Worth A Thousand Words

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a Native American proverb says, “It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story”. Every painting contains stories, and that is the beauty of art—that we can look, and if the artist has been masterful and we are awake to the moment of observance and communion, stories can unfold.
There is a story behind my recent piece, called The Gypsy. It begins when I was visiting my friend Carol, who lives in a tiny mountain village, Darrical, in the region of Spain called Andalusia. Carol is Scottish by birth, but has lived in Spain for years with her German, accordion playing husband, Rolf. They lived a vagabond existence on a boat for years before finding their place in the almost deserted village of Darrical. While I was staying with Carol and Rolf, I met Pepa, a young woman artist who spoke English. Immediately I was struck with her “Spanish” looks—dark hair that flowed in wild rivulets around her broad face, olive skin, sparkling eyes, and an almost fierce proud beauty to her.
Soon we were friends and I wanted her to model for me, for photography, which she gladly agreed to. I told her I wanted her to dress in traditional Spanish garb and she found some dresses that worked, and we took her guitar for additional flavor.

Darrical has many homes that have been abandoned and are in various states of ruin. At one time the government planned to create a dam in the valley and made people move out of their homes before the water rose and flooded them . . . but the dam was never built and the homes remained abandoned. I wandered in and around these places, letting them tell me their stories and feeling the passage of time. Pepa and I spent hours exploring the village ruins and I took hundreds of pictures of her.
Now the pictures are available in my archives and I have begun using them in my artwork. I have developed a method of making mixed-media art that combines digital photography and painting. First I begin with an image I like, and then work on it in Photoshop, sometimes adding layers of abstract nuance. Next it is printed on canvas and stretched onto stretcher bars, like a painting. Then I coat it and paint on it as my imagination inspires me. In the end, a final finish unites all the layers and the art goes to my gallery. The new works are not the landscape painting I am known for, yet, I believe in the old Chinese saying “Perseverance furthers” and by nature I am an adventurer and like to experiment in my art.
Click to see more Steven Boone artwork

All The World’s A Stage

TUESDAY, MAY 15

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Each has his entrances and exits, and each one in his time plays many parts.” Shakespeare

Darrical, Spain, is a small stage with so few actors as to be almost a one-man act. The backdrop is simple: a tiny mountain village with no shops or telephone wires, just a cluster of whitewashed houses on a steep hillside. Many of the homes are empty and falling down. The only noises to break the silence are birds singing, roosters crowing, dogs, goats with bells around their necks, wind in the trees, the river, the buzz of flies, and occasional sounds of human activity.
The actors are few, so each plays a noteworthy part. There is a drunk, a mysterious kleptomaniac, a town majordomo, an old goat herder and his wife the cheese maker. My hosts are Carol, a reserved Scottish actress and director, and Rolf, her jolly German jack-of-all-trades husband, who plays accordian and sings folksongs. They are in their mid-sixties. Higher up the hillside, in one of Carol and Rolf’s houses are two delinquent German teenaged girls and their German government caretaker, who monitors their reformation from drugs and loose living. Further down the hill are a couple of British expatriates, also in their sixties, who are retreating from livelier days, and spend time tending a small English country garden, hidden in a bamboo forest by the river. I am in the mix—a traveler/artist/writer, referred to as “cowboy.” Other free spirits come and go, like the artist Pepa, a vibrant young Spanish woman who speaks fluent English, and lives in Darrical part time. All the characters mix feely and loosely.
Since there are so few actors and actresses on this stage, each is keenly aware that all are important and gifted players. How wonderful, when Rolf, sweaty from working in the sun, throws off his shirt, takes up his accordian and begins singing. Carol has been in a subplot of her own for years, trying to get people to quit throwing rubbish down the hillside or stuffing it into empty houses. Instead, trash bins are now at the village entrance and are emptied once a week. She and Pepa put on an art festival once a year. The German girls are almost always with their caretaker, who watches them like a hawk lest they run away from the stark life imposed on them. They smoke cigarettes and sunbathe nude around their house. Sometimes they join our group for conversation in Spanish, German and English. I paint the village scenery, standing in one spot for hours, staring at the white walls. Pepa sometimes models her stunning Spanish features for me, and I have several times gone photographing her among the streets and ruins. Meanwhile, there are always swallows among us, singing the score to our little Spanish melodrama.