Here is an introduction on the work that went on when this painting was being created. From the first idea, till what we know now as the finished piece.

For many years I have been asked about the creative process of a painting... How long do they take to paint?, What inspires you? etc... As I paint I keep notebooks where I record "conversations" with my paintings. Here I started to mix some of those thought I had recorded with a little context of what was going on. Every painting has it´s own meanings and ideas woven into them. This is the example of one of them... sorry about the poor quality of some of the images, I didn´t keep track thinking about doing this, so I had what I had!

25^th of July 2008

Just before the summer of 2008 everything seem to be difficult for me and many of my plans fell through. I went through a time of readjusting myself to all  that was happening out of my control.

  Soon I was finding everything fitting in perfectly and in a way, better than I had planned in the first place.

   As things speak to one in strange ways, one day, I came across some people who were preparing a place to celebrate the Maya Calendar New Year, they told me that this was the last day of the year, and that tomorrow was an “out of time” day between the old year and the new year. I didn´t know much about this but I liked this idea.

  I went on with my daily stuff but day after, the out of time day, turned out to be just that. No plans worked out, I found myself waiting most of the day for some things that ended up being a “lack of communication”. I remembered what I had been told and smiled to myself.

 So in this time, while waiting, I was drawing in my diary that I always carry around. I was thinking about time and the way it moves, and how in a way I find it an artificial way to define something highly organic. I follow no fixed ideology or organized thoughts, but these ideas came to me and I wrote them down and then I followed that idea while I created this painting during the two years it took me to paint it.

Time moves in all directions.

Sometimes images become abstract when out of a lineal context.

When time moves in this way, one can see how things from the future mix with the past and when crossings come, other moments are created. Present. Present time is out of context.

 

29^th of September 2008

“The image that came to me was of thin silks illustrating something, floating in space, one over another at points, and as they overlapped, creating a different image with the same elements they originally had. Each part of these silks are instants in time.

  I started the painting on the 25^th of September. The format is quite large. I find myself feeling clumsy as I´m not used to working on such a size.

   On one of the silks I see a row of trees, that when overlapped with other instants would take a different shape. I see a city, an old city with crooked buildings. I also see a bare clock where I can see all its clockwork; it is in front of it all. I see the hand that tells the time loose, floating in between the silk. I see planets. I like planets. They always remind me how small and insignificant I am as a human being. I see the human mind, where is it? It´s trapped in thoughts and memories, from her clockwork-mind I see words floating out, theorizing experiences. I can see more faces. One appears as a looking down from the sky. I might even illustrate a couple of the dreams I have had these past few days while painting”(in the end I never illustrated those dreams, neither did I leave the hands of the clock loose either)

December 2008

“The spider web.... “What does creativity really mean? It´s quite an ample concept. Aware. Being present. Finding various ways to see each other. Creativity does not mean music, dance, painting, poetry...all that is just a way of manifesting it. The web. The connections in the lines are the moments of real creativity. The web is the illustration of the various connections in the realm of possibilities. Transformation and constant change.”

 

From May till October in 2009 I was not able to paint because my studio got too hot in summer and the acrylics got dry too quickly on the painting. The painting was too big too paint elsewhere. So during this time I just looked at it and sometimes had conversations, but the ideas had to wait and settle till the moment was good in order to act. So many ideas came and went, and others stayed to take part in the image.

 

November 2009

“There is a clock that can´t tell the time.

There is the sea, it´s rough.

There are birds, always flying.

There is a line of trees.

There is a city.

There is a spider web being elaborated.

There are different planets, dimensions.

There is abstraction and patterns that repeat themselves.

The loneliness of the old person in the city.”