Return to Aurora

Heather walked with me down to Fabrica la Aurora to start our day. It’s not a long walk. Maybe one kilometre down the hill. She went to work on her memoir in a coffee shop while I revisited various galleries that I had seen a number of days ago.

What I found interesting is that in each gallery, filled with a wide range of work, I was was drawn to the same pieces.  Even as I sit here and type I wonder why.  Was is colour? Composition? Subject? Style? I think it is all those things. Certain paintings are pleasing, to me. Others will be drawn to other works. That’s the way it works.

I’m also intrigued to start a list of things I want to try inspired by the work that draws me in.  My hope is to get 10 specific ideas I want to commit to exploring when I get home.  As an example, “paint the canvas orange” is one of them. Over the years, I have been drawn to many landscape paintings where the entire canvas is painted orange and the landscape painting is done on top of that. The orange base seeps through at the boundaries of where blocks of colour meet.  I wish I had a picture to illustrate, but that is my task today: to find that particular gallery/artist and ask if I can snap a picture.

We have been blessed by wonderful conversations with artists. One I had yesterday was with Alejandro Anaya. Born in northern Mexico, Alejandra has had the opportunity to travel the world with his previous profession. His English was incredibly strong, both in terms of his speaking ability and understanding. 

“Are you Canadian?” 

“Yes. How did you know?” I replied.

“It’s something in the way you pronounce the letter O.”

As we kept talking we discovered that we are living parallel artistic lives. He was in the marketing and communication field for years, as was I. We both decided to give art a try on a full-time basis at a similar time.  We are also a similar age, though I would guess Alejandra is a few years younger than me. As I talked about why travel is so important to my process he completely understood.

I scooped up Heather from her coffee shop and we made our way south to see if we could find a few more murals in the Guadalupe district. We did.

Lunch was exquisite, I had a tomato salad with spiced potatoes. Heather had a chicken salad. It was an unexpected surprise as the restaurant was tucked away in a quiet spot and was pretty empty of customers when we arrived.  I get the sense that our eating schedule bucks the trend.

I ended up going out for one more walk that afternoon, just to the natural preserve that lies between our neighbourhood and the massive grocery store and mall to the south.  I encountered a few more birds and even a small flock of sheep. At least I think they are sheep.