Blog

Yes, the Internet is wonderful, I will never say it often enough! I know, it contains many traps and dangers, but for me, at least, it is simply great!

One month ago I received the following mail:

“Dear Miki,

My name is ….. and I am volunteer for a free newspaper distributed in Costa Rica, Central America that has been created by and for the community with disability, senior citizens and the public in general.

For this months edition, we are celebrating the international day of the senior citizen on the 1st of October. We would like to ask permission to publish your fantastic artwork “Old couple in Lisbon Painting Portugal” to accompany our editorial for this months edition…”

I must say that I am extremely happy and proud that my painting has been chosen to celebrate this day. I have generally a very sweet heart for older people, they deeply move me, I don’t know why… perhaps because I had an intense relationship with both my grandmothers … and can’t stand the thought of them being alone and not cared for… and I hate people using their weakness to steal from and hurt them…

Anyway… It is a fantastic and exciting feeling to know that thanks to the internet, my painting has been published in a newspaper in Costa Rica on this wonderful occasion of celebrating our senior citizens! I received the newspaper by normal mail yesterday... funny to think that my old couple traveled from Portugal to Spain to Costa Rica and back to Spain!
If only this couple knew that they are famous in Costa Rica and probably in the whole world! (I love to dream...)

You can see that painting on the photo of the newspaper, but you can see it better and with my true colours at my place, I have added it there, as well as the short story of the painting.

I was just messing around in my bathroom-atelier, fighting against my inner enemies with my brushes and knives. As I finally lost the war, full of rage against myself I threw my weapons into the sink. A little bit later, when I had calmed down and wanted to wash them for the next fight, I was struck by the beauty of what I saw in the sink. I swear, I did not touch or add anything, it was exactly like that!

I guess I have more chance now to sell this photo than the paintings I did!

PS: as you see, the blood I lost in this war today was yellow, and not red!

Between the last of the work on the new gallery, I did two new paintings last week, especially for our local bakery, �The Pasty Shack�, where I have already hung some of my Coffee Cups Art 2 weeks ago. I wanted a funny theme connected with bread and pastry, but at the same time it should be a kind of advertising for my portraits. I had a look through the internet and found some delicious Black&White photos of Babies and Children Cooks, the ideal theme. I drew them, added some colors, and here they are:

Sorry, something went wrong with the photos, they are not quite well realized, and I can�t redo them now as my Baby Bakers already hang there close to my Coffee Cups.

Now, I don�t now how it is with the copyrights in this case. I don�t know if I have the right to sell them, having used the photos to make the paintings. I guess exhibiting is not a problem - but selling? I have decided not to sell them, at least for the moment, until I know better. So people, if you are the authors of these great photos or you are a lawyer/artist knowing about this kind of thing, and find this post here, please contact me and tell me my rights!

PS: Sorry for the title... my boyfriend, an English Rock Musician with very sensitive ears, means that it sounds a little bit rude... but I could not resist. it is so appropriate!

As I told you in my last post, the official opening of my new gallery with our first visitor Jackie from England, was a success. First of all it was a deep pleasure as this very intimate visit allowed us to know each other better, and this is perhaps the most important thing as Jackie seems to be a very nice lady.

I already said that she was amazed by my Eroscapes and Fantascapes and her eyes kept coming back to them. She fixed her eyes on the one above eventually, looked at it a long long time in silence and then said:

"it reminds me My George in Heaven..."

Jackie lost her husband George 6 months ago, as she told me, the big love of her life. She finds it very hard to live without him, above all in this flat here in Spain where they had such a lovely time.

"What is the painting called?"

she asked me...

Well, I always have trouble giving titles to my paintings, because I generally don't like to put words to them. This is the reason why I often ask Kevin to give me a title for them. But with the Eroscapes, We were so busy doing the gallery and exhibitions, we really had not time to bother about painting titles! At that point this painting was labelled in my computer with the unheavenly mathematical title

"The Eroscapes - #2 - Parallelism 2"

really nothing I could publicly reveal to Jackie...

But you know, in life, if you want to be successful, you can't doubt yourself and must grasp the right occasion at the right moment. I had a genial idea:

"Do you know what? I think I will call this painting

"George in Heaven"

Jackie was very touched and I was infinitely happy to have such a great title with such a touching story behind. Jackie looked at the painting for a good half an hour further, and at the end she said

"I can't leave George here.."

and she bought the painting!

Jackie was leaving the next day for England and she could not take George with her this time. George in Heaven will stay in my gallery hanging on my wall until Jackie comes back

So, it's done, we have officially launched my new gallery, inaugurating it with the visit of Jackie, a nice English lady living round the corner. She had noticed big activity in the last 2 weeks and wanted to see the gallery before she flew back to England, today.

Kevin hung the last few paintings, swept the floor and put out some cool Vino Rosado (the favourite English tipple in Spain)

She had a great look all around, even admiring my bullfight paintings although she does not like the bullfight itself, and was not scared to face with a big smile a herd of wild bulls running towards her...

Jackie stood a long time with us, We had an interesting conversation about my art and many other themes.

We found that in fact it was the best way to present this new gallery to the public, making personal invitations and spending one-on-one time to get to know each other. We all really appreciate the time spent together yesterday.

Jackie was especially attracted to my Fantascapes and Eroscapes, and kept going back to them. Finally she even decided to buy one, and we sealed the sale with an happy "Cheers!".

I will tell you in my next post which Eroscape she bought as I have a touching story to tell you about it.