What do you think of this artist and her work Scottish Economist?

[PRgirl]

This is the picture that is hanging in my living room. Along with two more. It is very personal for me. It is untitled because it was a gift from the artist to my husband. What do you think of it?

[PRgirl]

I loved her art. Her and Marta Perez artwork. You remember Marta Perez Scottish Economist, it was the self portrait I had on my signature there for a while. She is a fine painter and when I was sixteen years old I used to love hanging out with her there in Old San Juan. Here are some more artists I met and love and what do you think Scottish Economist? Aren't they great? I love their art.



Rafael Tufino made this beautiful portrait of his mother. Her name was "Goyita". I also like some other work by him. It reminds me so much of my father's style of painting. He liked capturing some emotion. He (my Papi) had such a great sense of color and of style. Like Rafael. Let me see what I can find.

Here is some information on another artist I met and liked (frankly he was too much fun for any person to take!) His name is Nick Quijano. Nicolas. He has a lovely singing voice too.

Nick Quijano
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Nick Quijano’s paintings are fun. His paintings are so whimsical, they make you smile. His style resembles folk art and he uses enamel and found objects within the canvas to heighten the fantasy. Imagine my surprise then when I trekked to Nick Quijano’s studio in old San Juan and found that in contrast to his colorful naive paintings, he designs elegant, sophisticated furniture. This unlikely dual-career reflects the artist’s dual background. Nick Quijano spent his early childhood in New York City but later moved to Puerto Rico.

“As a child, almost as an observer from afar,” he explains, “I was seduced by the rhythm, magic, innocence, generosity and sensuality of my Latin roots. The contrast between the sophistication and struggle in New York versus the exoticism and carefree, “tropical” attitude of Puerto Rico in the 50s and 60s caused a wonderful creative tension that still permeates my being.”

Nick Quijano’s childhood was shaped by stories and traditional images of his island homeland which he transforms into colorful depictions of daily life, popular feasts and events. His art documents Puerto Rico customs that are being eroded by the modern urban culture of San Juan. Growing up in a musical family, Nick Quijano’s subjects are often musicians and dancers and the stories of their songs La Dolorosa (Our Lady of Sorrows) shows a woman listening to romantic songs amidst love letters and weeping for her lover who is shown in the photograph. La Vida En Broma (The Merry Life) was a place Nick Quijano loved in Old San Juan, around the corner from where he lived, it was a place for music drinks and laughter. The painting is his personal homage to the good times in his neighborhood. Ironically he believes it is because his paintings are so personal, that they have such universal appeal.

Here is an artwork of Nick's:



Scottish Economist, I remember the good times as well. Especially now in the wintertime here. How I miss the moist air and the warmth of it all.

There are a lot of artists Scottish Economist back home. I wish I could show you all the work. My father was passionate about art. He really was. And he was talented at it. My favorite was a painting he did with an old man in countryside with palms, and tropical plants, washing his clothes in a waterhole near the mountains. He sold it long ago to a dentist I think. How I wish I could see it now. But, I still have his plays and his short stories. They still make me smile. He liked writing screenplays too. And for the theater. My father had a Master's degree in Linguistics. And loved analyzing languages and doing grammatical research. Something I was not quite as fond of. I once asked him about how he learned to use color so beautifully and he said he learned it while he was in the United States Air Force based in Japan in the 1950's from a Japanese watercolorist who Papi considered a Master. He taught himself Japanese and was incredibly respectful of all of Japanese art and found a friend in the watercolorist. I know a lot about my father. And mother. And my family. They shared everything they experienced with me, and answered my interminable questions with so much sincerity and love and as a way to introduce real interest in the world of knowlege. Art is great. So is music and so is everything creative human beings come up with.

Can you show me some comtemporary Scottish painters you like? I would love that very much. Gracias. PRgirl.

[lordbarneth]

it's not very good is it. quite cliched.

[PRgirl]

Lol. You showed up? Lol. It is for Scottish Economist to opine on. Not you in particular. But show me some Scottish artists you like. If you can't. I will then think you need to re-assess. Find something to post that you like. Go ahead have fun. Art is subjective anyway.

Lordb--why pay attention to this thread? Except to be petty about what? That I don't agree with you politically? Please.

[TheScottishEconomist]

Originally Posted by PRgirl

This is the picture that is hanging in my living room. Along with two more. It is very personal for me. It is untitled because it was a gift from the artist to my husband. What do you think of it?

It is a wee bit small for me to see it clearly, but it is a very beautiful picture and a very personal picture, although perhaps that you told me the picture was a gift from the artist to your husband has made me see it that way.

Was it perhaps a wedding present, or given to mark an anniversary of someone’s marriage? I can see what looks like a bride and groom at the top, and I am not sure about the other pictures and how they relate to the top one. Are they perhaps the bride and groom in earlier stages of their lives? I tend to think they might be perhaps parents of one of the couple, the picture with the lady and child makes me think this might be the case, though I think perhaps the bride is the same lady in the yellow top and sitting on the couch.

I am not sure about the symbolism; the butterfly centres the picture, but the little bird and the single flower, I am not sure if that has some significance I don’t recognise, is it perhaps something important in Puerto Rican culture?



The seconds one (it is a very nice picture too), when I first saw the vase I thought it looked rather feminine is shape! If I look closely I can make out a couple of cupids on it. One of the pictures looks like a parent and child, the other on the right is a single woman, though I am not sure if it is the same woman as in the other picture, or perhaps she is the child in the left picture having grown up?

[TheScottishEconomist]

Originally Posted by PRgirl

I loved her art. Her and Marta Perez artwork. You remember Marta Perez Scottish Economist, it was the self portrait I had on my signature there for a while. She is a fine painter and when I was sixteen years old I used to love hanging out with her there in Old San Juan. Here are some more artists I met and love and what do you think Scottish Economist? Aren't they great? I love their art.

I must confess I am not the worlds greatest art critic, however there is no mistaking the Madonna and Child! And a couple of angels too! Is the painter interested in religious or spiritual themes? I like that picture of Rafael Tufino's mother too, that is a fantastic picture.

I am a bit pushed for time at the moment, so I will leave you with one of my favourite paintings:



I will try and write more at the weekend.

[PRgirl]

[quote=TheScottishEconomist]

It is a wee bit small for me to see it clearly, but it is a very beautiful picture and a very personal picture, although perhaps that you told me the picture was a gift from the artist to your husband has made me see it that way.

Was it perhaps a wedding present, or given to mark an anniversary of someone’s marriage? I can see what looks like a bride and groom at the top, and I am not sure about the other pictures and how they relate to the top one. Are they perhaps the bride and groom in earlier stages of their lives? I tend to think they might be perhaps parents of one of the couple, the picture with the lady and child makes me think this might be the case, though I think perhaps the bride is the same lady in the yellow top and sitting on the couch.

I am not sure about the symbolism; the butterfly centres the picture, but the little bird and the single flower, I am not sure if that has some significance I don’t recognise, is it perhaps something important in Puerto Rican culture?

PRgirl: Scottish Economist, I had to take a bit of break before answering you because your questions about that little 'altar' artwork is very personal. And because it is, it made me cry a bit. It brought back so many memories, just how fragile our lives are as human beings. A human life passes so many times without any acknowledgement of them having lived. And suffered. And loved so intensely. The artist gave it to my husband after his mother died Scottish Economist. The lady in the wedding photo and with the yellow blouse, and sitting down on the blue setee is my mother-in-law. Her name was Angelica. She raised my husband in a very humble home, a public housing project in San Juan with a lot of crime, and drug trafficking and problems of all sorts. She was so old fashioned in her values. She grew up in a coffee picking little town (with a fantastic pre-Colombian archeological site that I did some work in), of Puerto Rico called Utuado. She had to work as the sole income for herself and her son. The picture of her and the child, is my husband as a child. She could not have children of her own, she would lose them on the third month of pregnancy and after many miscarriages she finally knew she could not keep trying.

Angelica was a good looking African descent Puerto Rican woman. Her first husband Luis (the man in the wedding photo), was the real love of her life. But he disappointed her. He was a womanizer and a gambler. And she only aspired her whole life to something simple and never got even that. What was Angelica's great dream in life? To be a housewife with a hard working husband and to stay home and pamper her son. To have a little home to call her own. Nothing fancy. But it never materialized. Her first husband after gambling her savings away (that she had worked ten years in some garment district sweat shop in New York City to accumulate) finally betrayed her. And left. No money, no Luis, and no children. She then met Rafael. My husband's father. And Rafael promised her the moon. That did not work either. He became an alcoholic and died of alcoholism. But Rafael loved his son. My husband.

My husband Scottish Economist found out after his mother died that he was adopted. I smile sometimes now. Because Angelica and my husband did not look at all alike. Rafael did not look like my husband either. At all. But in our society Scottish Economist people are so racially mixed that no one really questions your parentage. So many centuries of interracial marriages that in Puerto Rican neighborhoods, that is normal. My husband is very light skinned and tall about six feet one inches tall. His mother was African descent and his father was not tall either (fairly short of stature too), and did not look like him at all and was dark skinned with big golden eyes. But he never questioned it. Neither did I. That is the way it is on the island. So it was with surprise that he found out at 26 years old that he was not Angelica's biological son.

Angelica wanted her son to be a good decent man. To go to the university and make something of himself. For her whole life had been about sacrifices, broken dreams, poverty and struggle. She wanted better for her son and upon her death had left him with all she owned in the world. Which for her was a lot. She was strict, serious and disciplined with him. No hanging out with the bums in the corner that would not amount to a hill of beans. He learned to play the piano, took theater, went to university, graduated, studied English and Chinese, became quite a man in every way. Quite a poet he is too. No drugs, no drinking, no smoking. Just a fine man. Angelica's dreams for her son was the only thing that came true for her. And she raised the finest man I have ever known. Mi esposo. Who learned so much from his parents mistakes. And from their good qualities too. The parrot you mentioned Scottish Economist is symbolic. The artist Cristina Emmanuel, asked for photos and mementos of Angelica's life to make the box. My husband handed her what he thought his mother liked. She had a parrot. Named Rebeca. And when Angelica died he opened Rebeca's cage and opened the window and set her free to fly over the blue tropical skies and go far far away from the barrio. Back to the rain forest where she deserved to live. Just like his mother's soul. Set her free. Hope and freedom. The butterfly is a knitting of my mother-in-law's, the butterfly means 'esperanza'=hope. A hope she had for the future. And everytime my husband walks out the door he makes sure he looks at that altar and leads an exemplary life. I have to go now Scottish Economist. Your questions were very sensitive. And you are really very perceptive. I will add other commentary later about the other things. Including your 'modern' work.