I actually can’t believe I have been in this for six months. It seems so unreal!
On the plus side; I have learnt a lot. A lot about human nature, and a lot about myself.
So thinking back to the first few days back in June when I was overjoyed to be out of the prison that was my flat, and able to walk down to the gallery into an area that most resembled box city, where I had just dumped everything the night before lockdown in Spain commenced.
My head was spinning. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but it felt good to actually do something. In those first few days surprisingly I had quite a few visitors….
The first visitors I had were the family members of the shop owners. Philip the barber next door, is the youngest son. I affectionately refer to him as Edward Scissorhands. I have my hair cut by a barber…..! He’s the most thorough hairdresser I have ever had, takes hours over my hair, sectioning it and trimming it so, so carefully. Then Philip finishes off with his scissorhands impression and flicks up my hair and snips into it as it falls…..amazing and terrifying at the same time.
I had several artists walk through my door, too. Oh, I am glad you opened a gallery, I am an artist too! I had “The Art Goddess” walk in on the second day. On the third day, the guy who delivered my rose trees announced...my wife is an artist! Oh really!!!
Within five minutes she had walked through my door, carrying two seascapes and a photo album of hundreds of her oil paintings.
The first few were very traditional spanish Still Lifes…...quite dark, old fashioned. How do I tell this woman these won’t sell? Was what I was thinking….
I carried on flicking through her album and came across a painting of fishermen on a boat.
Good subject matter for a fishing port like Puerto de Mazarron. The faces were brilliant, the sea was brilliant, the perspective was all good. “Ohhhh , I like this one!”
Oh, that one’s sold. The seascapes look better further away,....so they do. I took them and paid for them to be framed. I also chose a nude woman from a harem of six or seven beautiful nude women. La Morena de la Noche. She’s the largest and most expensive painting in my gallery, but she does have perfect breasts. Six months on, she has aroused a lot of interest, a fair amount of teenage sniggering and she is still here adorning my walls with her beautiful breasts.
On the fourth day Philip was chatting to me in my gallery, and outside lurked an old Spaniard on a mobility scooter. It was so hot on the street, I became concerned that the old fella would become dehydrated.
Philip popped outside to speak to him. There was no way I could have understood the old gent. Firstly he’s from Murcia, and they swallow the ends of the words, plus he was wearing a mask, making his already mumbled speech even more garbled.
He was an art collector! And had been waiting years for someone to open a gallery, so he could make his fortune selling off his valuable art collection….would I like to see his stash? Well, Philip came with me at the appointed time to his lock up further up the same street to the gallery. He unlocked it and revealed the contents…..
Think of a mixture between Only Fools And Horses and Steptoe & Son.
The first thing that struck me was a huge deep red velvet board covered in about thirty foot high crucifixes complete with Jesus. “He’s really religious!” I Whispered to Philip. He nodded weakly in agreement. We followed the tiny clear path to the back of the lockup. There were old, empty and dusty picture frames stacked up against the walls about ten deep.
The old guy had Guernica,...but not the original, he had the Mona Lisa….but not the original…. I was just trying to think of a good reason to leave, whenPhilip picked up an ancient Artist’s portfolio. In it were some brilliant life drawing sketches in pencil and sanguine conte crayon. Oh these are good! I collected about six into my arms. But that is where the language barrier became insurmountable….he wanted me to pay him for them up front. ( I am not an art collector, or valuation expert. I am an art teacher). He told me my verbal agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was written on…
That’s when I threw my teddy out of the cot. I was affronted and stalked out of the garage to go back to emptying my own boxes.
The next day he popped by the gallery again with his daughter Miren. Francisco was an art collector, owned four houses in the port, was 96 years old, and was an ex lawyer but made his fortune by selling steel. He brought me one drawing.
The drawing is by an artist from Cadiz. José Luis Rey-Vila. I recognised his life drawing by his use of “the essential line”.
José Luis Rey Vila (Cadice, 1900 – Paris, 1983) was a Spanish artist from Cadiz.
He studied at the School of Fine Arts of Cadiz and of Barcelona. In 1921, he returned from North Africa with an album of drawings against politics. In Barcelona, he worked as illustrator and cartoonist for Ford and as illustrator for several art magazines. In 1936, he participated as an artist in the Social Revolution. He realized a watercolor album “Estampas de la revoluciòn española” for the international propaganda. Every drawing is accompanied by a comment in three different languages (Spanish, English, and French). This album was curated by CNT-FAI and became – before Picasso's Guernica – the most famous artwork about the Spanish Revolution. He adopted the name of SIM to protect his family in Siviglia.
His artistic style is characterized by strong and rigid outlines. In 1937, he moved to Paris (for the International Exposition). He opened his atelier in Buttes-Chaumont. He often travelled around Europe, and exhibited his works in Paris and La Havana. He has never gone back to Spain.
So now I have two nudes for sale. They are still for sale six months on.
So back to the now….just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did….
So now the perimeters are locked down for another two weeks. Now at least, I can walk
along the Paseo with Pancho to the gallery. It has become more of a lock in studio. My once thriving art classes are decimated because my faithful supporters just can’t get here any more.
Never has Christmas felt so unchristmassy. Roll on 2021….
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