This little thing is for artist friend Valeria Montti Colque, whose works have long fascinated me.
They are the sum of life and death, joy and sadness -- all tied together in a festive, happily undiplomatic manner with shining beads and seas of bric-a-brac. It all looks rather pre-Columbian. (My mind is brought instantly to Día de los Muertos and such celebrations, when the underworld comes visiting to our floor.)
She does paint and draw, but it is the live installations that are truly breathtaking. Or what about a figure who is wearing two skates as feet, then a suit from which a lot of teddy bears and other furries grow; the chest is an old wall cabinet and the head, finally, is a grinning skull; all decorated with bright colours and garlands etc. etc.?
I hope that I've been able to capture just a little of her Magic Surrealism. I find no better name for it.
While clearing the debris from my old life and past address and very past love I found this cardboard that I made some years ago. It is a portrait of Fadime Şahindal, a young lady who refused to be given away in marriage. She fought back, privately as well as publicly for her love, herself and the rights of all; a quest that finally had her invited to speak in our Parliament. (You may read the speech here.) Less than three months later, she was dead -- shot straight in her head at point-blank range by her own father. This resulting tragedy was back in 2002; I remember seeing the headlines on my birthday. But I also remember...
...I saw her once, very briefly, but she was the kind of person you remember; much shorter than you'd think but a large cloud of hair and something intense, sort of piercing way deep down in her eyes. So to a small but important extent I could work from this flash of a memory, but it was mostly newspaper clips for the proportions -- I remembered the hair as rather reddish but the clips were black and white, so I let the ink dance its dance of sorrow, soon adding thin strokes of bitter red.
The portrait was intended for something vaguely autobiographical with a widened scope. For I was stuck in something far less murderous, but otherwise similar -- there was me, a girlfriend, her family etc. etc. and thus our little circus played a part in this huge, nationally neglected mess of dishonourable honour -- a good and personal reason to write a book.
And I wrote it.
It turned out that no publisher in Sweden dared to touch it. The manuscript (rewritten to pieces between the refusals) is gone now and my little story untold; it doesn't quite matter today when new scandals in the same vein surface every now and then.
Ink, aqua and extra thick colour for the sad glint in her eye. It took time to make water pigments this muddy and opaque but it was well worth it. Nowadays, I would've used ready-made gouache. And would never have tried to write a book, now when there are so many digital options. Rest in peace, brave soul. This humble blog post is for you.
This little thing is for a recipe in old good Slynglar, the Fanzine; existential ramblings on how to make mayonnaise (in Swedish).
Digital; would be ugly if one didn't smooth the contours "by hand". I'm also happy that there's a bit of texture and a good bit, as usual, of don't-know-what. (And If I know, as usual I won't tell you. It's funnier if you tell me.)
As for Nipponiana, Life -- and all its uncertainties (including very hearty ones) has done its best to hamper the progress and you may see the result below:
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One can endure anything but uncertainty. However, we'll see next week.
There's such a lot of things that the Web can't convey. When we're past the point of skypeing, twittering, typing texting chatting webbing there ought to be the point where we actually meet; sit still together, dancing without moving; now finally we can say the most important things and mean them, and say those that can only be said without words.
Those moments when we actually meet are becoming sadly scarce. With lonely souls in mind, the Artist (who does have a heart too, believe it or not) made this little piece above, Lost in Communication. The resulting vision -- albeit originating from private depths -- seemed universal somehow in these webbed days...
...and is thus for sale: One might have it vastly above mini here -- or even buy the original. The latter might want a little cutting and matting (down to seven by seven inches or so) freshly baked as it is. The usual tech; here you see pencilling and inking.
Quite as usual, too, I gave the perpetual canvas Nipponiana a new dash of je ne sais quoi -- Hiragana, Kanji and the beautiful lot. I don't really know what they say, but perhaps they are lost too, and want to know what Real Life might hold beyond words and emoji.
