors, Alen, who sells books, all in English, Ibrahim, a clerk in my favorite bakery, Elena, fellow artist, who owns the Black Light Gallery, Soledad, another artist, and a kind, kind woman, Esther, who makes photocopies when I need them, and Victoria, the lady who plays her accordion on a windy corner in front of a bank.

There are more friends, but here space is short. I did not embrace and say goodbye to the person I most wanted to, Viviana. She’s an immigrant too, from Italy; Valencia is her new home. She and I never say goodbye.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Aunt Pura in The Bardo - Oil on canvas – 21 x 29 in.

This is the final image of my transformation of Paco’s aunt. The first impression of her when he showed me the original portrait (enclosed in this post for comparison, see above) six weeks ago was not pleasant. The lack of warmth in her expression reminded me of some nuns I had the misfortune of encountering during childhood. “People are misbehaving somewhere,” she seemed to be thinking, “and are going unpunished.”

During her life she was called, Pura, short for Purificación. The Pure One. How does one live up to such a name? In the Catholic tradition, a soul that is not sufficiently “pure” at the time of death has to spend time in Purgatory to make the soul worthy of entering into heaven. When I began to repaint Pura, I had no idea of where we were going, except that I just wanted to treat her gently, with care. So I gathered my colors and brushes and we began to wander away from Purgatory. It was a surprise to paint trees and night and the moon around her, as if they welcomed us. Then came snow and clouds, then the edge of the sea. Everything began to feel like an embrace.

I tried to paint edges of energy, shapes in-between: between autumn, winter and spring, between day and night, between the sea and the forest, the organic and the mechanical, jewels and leaves, the lights of a city landscape. Or is that shape at the bottom of the canvas just a circuit board, or a strange pinball machine?

In a few days I’ll be leaving Pura and her nephew here in Valencia to return to my home in California, to a different, beautiful bardo. So this not a final image. It’s just where I have been able to pause a bit from painting us.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Everyone who is reading this is doubtless aware of the catastrophic storms and floods that have crippled a large part of the Province of Valencia here on the Mediterranean Coast of Spain. I post this photo of me (and Susanne Moisan, my friend from Hamburg, Germany) to assure all of you kind people who have sent worried emails inquiring about my health, safety and whereabouts, that all is well here in Valencia city. We have been spared the worst of the disaster. More posts will follow. Thank you for caring.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Paco’s Aunt, Phases 4 & 5 – Oil on canvas – 21 x 25 inches.

One of the many things I learned from my students during the years I taught classes in watercolor, figure drawing and oil painting was that often the biggest obstacle the students faced was their own fear of making mistakes. It seems natural that we want to impress a teacher, to get her or his approval. So we draw and paint the best we can and yet we discover that we are more apt to create mistakes and messes than artworks we can be proud of. Often my attempts to console students who were struggling (without exception, all were struggling at some level!) were successful, especially when I used baseball as an example. “If you get a hit once every three times you step up to the plate, you are considered a superb player. But this means you have failed two out of three times! How do you accept such failures? This is a question only you can resolve.”

Keeping messes and mistakes in mind, here are the latest phases in my transformation of Paco’s Aunt. Into what, you wonder? Well, I wonder too. But the deeper I wander into the woods, the more it seems that the painting is not about about her being any “thing.” It’s more about her having been, and now becoming . . . I’m hoping to answer questions, resolve mistakes and have a finished painting within a week or ten days. Thanks for your patience.

Meanwhile, I offer these latest changes for whomever might need some encouragement. If a painting is not a struggle, then what’s the point? Aren’t our imaginations always prodding us ahead of ourselves and our skills as artists always lagging behind? Isn’t this is just life, totally normal?

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Paco’s Aunt, Phases 2 & 3 – Oil on Canvas – 21 x 29 inches.

Several days ago, I posted two images that showed the beginning of the transformation of a portrait of a woman, the result of a challenge given to me by her nephew. They were the first of a series; here are the next two phases. Lapo Guzzini, my friend and colleague, calls the transformation of the portrait, “creative destruction.” But what does it mean to create destructively? Or to destroy creatively? Such paradoxes resist explanation. I hope the images themselves will give you some insights.

I have had only two clear objectives in this endeavor: to respect the woman and also the artist who painted her. There are other objectives, but they remain far from clear. For example, I’d love to paint what I’m not able to see. A thought like this may sound odd coming from a visual artist: we’re supposed to paint things people can see, aren't we? Also, for many years I have been fascinated by change; I mean by everything changing, constantly and always. So how does one paint change on a flat surface? I don’t know, and I’m not being coy in saying so. It’s true: I don’t know. The best course I follow then, is to experiment. And to trust. Something will happen.

So I apologize for this mess I’ve made of the portrait. But it’s only temporary. Phases 4 and 5 will come along soon. Thank you, I appreciate your patience in following the trials of the metamorphosis of this poor woman. We’ll find our way out of the woods. Perhaps better said: we’ll find our way by going deeper into the woods, and getting lost.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Paco’s Aunt – Oil on canvas – 21 x 29 inches.

During a career as a professional artist for the past 50 years, I have become accustomed to painting unexpected subjects. Especially, it seems, when I’m living in Valencia, Spain. For example, a lovely young friend here once asked me to paint her unclothed (her, not me) because “I’ll never again have the beautiful body I have now. I want to show my grandchildren what I used to look like.”

Then last week my friend Paco asked for a favor. He showed me an oil painting of a woman and wondered if I wouldn’t mind destroying it for him. It was a traditional portrait of his deceased aunt, painted by a well-known Valencian artist in 1974. By "destroying" it, he meant defacing it: Miguel, he said, you can do whatever you want with this woman, especially if you paint a big red X over her. Whatever you do, I'm going to keep her and hang her above my desk.

Evidently he and his aunt did not get along. Had she willed the painting to him out of spite because she knew that he would have had to pay a hefty inheritance tax on it? Was he going to save her defaced image in order to spite her, even in her grave? (He and I will have to talk.)

Meanwhile, yes, I said, but no red X’s! I’ll transform her, but into something beautiful we can both be proud of. So during these next few weeks, I’ll share with you the story of his aunt’s metamorphosis.

Here's an image of her portrait and my first response: to cut a blindfold out of the fabric of an old umbrella so that her ghost won't be able to see what I'm up to.

More images will follow in a few days. Thank you for staying in touch.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Flowers on a Window Sill, Breganzona – Watercolor – 10.5 x 18 inches.

Painting dreams is a meditation that brings joy: I mean, brushing pasty, colored stuff on a piece of paper or fabric with your fingers and brushes and some water or oil -- the act itself -- creates joy. And gratitude. Why, I don’t know, so years ago I stopped trying to understand dreams, those invisible visitors, and just painted them as best I could, whenever they happened to tug at my sleeve. However, when you get down to the nub, it’s the same with painting anything else, whether it’s street corners, other human beings, clouds and space, dogs and cats, snowstorms, flowers: the subject doesn’t matter.

For me, everything I want to paint seems to flow out of a feeling of wonder, and paying attention to wonder: What’s going on here? Like those yellow things poking upwards and the red things falling under their own weight? We call them “flowers” and give them names, like “geraniums.’ They grow out of “dirt,” like the green things, called “trees,” that are reflected in what we call “windows.” Everything we see here (and everything we don‘t see) depends on an energy we call “sunlight.” It creates “shadows” on a “wall” that is “weathered.”

Before I die, I would like to paint the energy -- the verb, I mean -- that flows through these nouns. For the moment, paying homage to flowers on a window sill and stains on the wall of an old house that used to shelter farmworkers, in a summer morning’s sunlight, in the southern part of Switzerland, this brings immeasurable joy, and gratitude. Painting this is just another way of painting dreams.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Playing Pétanque – Oil on canvas – 24 x 32 inches.

If I wrote well enough to write a poem, I would write a poem about Playing. On summer afternoons in the south of France, the Mediterranean hardly a breath away, our poem would be about playing pétanque. The object of the game is to toss a steel ball, a boule, so that it gets closest to the target, the cochonnet, than the boules of whomever we are playing against. Or rather, playing with. Because the real object of our game is not to win, but to have fun with friends, and strangers, and with each other.

In the painting, the man in the white shirt has just launched his boule into space. The object of his aim, the cochonnet, is the small, reddish ball in the foreground. As an artist, I was less interested in his accuracy than in the scene itself: the intense attention of the other players, the sunlight and shadows, the summer heat of Provence. And of course, a fascination with summer afternoons, with playing, and with you, wherever you may happen to be.

Those summer days in France happened years ago. Now I’m in a Mediterranean port in Spain, drawing and painting dreams. Summer is ending. October just peeked out from under the skirts of September. Leaves fall, the nights grow longer. On the other side of the world, my country seems to be drowning in waves of mistrust, spite, lies, fear and hatred of other people. Fear and hatred of women too, especially women like you.

From one heart to another, here’s an image of a memory for you, to play with you again, now, wherever you may be. Even if it may not be summer anymore.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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The Roman Woman – Oil on paper – 8.5 x 11 inches.

Many men, especially American men, don’t realize that we Italian women love to be looked at. This is true in Rome, true in the Trastevere neighborhood in Rome, true on this little street in Trastevere, and especially true under this umbrella on this little street. Where I sit, content as a cat, especially when I’m looked at.

Like many women, I wasn’t always as attractive as I am now. Like many women, I feel less so as months and years pass. Do you men understand what we have to go through to appear to you as we appear? I chose a blue dress this evening because the cool color contrasts with my hair and the warm shadows of the umbrella. Why small pearl earrings instead of golden hoops? Do I love red wine? Of course, but for more reasons than the color.

Women don’t need to be admired, although that would feel wonderful. Adored? Oh my, yes. Noticed? Well, not quite sufficient, but sufficient for the moment. So thank you for noticing me, for your momentary attention. Forgive me for only one glass of wine on the table and for not glancing back at you.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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The Defense of the Sampo - Tempera on canvas - 48 x 49 inches.

In my last post I wrote about the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic and about Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), one of the poem's most famous illustrators. I mentioned the tale's major themes: battles, magical adventures, a virgin birth, a miraculous child, and so on, but I didn't include vengeance, incest, betrayals, jealousy, shamans, murder, blood feuds, suicide, child abuse, shape-shifting, fratricide, magic spells, kidnapping, theft, heroes, incantations, "nameless diseases," sacred groves, death and resurrection, thwarted loves. And the Sampo.

In this image, Gallen-Kallela has painted Väinämöinen, a godlike shaman, and his crew, defending the Sampo from Louhi, an evil witch from Pohjola, the dark, cold, and dreaded North. (Of course, Pohjola also happens to be the home of beautiful, inaccessible women.) Louhi has changed herself into a predatory bird and, like everyone else in the story, she wants to possess the Sampo.

Why? It's not a ring like that in Tolkien's epic, but it is a magical artifact, a talisman, a vessel that confers nourishment, wealth and power on whoever has it. It was forged by a human blacksmith, but it always remains enigmatic. It's never illustrated because it's never clear exactly what it is, or looks like.

As you might imagine, not even its magical powers and magnetic attractions for humans can save it from destruction: In the battle painted here, it breaks apart and the fragments sink below the waves, lost forever, like thwarted loves, and other human dreams.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Gods of Gravity: Sketch - ink, watermedia - 7.5 x 11 inches.

“The Kalevala” is Finland’s national epic poem. It unfolds in a harsh and beautiful landscape of dense green forests and snow-covered lakes. Of course, it contains all the elements of epics: shipwrecks, magical visions, the imprisonment of the sun and moon, bloody battles, a virgin birth, a miraculous infant, etc, all flowing toward an inconclusive outcome, like a dream. It exerted a deep influence on J.R.R. Tolkien and it worked its spell on me.

I visited Finland for two reasons: to research the origins of the poem and to see the paintings of Finland's most famous artist (and illustrator of the epic), Alexi Gallen--Kallela (1865-1931). The artist's home/studio/museum is located in Tarvaspää, on the outskirts of Helsinki. During one long afternoon, I was its only visitor.

I had admired the artist's work for years, but what captivated my imagination in the studio was his piano. So I sat with it in silence and then made a detailed sketch in pencil. When I’m drawing I can be wide awake or in a dream, its hard to tell. The piano felt like a magical animal, asleep, like a sphinx, but full of power. There was no candelabra in the room, it appeared from nowhere, in the energy field of the piano. The shoes appeared out of nowhere too, grounding the instrument, even as it rose up from the floor, as light as my breath.

The artist’s home is small, but when I left, exhausted, it had felt like a cathedral. A long time passed before I was able to add the colors. The drawing is still not finished. They rarely are.

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Cala Saona, Formentera, Spain - Watercolor, pencil, ink - 5 x 8 inches.

When you draw or paint in public, people become curious. Whether working in a café, or in a waiting room at an airport, or on the corner of a street, you attract onlookers. I've been menaced by street thugs in Barcelona, but encounters with onlookers are usually pleasant. Sometimes sad, such as meeting a woman one morning in Valencia. I was drawing the decrepit husks of vacant apartment buildings that were about to be demolished. She told me that the 3rd floor flat of the building I was drawing had been her home. After the structure had been condemned by the city, she had been forcibly evicted by the police. They threw me out onto the street, she told me, "con golpes y patadas," with punches and kicks.

My usual reaction to people who stop to watch me is to ask, "do you like to draw?" In all the years I have worked in public, I have never yet encountered a child who answered, "No." With adults, however, the responses are mixed. The funniest exchange happened on the island of Formentera, when I was drawing these cliffs at twilight. The island, with its lively nightlife, transparent waters, clothing-optional beaches and mild weather attracts visitors from everywhere, especially from the less-temperate climates of northern Europe.

I had been working for a while and had been aware of the presence of someone standing behind me. It was an elderly gentleman, quiet and attentive. I asked him the question. Embarrassed, he backed away. "No," he said sheepishly, "I'm German."

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Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Knives and Panpipes – Water-media, pencil, ink – 8 x 11 inches.

Spain is the noisiest country I have ever lived in. Without a doubt, Valencia is its loudest city. The din of traffic, sirens, car horns, and work crews tearing up pavements is the ambient racket of urban life everywhere. But Valencia adds its own sonic touch: the explosions of firecrackers and rockets, at random, day and night. Was that thunder we heard? No, it was 10-minute volley of explosions celebrating the victory of the city's football team. Valencia's patron saint is the Virgin of the Forsaken. I call her the Virgin of Gunpowder.

Not long ago on a quiet street in Havana, a lovely sound I had not heard in many years reminded me of Valencia. It was the gentle trill of a panpipe. A knife-sharpener was near! And there he was, right around the next corner at the back door of a restaurant. Why sharpeners announced their presence with panpipes, I don't know, but that sound, and the sight of a man with grinding wheels connected to the back wheel of his bicycle, and clusters of women with kitchen knives has been in my memory for nearly 40 years. Back then, the pipes were made of wood. This Cuban's pipes were made of green plastic, but their sounds still touched my heart.

Panpipe music has all but disappeared in Spain. But not sharpeners. During the months of my last stay in Valencia, I met Álvaro, El Master Filo, whose shop sits across the street from the Ruzafa Market. I included my two favorite knives in the sketch. I'll take them to him in a couple of weeks. He'll laugh when I ask him if he plays panpipes.

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More posts on my website: JohnMichaelKeating.com

Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Patrick - Oil on canvas - 28 x 34 inches.

Of the six brothers, Patrick is the one who most loved fishing. We others did too, but not as whole-heartedly. Our childhood home was only two short blocks from the Fox River as it flowed from southern Wisconsin through northern Illinois to eventually merge with the Mississippi. In The Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot called that legendary river "a strong brown god, sullen, untamed, intractable." Pat and the brothers closest to him in age, Tim and I, would have agreed. From our own experiences with the Fox we would have added "dangerous" to the adjectives.

We three don't live in Illinois any more, let alone fish for bluegills and walleyed pike in the Fox. However, for Patrick life without fishing is unthinkable, unbearable. As you see in the painting, this river in Montana is not a sullen brown god. Dangerous? Yes, they all are. Pat, miles away from any cellphone reception, is fishing for trout -- brown, cutthroat and rainbow -- as he has fished here every September for more than twenty years. Two days ago, he invited me and Tim to join him. Too bad; I'll be in Spain. But Tim will fly to Montana.

Years ago I painted this image and shipped it to Pat. He politely returned it and asked that I correct a mistake. No problem, I repainted my error and sent the canvas back to him. So what was the mistake? Well, the image you see here is not the corrected version but the original, the one with the error. No one, not even Pat's fishing buddies saw it, but Tim noticed immediately: "Our brother casts with his right hand, not his left."

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More posts on my website: JohnMichaelKeating.com

Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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Havana Daydreaming 1 - Watercolor, ink, - 8 x 10.5 inches.

The cab driver at the airport in Havana was confused when I asked him to drive us to O'Reilly Street. My Spanish is pretty good, so his confusion confused me. In a moment all became clear: The driver, and everyone else we later encountered in the city, called the street "O Relly," without pronouncing the "i."

The lady in this sketch lived across from us on O Relly St. Drying sheets and clothing outdoors is a daily activity in most of Old Havana. The city radiates light and color, so in my eyes laundry draped over balconies simply added rainbows to the mix. But it was impossible to ignore memories of Switzerland and Lugano, where I lived twice: there you can be fined for hanging out laundry in public view. Playing loud music in public, or anywhere else, is also frowned upon.

In contrast, Havana would not be Cuba without music in the streets, and everywhere else. Spend a few minutes walking and you will be offered tickets to at least 5 or 6 Buena Vista Social Clubs. Do any of those places actually exist? Or are the tickets "chanchullos," street swindles?

I'll post more sketches of Havana soon, along with thoughts of music and street scams. Meanwhile, let's leave the lady on the balcony in peace as she observes life on the street: vendors of mangoes and avocados, cruising DeSotos, Buicks and Chevrolets from the 1950's, and elderly women in white dresses and turbans smoking cigars. She'll make sure the laundry is indoors before afternoon storms drench everything. I imagine she's also hearing guitars and dreaming of rainbows, elsewhere perhaps.

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More posts on my website: JohnMichaelKeating.com

Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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The Tide – Oil on canvas – 26 x 32 inches.

In her Nobel Lecture after winning the Prize for Literature in 1996, the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska explained how difficult it was to answer questions about inspiration. “Contemporary poets answer evasively when asked what it is, and if it actually exists. It’s not that they’ve never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.”

Her thoughts have given me a lot of comfort, especially when she also remarked, “Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from from a continuous ‘I don’t know’.”

I don’t know, for example, if the lagoon in this painting still exists in the town where I grew up. In winter we skated on its ice. In summers there were twilight concerts from the circular bandstand; people gathered around the shores to listen, perhaps to dance. Now there’s only a woman banging a drum, a man playing a trumpet, and a monkey on a leash. Does the animal carry a tin cup for donations? I wonder. And from whom?

The girls dancing in a circle also showed up in another image, “Texas Truck,” which I posted on this page recently. Why they appear in this painting, and wearing clothes, I don’t know.

The mood feels slightly ominous, but perhaps it’s only nostalgia, a real or imagined past that nudges us. What sounds could the musicians be making that impel the girls to dance? I don’t know. But like them, I love music. So even though I can’t hear it, I feel like dancing with them.

Inspiration feels like music I can barely hear. So I listen. And listen. And follow it, wherever it might lead me.

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More posts on my website: JohnMichaelKeating.com

Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]

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A Migrant - Acrylic on canvas - 23 x 32 inches.

Jennie Doherty was 30 years old when she sailed out of Belfast Harbor in 1914. She left her mother and father and a few sisters and brothers in tears; they thought they would never see her again. She was on her way to the other side of the world, to faraway Canada, to help two of her older brothers. Earlier they had also left the family crying when they had migrated from Ireland in search of a better life as homesteaders in Alberta Province.

At the outbreak of World War I, the brothers enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and were shipped off to Belgium to fight the German Army. Jenny stayed behind to manage the farm. Before she died in 1967, she was able to return to Ireland to see for the last time her remaining brothers and sisters. Her soldier brothers did not return to Canada. Their bodies, along with those of hundreds of thousands of other young men, are still lying under the muddy fields of Ypres.

Jenny was no match for winters in Alberta. Like many homesteads in western Canada, the Doherty farm fell apart. So she went to work as a maid in a hotel in Vermilion. Benno Fischer, four years younger than she, was one of the owners. My portrait, from an old photograph, shows her on the day they were married. Their daughter, my mother, was born in August, 1918, only five weeks before the Armistice that ended, in H.G. Wells' words, "The war that will end war."

Two days after I was born in June, 1941, Adolph Hitler's armies invaded Russia. Six months later, bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. Today bombs obliterate families in Gaza and Ukraine. Jesus is supposed to have said that the poor are always with us. The rich are with us too, and so are Hitlers. Migrants as well, still searching for better lives.

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More posts on my website: JohnMichaelKeating.com

Other links: [this post on my website] [about my new book]