O vreme in care totul era posibil…decembrie 1989

I’ll write this post in Romanian. It’s a Romanian problem and there are my Romanian memories. Everything it’s Romanian in it… So…

Au trecut 18 ani de atunci. O viatza de om…

In decembrie acela fara zapada, cu temperaturi de primavara, cand Nicu si Elena au sfarsit (cum poate o meritau) intr-un santz, ciuruitzi de gloantze, chestie pe care n-as fi crezut aproape niciodata c-o s-o apuc, totul era posibil. Totul incepea sa fie posibil…in bine dar si in rau. Au fost vreo 2-3 saptamani in acel decembrie cand aproape oricine ar fi putut sa faca aproape orice. Cineva inclinat sa faca rau (si care nu era in mod prea evident securist sau militzian sau in nomenclatura comunista vizibila) ar fi putut sa-si omoare totzi dusmanii, comod, nepedepsit… sunt care s-au imbogatzit peste noapte, atunci. Sunt destui si cei care, cateva luni sau chiar ani, au stat cu frica in san pentru ca au fost legatzi de regimul comunist.

N-am facut parte nici dintre primii, nici dintre ultimii…Eram, pe atunci, un amarat de profesor de tara, intr-un sat nu departe de Sibiu, om relativ serios, cu copii mici si nevoi mari. Fotograf amator. Jurnalist amator. Pictor amator. “Revolutzionar” amator… daca as fi vrut (ca oricine altcineva cu un buletin de identitate sau bun de gura) as fi putut sa pun mana pe un AK 47 sau pe un pistolet, pe care, la un moment dat, armata le impartea din camioane, la Sibiu. Sibiu, oras martir. 92 de mortzi si peste 300 de ranitzi, se spunea, imediat dupa revolutzie. Acum, dupa 18 ani, numai Dumnezeu din ceruri ar putea spune – daca-si da interesul sa aibe o contabilitate exacta – catzi au murit si catzi au fost ranitzi, atunci, la Sibiu. Eu am avut noroc. Nimeni nu m-a impuscat si, cu toate ca ceva gloantze mi-au fluierat pe la ureche, nici un glontz ratacit (din cele care, zic eu, au facut cele mai multe victime) nu si-a sfarsit traiectoria prin carnurile mele… Nici o multzime nu m-a luat la bataie ca ii fotografiam (cum a patzit un amic, fotograf si el) ba, dimpotriva, au pozat pentru mine. N-am facut rost de nici un AK 47 si nici de alte arme si munitzii – desi, dupa ce luptele s-au terminat (as zice o ora – doua dupa) am vizitat si eu, cu un prieten, subsolurile (reputate ca sinistre) ale Securitatzii si Militziei. M-am ales cu o Mein Kampf legata in piele cu coltzuri de sidef din 1923 (cred) pe care am sparlit-o fara mustrari de constiintz, salvand-o din amestecul de hartii, cenusa si apa care forma podeaua de atunci a securitatzii (dupa ce ambele cladiri, vecine, fusesera ciuruite de gloantze de toate calibrele si arse de lovituri de bazooka. In plin centrul orasului! Iata cateva din pozele pe care le-am facut atunci – intre 21 si 27-28 decembrie. Cei care sunt slabi de inger sa se abtzina sa priveasca (desi, cu toate ororile aratate zilnic la tv, cine mai e slab de inger, astazi? suntem cu totzii veteranii a nu stiu cate masacre si genocide…)

Metropolis

 

I’m not absolutely sure that Bucharest, with his 4 million people, qualifies for a “metropolis”… for me it was that… A big city, hysterically agitated, cruel, tense, inhuman, full of sound and fury… I never had a chance to know it better, to see also its “good” sides… I had some relatives and some friends, over the years, in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, but never yet had the time, the patience, the chance to know it otherwise. I was a stranger there. Afraid to be robbed. Prone to be a victim of all those big city slicks, of all the gypsies and notoriously (for the provincial sucker I felt I was) dishonest taxi drivers and stuff…

Since I’ve bragged I was a photographer (well, still am, not dead yet…) I will show you this time a photo I took when I was no more than a young adult (he-he-he, many years ago…) . It was taken with a very primitive camera, well know at the time in a URSS allied country like Romania, a “Smena’. Almost the equivalent of a disposable camera in US, not very complicated but with a good, sharp objective. The films weren’t much better, in those days of communist Romania: if you got an east-German made Orwo film you had top quality…

The place: before the “Patria” cinema, somewhere on one of the main boulevards of Bucharest. People were circulating upstream and downstream without even looking. For me, young provincial, it was shocking this big city indifference of the people. I was naive, of course. What could have you done? Call the Ambulance? The lying man was a victim of some robbery or simply a drunkard? Was he dead or still breathing? What should I do? Eventually, I took a picture. I’m not proud of the way I solved the dilemma… But them, it wasn’t my town. I had no friends there. I was myself, almost as the man laying there, a stranger in a strange land…

Getting drunk, as a solution…

“Life is cruel” – “life is real” – isn’t it what they say in some classic songs?

Well, just because Supertramp or Freddie Mercury said it in a song it doesn’t make it untrue automatically… But I would say that, in my humble experience, life is cruel only because it’s indifferent. Why is “real”, well, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Freddie about that (yes, I know he’s dead…) Anyhow…being in what the French call “une disposition massacrante” I need (and badly!) some (auto) encouragement… All I could find was a famous (?) text by Charles Baudelaire. (I’m too damn nervous and angry to translate it so I hope you know French; sorry!)

“Enivrez-vous

Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c’est l’unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve. Mais de quoi? (Good question!) De vin, de poesie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.

Et si quelquesfois, sur les marches d’un palais, sur l’herbe verte d’un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous reveillez, l’ivresse déjà diminuée, ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l’étoile, à l’oiseau, à l’horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l’étoile, l’oiseau, l’horloge vous répondront: “Il est l’heure de s’enivrer! Pour n’être pas les esclaves martirisés du Temps, enivrez-vous sans cesse! (OK) De vin, de poesie ou de vertu, à votre guise.”

Charles Baudelaire, “Sa vie, son oeuvre”, p. 407, Bibliothèque Fixot, Paris, 1992.

Since I have no wine, some poetry (see above) and very little virtue (I don’t brag about it, anyway), I have to get drunk with what I have: ink and colors, pens and brushes, or, in other words, drawing and painting. I add a sample.

Essential loneliness / Singuratate fundamentala

I’ve chosen this drawing to illustrate this title. It’s a couple, they probably make love – or have sex – together. But they are essentialy alone. Same as we are… each and everyone…

There will be a lot to say: no, I’m not alone, I have a wife, a lover, children, parents, friends, etc.

The truth is – and it’s sad, very sad (as I am tonight) that we are, finally, alone. No lover, no wife, no children, no friend (and I value friendship a lot) can fill in the emptyness, the essential loneliness we feel sometimes. Happly, it doesn’t happen often. A few minutes, maybe, in a lifetime. If you are moderately smart, you’ll recognise it. If not it will be only a very unpleasent feeling, a strangeness, something you will put aside as quick as you can, trying to forget about it… If not, you will be prone to cleaning rifles accidents, like Hemingway and his father…

Why do we feel it? I don’t know. It could be a negligent word from some of your dear ones, a mean remarks of a person you thought (how stupid can one be?) was a friend, the fact that your child doesn’t have 2 minutes to ask how are you? Or a stranger’s mean look, with no reason that you know (maybe he or she doesn’t like your mug, as simply as that?)

Very few of us will wish to analyse too much this odd, unpleasent, sickening feeling. Neither do I.

But then, maybe I am disturbed?

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Am ales desenul acesta al unui cuplu pentru a ilustra titlu de mai sus. Probabil ca cei doi fac dragoste – sau au sex – impreuna dar, in mod esentail, ei sunt singuri. La fel ca fiecare dintre noi. Fara exceptzie.

Vor fi multzi care sa spuna: nu, eu nu sunt singur, am o nevasta, o iubita, copii, parintzi, prieteni, etc. Se poate. Dar adevarul este – si e trist, foarte trist (asa cum sunt eu in seara asta) – ca fiecare suntem, pana la urma, singuri. Nici o iubita, nici o nevasta, nici copiii si nici prietenii (si eu am o idee foarte inalta despre prietenie) pot sa umple golul acele, singuratatea noastra fundamentala pe care o simtzim uneori. din fericire, nu se intampla prea des. cateva minute, poate, intr-o viataza de om. Daca esti destul de destept, vei recunoaste momentul, cand se intampla. Daca nu, va ramana doar ca o senzatzie neplacuta, ca un sentiment bizar, ca ceva ciudat, ceva de care te grabesti sa scapi cat mai repede si incerci sa uitzi… Daca intarzii prea mult s-ar putea sa ai accidente de curatzat pusca, ca Hemingway si tatal sau…

De ce se intampla? Habar n-am de ce. Poate sa fie un cuvant aruncat neglijent de catre cineva iubit. Sau o remarca rautacioasa din partea cuiva pe care (oare cat de prost potzi fi?) l-ai crezut prieten, sau faptul ca copilul tau nu are 2 minute ca sa te intrebe de sanatate… Sau, pur si simplu, o uitatura urata de la un strain sau straina (de ce? cum ai putea stii? poate ca nu le place moaca ta?)

Foarte putzini dintre noi vor vrea sa analizeze pe indelete acest sentiment, bizar, neplacut, care-tzi provoaca greatza. Nici eu nu vreau.

Dar, cine stie? poate ca sunt deranjat?

Disturbing stuff in yellow & orange…

This is for my friend Alfred Faltiska (but not exclusively…)

At my post “Cruelty” he made a comment and it seem that he believes dark, angry, disturbing stuff cannot be made with sunny colors like yellow or  pink… I won’t cite him some Vincent paintings I know – in bright, powerful colors – and which are profoundly disturbing. I’ll just post one of ime – Van Gogh don’t need any publicity any more, eh?

I wouldn’t put any limitation on the colors or techniques able to convey disturbing stuf… You can do angry, dark (metaphorically dark…), disturbing, weird, wild stuff with almost all colors, in almost any technique.

This is just a study of the “Adam” figure for a large composition I plan to paint in an unforseen future…if I will gain the lottery or find a Mecena…

One minute drawing

Rapid sketching could be very revealing for an artist, for his “talent”… Bruegel, Rembrandt, Rubens, Delacroix, as well as modern painters like Manet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Modigliani, Picasso, all did rapid sketches, catching in a blink and in a few fewerishly lines, the essence of a movement or of a move…

Only this enumeration of great names an make me humble. But not that humble… after all, right now, I’m about in the same stage as Vincent Van Gogh coming to Paris: unknown, with still a lot to learn but, however, with some years of hard work and even some good drawings and paintings in my portfolio… I have nothing to lose, except, maybe, the sympathy of some friends who thought I’m modest (which I am and which I am NOT, I cannot really explain…)

So, rapid sketching… There is a “fashion” of the “ateliers d’après modèle vivant” : I don’t know why, exactly, but all do conform to this (in my opinion) stupid rule of the “warming up” poses… the model is tortured for 5-7 minutes in all sort of difficult, artificial postures in the so called “worming up one minute pose”… Rarely, very rarely did I succeed anything else than to waste the paper… I would warm up a lot easier and more gradually doing a 10 minutes pose… But if this is the fashion…well, you have to conform…

This one minute drawing is one of the rare one…one in which I succeeded, I think, to catch “something”… I hope you’ll like it. And when I will gain the lottery I will organize free nude sessions in which the models will pose in natural postures for 10-15 minutes. No fashion. Just beautiful women posing in natural, simple postures…

Cruelty

Life is cruel sometimes. And if you are sketching life you’ll become cruel yourself, especially if you cannot edulcorate the reality, if you cannot cheat and will not lie. This isn’t a nice, pretty sketch. Some gentle souls could be shocked or hurt looking at this. But I did not draw this without the model’s permission. I even draw 2 portraits of him and give him the choice of one… Probably it was something nobody gave him (a gift like that: a portrait of himself) and he was happy. (He chose the gentler version of himself, of course).

I did this sketch in 1995, when I came to Râul Vadului – a sort of a hospital for mentaly challenged (and they were a lot – from a few years old to 70-75 – a group of very divers and frightening faulty humans that nobody wanted). I was there with my friend, sister Mary Rose Christie and some of her helping friends from America. Generous people who sacrified their time and money to help people almost nobody would or could help. I remeber only the name of Ron but there were others too. The pacients knew them already and manifested a great joy to see them again, covering the guest with eager hands and sloppy kisses… I would never forget some of their faces. Even if I do not remeber their names. Just people, anonimous people, forgotten by man and, maybe, by God also… Their hospital was next to the national road to the capital and almost every year there were fatal traffic accidents. Some pacients managed somehow to get out on the road to beg for cigarettes from the motorists…

Wild stuff… fuckée… chestii salbatice…

A few days – or is it weeks? – ago I’ve discovered some drawings I draw in a pretty fucked up period of my life… 2001-2002… I was depressed (and not mildly! REALLY depressed, almost ready  to kill myself or maybe some others… I’m ok now, don’t worry, I am not dangerous anymore…)

I had a big beard, a savage beard, and some prissy old lady would cross over the street, clutching their purses, when they catch a glimpse of me… So, this drawing is quite wild (but this blog isn’t written for nice, prissy, old ladies, eh?)

I won’t translate this neither in French nor in Romanian. Too damn tired for that… and it’s odd but my feeling is that “wild stuff” is the best aproximative “translation” for this drawing… So enjoy (if you can…)

I join also a “Sinister Self Portrait” to show you what I mean speaking about “savage beard”… In fact, I I would have meet myself on the street, I would have myself cross over…