“Translating paintings”
a reading (and art) workshop at the SETMI
Lirio Garduño-Buono
The SETMI is a detention center for adolescents from 12 to 18 years old. The whole population is about 120 persons; 10 of them are girls. I work there since 2004 and have been very lucky in receiving wonderful donation from important publishers such as Taschen. This workshop is about books and reading: litterature, images, art.
One Saturday morning
This morning, I take some watercolors from my own atelier and some good paper for drawing and painting.
The group is small, or better said, I have two groups in one classroom: the beginners, and the more experienced, who have been in this workshop for a while.
The beginners will work on some literary issue, and the others will have the Taschen basic books to work with.
The Taschen basic series is rich and variated. Concise, beautiful, well printed and documented. This series has 85 books, each with one artist, ancient or contemporary. As I can’t carry with me the whole collection (would be too heavy for my rolling suitcase and for my old back!), I chose 20 titles at a time, trying to preserve this variety: Warhol, Renoir, Basquiat, Matisse, Goya, Miró, Velázquez, Klimt…
What they are going to do today is to look at the books, choose one or two and pick up images they would like to reproduce or to re-create.
Ivan is here with the guys of his small group, Fidel, Marcos and
Pablo. The big Adolfo came too and also Julio Alberto with his pal Saul too. Martha and Lizbeth are the only girls.
They start looking at the books and choosing their images. Julio likes very much Magritte and Saul, Matisse. Matisse is Ivan’s favorite too. Fidel chooses Miró.
At the first stage of the workshop they just have to observe; they will paint later. We are all working around a big table where all the books are disposed. Once they have chosen their books, I tell them to explore them and to choose their image.
Later, I put all the materials on the table: water, watercolors, paper. And here we are, in a sort of incredible acceleration. From now on, there will be a feverish atmosphere down here: they start working with an incredible passion! Looking carefully at the images, contemplating the white sheets, taking and changing colors and…doing all this almost without speaking; incredible!
Adolfo, a big guy also called “Boots” is copying a painting from Miró. He’s working along with tiny Pablo; they are working on the same book, open at the same pages, one copying the image of the right, the other the one of the left.
Julio starts with Magritte’s “The rape”. He’s painting carefully but he is a little bit desperate because his image is not exactly like Magritte’s. I tell him that this is not important. Something important is to give a personal touch of the images we are being inspired by.
Ivan is not even asking for help. Matisse’s vitraux are being painted in his own way, sometimes with the same colors, sometimes with different shades. Wonderful!
Martha choses Basquiat. She’s very fond of this canvas, she tells me.
The youngest of the boys, Héctor, chooses not to work on any painting. His work is weird, indeed, it depicts a crime and a ghost
both on the low part of the composition. The upper side represents a land with grass and trees and a small part of a sun on the right corner.
Elizabeth did something strange too: she worked on Seurat’s “Grande Jatte”, with the watercolor pencils I brought. The drawing is special because it is completely transparent, you hardly can see it, such is the finesse of the trace, the delicacy of the colors.
I tried to photograph it… in vane.
The others change the water in other to keep the colors clean and replaced the finished works with new paper.
I navigate between this group and the one, working in the opposite side of the room. When I come back to the painter’s group, I’m more and more surprised with their work. I like their way of interpreting this images without any prejudging and also their freedom of expression, with this absence of self censure and just the pleasure of shapes and colorsto guide them.
This session is particularly rich and beautiful, that’s why I wanted to leave a trace of it!
a reading (and art) workshop at the SETMI
Lirio Garduño-Buono
The SETMI is a detention center for adolescents from 12 to 18 years old. The whole population is about 120 persons; 10 of them are girls. I work there since 2004 and have been very lucky in receiving wonderful donation from important publishers such as Taschen. This workshop is about books and reading: litterature, images, art.
One Saturday morning
This morning, I take some watercolors from my own atelier and some good paper for drawing and painting.
The group is small, or better said, I have two groups in one classroom: the beginners, and the more experienced, who have been in this workshop for a while.
The beginners will work on some literary issue, and the others will have the Taschen basic books to work with.
The Taschen basic series is rich and variated. Concise, beautiful, well printed and documented. This series has 85 books, each with one artist, ancient or contemporary. As I can’t carry with me the whole collection (would be too heavy for my rolling suitcase and for my old back!), I chose 20 titles at a time, trying to preserve this variety: Warhol, Renoir, Basquiat, Matisse, Goya, Miró, Velázquez, Klimt…
What they are going to do today is to look at the books, choose one or two and pick up images they would like to reproduce or to re-create.
Ivan is here with the guys of his small group, Fidel, Marcos and
Pablo. The big Adolfo came too and also Julio Alberto with his pal Saul too. Martha and Lizbeth are the only girls.
They start looking at the books and choosing their images. Julio likes very much Magritte and Saul, Matisse. Matisse is Ivan’s favorite too. Fidel chooses Miró.
At the first stage of the workshop they just have to observe; they will paint later. We are all working around a big table where all the books are disposed. Once they have chosen their books, I tell them to explore them and to choose their image.
Later, I put all the materials on the table: water, watercolors, paper. And here we are, in a sort of incredible acceleration. From now on, there will be a feverish atmosphere down here: they start working with an incredible passion! Looking carefully at the images, contemplating the white sheets, taking and changing colors and…doing all this almost without speaking; incredible!
Adolfo, a big guy also called “Boots” is copying a painting from Miró. He’s working along with tiny Pablo; they are working on the same book, open at the same pages, one copying the image of the right, the other the one of the left.
Julio starts with Magritte’s “The rape”. He’s painting carefully but he is a little bit desperate because his image is not exactly like Magritte’s. I tell him that this is not important. Something important is to give a personal touch of the images we are being inspired by.
Ivan is not even asking for help. Matisse’s vitraux are being painted in his own way, sometimes with the same colors, sometimes with different shades. Wonderful!
Martha choses Basquiat. She’s very fond of this canvas, she tells me.
The youngest of the boys, Héctor, chooses not to work on any painting. His work is weird, indeed, it depicts a crime and a ghost
both on the low part of the composition. The upper side represents a land with grass and trees and a small part of a sun on the right corner.
Elizabeth did something strange too: she worked on Seurat’s “Grande Jatte”, with the watercolor pencils I brought. The drawing is special because it is completely transparent, you hardly can see it, such is the finesse of the trace, the delicacy of the colors.
I tried to photograph it… in vane.
The others change the water in other to keep the colors clean and replaced the finished works with new paper.
I navigate between this group and the one, working in the opposite side of the room. When I come back to the painter’s group, I’m more and more surprised with their work. I like their way of interpreting this images without any prejudging and also their freedom of expression, with this absence of self censure and just the pleasure of shapes and colorsto guide them.
This session is particularly rich and beautiful, that’s why I wanted to leave a trace of it!
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire