Do you know that flannel shirt you have, everybody does , and you believe that life would be much worse without it ?
Sure I have my favorite flannel shirt. It has my favorite colors, blue, green and white. When I wear that I feel complete. It is so me. Do you know what I mean? I it perfect. It makes me feel like I was always supposed to be. I get more confident, strong, macho, handsome. hahahah. I even get more honest when I am wearing it. And free…. don’t forget about feeling free.
So I had to paint that, I decided to paint it on Friday and did…. but I took me till Sunday to go back to studio and keep the work. I painted for two hours on Sunday night and more two on Monday morning. This is a cute little painting, I think it is going to be hanged on the charming wooden wall of my tiny tea room.
During the process I had many doubts about what direction to go…. I decided to do not decide…. only let the painting solve it by itself. You know, pictorial values are able to offer all the solutions, you only need to let the colors and plots to speak. Yes, Lady, I am going to obey you and do what you are telling me to do. Lady ? Yes, don’t forget the painting to me is Pintura.. it is female genre in my language.
So making love with art isn’t just an expression to me… it makes sense, it is a complicated love affair, intricate relationship of years and years. Maybe now you can understand why I argue and fight with painting sometimes but never give up and never stop to love it… we Latinos have too passionate relationships.
During the time I was working on it… and the time I wasn’t too…. I realized that for the last months I have prayed to God for taking from my life all my enemies and the people that could cause me any kind of harm. I am impressed of how many friends I lost recently. They just went way for no specific reason. wow. We think the ones around us want our good…. sometimes it is a mistake.
I have thought too about how life sometimes force us to repeat the same acts of the past. Well life, you are wrong, if the acts of past were good I wouldn’t be here now. And even if they were good at the time. What is the reason to stay alive if you are going to repeat everything ? I believe the only reason to keep living is the chance to do things in different ways and never stop to experiment. Maybe this is what this painting is expressing, I was too influenced by these thoughts between brush strokes. But I didn’t mean to illustrate what I was thinking, I only painted and let it flows…… as I said… I let all the decisions for the painting to solve by itself. It was spontaneous and free.
———————————————–
Caio Fern, 2012, acrylic on canvas, LIVE FLOWS AND I WEAR MY FAVORITE FLANNEL SHIRT
