An Epiphany in a Courtyard

Sitting in the courtyard inside the Hotel Sautto on Calle Hernandez-Macias I experienced a revelation, the shock of a door opening where I didn’t expect one. I was resting peacefully in this beautiful outdoor space, enjoying the warm sunshine of one of those perfect days in San Miguel, meditating on my good fortune. Suddenly, the objects around me -- trees, plants, arches, archways, tables, chairs, windows, doors – seemed to be bathed in an ethereal light and became transfigured as if by a celestial illumination. They lost their everyday ordinariness and took on a new meaning, a metaphysical meaning, and were transformed into a mystery that I am still contemplating, but without any hope of understanding.

It was like the sensation of a dream, a waking dream, when portals open into the subconscious.

In his poem, Drunken Song, Nietzsche has Zarathustra say, “The world is deep, And deeper than the day could read.”

Dionysus would have agreed, and it is that experience of going out of one’s rational mind that I am trying to describe, when you see the world with the freshness and wonder of a child.

Artist Couples

There must be well in excess of a dozen artists couples in San Miguel. I know four of them personally. Is this kind of marriage a good partnership for creating art? I wonder. I’m sure it has its ups and downs, like any other collaborative relationship. On the positive side, there is help with motivation, the support of someone who can understand the creative process, and the immediate critiques from another artist whose opinion can be valued and trusted. On the negative side, there is the competition. Competition in a marriage is a definite killer. And when one partner is more successful than the other it is often a sure-fire home wrecker. A wife who sacrifices her own creative work, as so many have done, in order to raise children or give her husband total support will become resentful and embittered over time.

The most recent example of this poisonous effect came to my attention with a documentary called Cutie and the Boxer about Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, a Brooklyn-based Japanese American artist couple who have been married for over 40 years. Ushio received some success with his boxer paintings in the 1960’s, but he is now in his 80’s and still struggling financially. Noriko’s work is having a second flowering, now that she is able to give it more time. But her bitterness remains. Watch the trailer on Youtube and you will hear Noriko’s resentment for her sacrifices come through loud and clear.

Many of the great 19th and 20^th century artists did not marry other artists, most notably Renoir, Rodin, Pissarro, Monet, De Chirico, Picasso, Matisse, and Dali. Perhaps they knew instinctively that it would be a mistake. Better to marry their model or muse than another artist, they might have thought.

The artist couples I know in San Miguel seem to be getting along just fine, but . . . who knows? I hope their partnerships are mostly fruitful.