Time portals
An exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the April Revolution and the end of the colonial wars in Africa. Seven artists created images on very large semi-transparent canvases, installed in the abandoned buildings of the largest ship repair industry in the Lisbon area.
There is visible light from the roof windows coming in through the canvases.
Things as they are
From “The Man with the Blue Guitar” by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), a fragment from part XIV.
“…A candle is enough to light the world,
It makes it clear. Even at noon
It glistens in essential dark.
At night, it lights the fruit and wine,
The book and bread, things as they are.”
For those interested, the complete Wallace Stevens poem inspired, in the seventies, the series of etchings “The Blue Guitar” by David Hockney – well worth to be seen.
Puppet theater
June 13th was Lisbon’s municipal holiday – and that day coincides with the date of birth of the painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908-1992). There was a celebration at the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva museum and in Amoreiras Garden, in front of the museum. As I passed by I noticed a group of children watching a puppet show.
It’s nice to see children looking at a something alive instead of being mesmerized by a screen…
The Soap Factory
There is a small beach on the Tagus bank, between two cliffs, just west of the 25th April bridge. In the XIX century there was a soap factory there, today only its ruins remain. To get there it is necessary to take a steep path, not easy to find. At the river level we can found two chimneys, parts of the brick walls, lots of rubble and the opening of an old furnace. The place is invaded by briars and thorny wild weeds. The pillars of a former pier are still visible protruding from the water. Some fishermen take advantage of that place, they keep there a small boat and their fishing gear.
Salt
Reviewing some old negatives from more than 15 years ago, I found some images from the salt pans of the Tagus South bank. They seemed abandoned then, probably they are now out of business. But old tools and machines were still there, and also the big salt mounts – as if the people working there had suddenly gone away. Some boats were on the river – and seagulls too, of course…
Trafaria
Trafaria is a small fishing harbour on the South bank of the Tagus. It is the last river port before the sea. Fishermen use small motor boats to place or bring in the nets that they leave overnight at the mouth of the river, or in the sea near the coast. There are always some of those boats arriving or leaving. A huge silo was built by the water, and big cargo ships often stop there to be loaded with grain. It is not a tourist spot but it is a pleasant place to take a meal by the river. Seafood is excellent and the restaurants, although not very sophisticated, are very popular.
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Just by chance I was surprised by a book of drawings by the poet Sylvia Plath, edited by her daughter Frieda Hughes . High quality drawings most of them in pen and ink on paper, also some pencil sketches, made in England, France, Spain and the U.S. Sylvia Plath had art tuition in her teens and she used to draw during her life – many of her poems were said to inspired by visual artworks. One of her drawings
Harbour Cornucopia, Wisconsin (from Sylvia Plath drawings, edited by Frieda Hughes, Faber & Faber, 2022, London, U.K.)
This drawing brought to my mind one of her poems
A Winter Ship
At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of.
Red and orange barges list and blister
Shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy,
And apparently indestructible.
The sea pulses under a skin of oil…
The complete poem can be found here https://allpoetry.com/A-Winter-Ship
New Book
The new Book is out !!!
My long-time friend João Spratley is an excellent writer. He wrote a series of short texts in the form of traditional Fables, and asked me to illustrate them. This resulted in a short book, in French, that was published in 2021 (“Le Sourire du Chat et autres historiettes”). In the same line, we have just published a second (and last) book of Fables, also written in French (“Le Dernier sourire du Chat”), and also illustrated by me. I created a page Books im my main menu joaoavelarnet.org/books/ where you can find more details
Drawing session
Yesterday, another model drawing session of the Lisbon Drawing Club. The venue was again the Roman Museum, more precisely the ruins of the old Roman Theatre. The model was dressed according to the place and historic time. , Nice session, a beautiful place with a superb view to Tagus, many sailboats under a bright blue sky. Some sketches from that session
Caritas romana
Enjoying a walk in the Botanic Tropical Garden, in Lisbon, I was surprised by this unnusual statue of a woman breast-feeding an adult male.
I looked for information about this sculpture. This baroque statue was made in Rome by Bernardino Ludovici in 1737, and brought to Lisbon by king Joao V. “Roman charity” is a classical greco-roman theme, and it is based on the story of a woman trying to save her own father, condemned to death by starvation, by secretly breast-feeding him.
As you can imagine, a variety of interpretations of this subject can be found, some of them very creative…
Pastoral
Reviewing my old photos, I found one that matches a well-known poem by William Carlos Williams
Pastoral
by William Carlos Williams
When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.
from The Collected Poems of W.C. Williams, New Directions
The Beatitudes
A traditional russian religious choir by the Sitibine Ensemble https://youtu.be/ypafWjyG01o
There is a Vladimir Martinov’s version (instrumental) by the Kronos Quartet, part of the soundtracl of Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grande Bellezza”
“Our ruins will never be so beautiful as the ruins left by our ancestors”. I don’t know the author of this statement but there is some truth in it. But we won’t be here long enough to confirm it.
Ruins are fascinating – they open a vast field for the imagination and they show that some things take longer to be destroyed than they took to be built. Below are the ruins of a sanatorium, from a century ago. It was never completed, and now those stones remain in a field of wild weeds.
River
A variety of scenarios in the banks of the Tagus
João Avelar images 