|| porto rafti #2 & #3||
Love for our summer swimming hole and finding artist inspiration.
||porto rafti no. 2|| 90cm x 120cm acrylic on raw canvas
Even though this is our fourth full summer in Greece, it really has been the first summer that we have fully embraced the μπανιο (sea bath) on the regular without inhabitions. New rituals and traditions take time to form. Both John and I are water creatures, him having Greek summer as a boy and me with the swimming pools, lakes and rivers of Colorado, so it is not a stretch for us to feel reinvigorated after a swim.
We began the summer at the organized beach at Agios Spyridonas. It is a long arcing sandy beach with a sweet little church on one end. Organized beaches do have their charm with umbrellas, cold βυσσινάδα, περιπτερο ice cream and of course the amazing people watching. So many stories just unfold right in front of you, but as July progressed it started to become too crowded and overwhelming. Plus we were taking longer swims towards the Apollonios enclave designed by Doxiadis in the ‘70’s which we are obsessed with. On our journeys we discovered a lovely spot on the rocks with a ladder for easy access to the deeper water. The sea is so clear and the rocks, coral and fish so colorful. In August we had some of the best swims of our life. It is hard to describe the experience because it is equal parts the sea ether, the burning sun, the hot herbal shrubs, the silkiness of the water on your skin, the sharp rocks underfoot, the cigarette smoke and the hum of fellow humans just vibin’. It’s all of it and more.
On Friday night, I started to mix colors that I imprinted on my brain when we do our little dives around the rocks and sea grass circles. I wanted to try to capture what I see in my mind when I close my eyes to sleep after a good swim day. These two paintings were created simultaneously. They are definitely more internal than the external Porto Rafti no. 1 painting I did earlier in the summer.
||porto rafti no.3|| 150cm x 180cm unstretched acrylic on raw canvas
This morning my nephew asked how I find my inspiration to do my paintings. He’s 8. I started off by telling him how I take a lot of photos and manipulate them to reveal the shapes, colors… “No, no.” He said “How do you get the inspiration to do all of your paintings?” Ah, I see, you want to know the unknowable. The thing us artists can’t really explain because sometimes it happens in a dream or a trance and then what was immaterial becomes material. How do you even describe magic?
So I told him that I start by enclosing myself in my studio, put on music, organize my reference, prep my canvas and mix my palette. And somehow, some way hours later images have appeared in front of me. It’s like a psychedelic experience. Time, space, thought, the corporeal just evaporates. Then once I come back in my body, I close up the studio so the paintings can think about themselves until the morning. Basically they need to have some alone time. We all do; to morph, transmute and reorganize ourselves in the dark.
He said, “Ah, you just get in the flow.”
“Yup.”
He nods with the understanding of an old soul.
