SETENTA NUEVE: 79
Setenta Nueve: 79
I want to tell you that it wasn’t easy in 2006 when, on April 4th, I turned 79 years old. Seven is a magical number; we all know that, lucky when you win, not so when you “crap out.” Becoming seventy-seven was bad enough, did a painting that year on paper for my double seven (77) year; illustrated below. Title Seventy-seven.
But, 79, that means that you are on the way to becoming an octogenarian. When you say “I’m 80,” someone always grabs a chair for you to sit down on; sure you can be in great health and even be capable to an erection without Viagra, but somehow everyone thinks of 80 as the long slippery slope to death, certainly on your way to the old farts home!
I don’t remember if it was when I awoke to the fact that I didn’t like that caricature or sometime before that but I set my mind to the task ahead: straighten out my messy life and leave a clean trail behind when I “kick the bucket.” So, somewhere, sometime I decided that there were things that needed attention and one of these circled around the comment I read that an artist uttered that “when an artist dies he/she leaves two bodies, his own and a body of work.”
I began serious painting in 1952, then giving it up in 1957, to raise a family. For the past 20 years I have been prolific. I have painted, drawn and piled up a rash of art works: A few even sold, imagine that? But, what about this stuff, what to do? So, I asked myself the hard-nose question: do you believe that any of this is worthwhile; and if so, what the hell are you going to do about it age. I decided that I would consider how to gift it when I died to the Maine Artist Space, a non-profit alternative space I founded in 1987. So, one of the things to do was to get organized for giving my art away when I die.
Ten works in the Setenta Neuve Series 2006, all on Ampersand™ hardboard, gesso ground. They are all the same size; 18 X 23 ½ inches; all horizontal images: all abstract. There is no attempt, even in the slightest way, to suggest reality.
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Figure
1 Cinco de Mayo: Fifth of May,
2006 © Salazar |
What is “reality” anyway? Yet, get this! All images are titled,
not after the fact, even before the fact. Titles: from somewhere, nowhere
and everywhere.
| The first in the Setenta neuve series: |  |
Figure
2 Avril quarto: April 4: my 79th birthday. |
From this painting I selected other titles for the remaining nine images some Mexican Holidays (there are a plethora of those) and others from events during the two-month period when I did the 10 images. Matters that concerned me and I thought of during this time. Can’t begin to explain fully what reason prompted these images in the Setenta neuve series.
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Figure 3 April 16th Easter
& Passover San Miguel. |
In fact, was there any ‘reason’ in any of this? No brush employed, poured paint in Sal-Zar.™ [shades of Jackson Pollock].
It isn't easy to declare openly your thinking when you get old, as an artist you think you are young and dynamic and in some instances you have the gall to think that you can live forever. The body and mind do get weary and the "clock of time" does tick away and then you come to realize that there are only a few productive years available to you--and hear you have to be lucky--to chase lady muse.
I redid, some 5 of the 10 paintings in 2007. Each is titled and refers to a day on the Mexican calendar that either seemed to tell me something that I needed to repeat in paint or reflected on someone I knew or some event. In painting this calendar day I turned inward and did all of these in an abstract manner. I have not called myself an abstract painter. I do feel that these are truly abstract paintings and that I can show them as a series with titles yet they are still abstract in character and execution.
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Figure 4 May Uno: May 1. A day widely celebrated around the world, given emphasis by socialist and others as a ‘workers day.’ |
In this other painting I was relating to my own 79th birthday and to remember my son’s birthday, also in April; this resulted in
| Figure 5 Avril quince: April 15th. |
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In this way each painting in the series Setenta neuve: 79 has a personal message referred to by title, but when viewed without any reference to its title,
| Figure 6 Junio Jueves |
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is an abstract expression as well, is for my daughter Jane, who was
born on June 1st. Apparently the images and my intellectual
process needed to merge.