In this diary I relate three days of a memorable painting residency at the University of Navarra in the city of Pamplona, taught by the Maestro Painter Antonio Lopez and the painter José Maria Mezquita.  

 

The course began on Monday, but having to come from India I could only join on Wednesday. I reached Pamplona on Tuesday evening. Luis Arellano, an old friend, hosted me in his house. Tuesday I had trouble sleeping, I was imagining again and again the moment when I would see for the first time the Maestro.  

 

On Wednesday I left home quite early and I arrived at the university one hour before the start of the class. I sat at the door of the classroom. Through the large glass windows  I could see easels with half way done paintings, paint materials and two big tables full of fruits, vegetables, grilled chickens, a big beef bone, a pumpkin stabbed with a large knife, tin cans of food, chickpeas packed in transparent plastic bags, potatoes, eggplants, watermelons and cauliflowers. In the far left corner of the room, next to the sinks, were piled empty cardboard boxes arrange like a sculpture (which later on I realized were the favorite still life of Mezquita).  There was a stool covered with a red cloth for the model to sit; afterword I understood that a woman was posing in the morning and a men in the afternoon.  

  

The class started at ten, the watchmen opened the door at nine thirty and I entered along with another artist who had also arrived early. I took a walk around.  The August light streamed through the huge windows… my classmate told me that I could set up my easel wherever I wanted except in the occupied places marked on the floor with black tape.  The floor was full of black crosses so it took me a bit of time to find where to place myself.   At ten o’clock all the students entered almost at the same time.  My stomach tingled thinking that in any instant, among the thirty heads, it will  appear the head of Antonio Lopez….A few minutes later,  a colleague told me in a soft voice, “ here comes Antonio, his wife, Mezquita and Aquerreta”.  I watched them from afar.  As they entered everybody greeted them as they smiled “good morning, good morning”. Inmaculada Jimenez, the course coordinator, came with them and turned and advanced towards me briskly, “Gayatri, come, I will introduce you to Antonio”... “Antonio, this is Gayatri, the missing student who came from India”.  Antonio shook my hand and said: “Nice to meet you”. I felt like melting and said: “Nice to meet you”. He introduced me to José Maria Mezquita, to Juan José Aquerreta and to Mari, his wife and then he said: “Come on, look for a place and get painting”.   

 

I found a place to paint and what to paint; two watermelons. A half an hour later, Antonio approached me and sounding disgusted said: “Erase this water melon and do it again a bit away to the right side.” and he left. For nearly two hours I continued to paint with Antonio passing behind me several times. When it was almost time for lunch break, he approached me and said, “You don’t pay attention, you don’t pay attention”, and he pointed out that the proportions were not right, and he added, “No, it cannot be like this, you have to pay attention, a lot of attention. If you want to do a manicure, would you do it with or without attention?  If you don’t pay attention, what would happen?  This is the same. Put this painting away and start a new one”.   

I put away the water melons.   

 

After lunch I started with some eggplants. The maestro’s words were blowing in my memory so I paid attention and did a good sketch. “You don’t pay attention, you don’t pay attention”. When Antonio speaks he tends to repeat the last words from the preceding sentence, he also uses many metaphors. Yesterday he told a group of students,  “There are painters with talent and painters without talent;  if you have legs you can walk, and if you have no legs you cannot walk;  you can not want to fly if you have no wings, if you have wings you fly and if not, you don’t fly.  There are artists who strive to be artists without having talent, this can not be, and this can not be.” 

 

I had placed the eggplants in the foreground, so that they could fill up almost the entire canvas and therefore I have an easy execution in the background. (Even after the slap from the teacher, still I did not deter).  As I began with the shades, Mezquita came and looked at me smiling, “Where are the water melons?” “Antonio dismissed them”, I answered.  “Sure, sure, Antonio is very demanding” he asserted while laughing and looking again at the eggplants”. 

 

As the students paint, the teachers walk behind them and stop to comment on their works.  An aura of splendor and wisdom always moves along with the maestro. I want to jump from my seat and get close to listen to whatever he is saying. The feeling of duty to remain at my “desk’ keeps me painting, but I sharpen my ears to their fullest capabilities to catch every exchange between teachers and students.  There is silence and then again a sound approaches from any direction, or two voices blend and I break them down and listen simultaneously. Antonio’s wife also walks around and makes comments, she has a very soft voice that you can hear only if she is very close, she walks slowly with her arms folded and her head down between her shoulders like the “two ladies” sculpture by Ron Mueck. Only once did she speak to me, “What a dirty cloth you are using, it should be difficult to paint like this.”  I thought how these teachers focus on all details.  On another occasion, Mezquita said as he passed pointing at my palette: “Careful with those brushes, this is not the way to leave the brushes, you will of course get dirty and get disturb when you want to paint.” 

 

Mezquita has this accent from Zamora that makes him emphasize the s’s and the r’s. As he speaks he slows towards the end of each sentence with his eyes slightly fluttering, just touching stuttering. The generosity of Mezquita snatched my senses the day he explained to me about his oil technique:  He told me, “Come”, and I follow him to the place where he had his old suitcase, folding easel with paint stains from the years rolling in the forests in Zamora. He opened it slowly and I felt like if he was opening a treasure box…like magic invisible elements were  blowing up to the ceiling.  Inside there were oil tubes, brushes, a palette and two small sample bottles of olive oil filled up with his mixes to dissolve the paint and an empty tuna tin with a plastic lid . “Look, I will give you a tip”, he said, “buy a tuna can, eat the tuna, clean the tin and keep it, and there you keep always your mix to paint.  And in the studio , in the  olive oil bottles put this much linseed oil and fill the remaining space with turpentine… keep it and always take from the same mix.  I always paint like this.   I don’t put any more oil or less, through all the painting process, this is how I do it.”                                                                                                                 

 

I left the eggplants on the window sill planning to do the final coat the following day.  The class finished early because there was an open forum in the university hall with Antonio Lopez, José Maria Mezquita, and Juan José Aquerreta from which I took following notes: 

Aquerreta: “Art is about showing the person in all his complexity, I show myself in my work, I show my persona. Any person, in whichever job should do the same, show himself through what he does. We artists are messengers in a fractionated world.”  

 

Antonio:  “Art is born if it has to be born, and we don’t have to worry about the art or the artist.  We should worry more about the society.”  

 

Aquerreta: “The lack of inner freedom is a great danger, culture is communication. Communication, culture and social benefit should interfere more in methods to make people happier. The art is for the benefit of the society; in fact it has a real benefit in the persons who surround it  ( pause) that is how we are so jolly.“ (laugh of the public}. 

 

Aquerreta has the grace to be liked by the public, he talks softly with a broken voice, like a shy child who has to answer many questions in front of a group of adults. 

 

Antonio: "A bird builds his nest to nurture his children and also sings. The human being not only makes his houses and sings, but also writes, paints and dances. Why?  Just because it is like this, because it is the nature of the human being”. 

 

Mezquita: “Art is human. The human being has the possibility and the need of creating. When an emotion happens art appears. “ 

 

Aquerreta: “Art is born from the need to communicate and share something. Our current culture is in a state of luxury where it gives more importance to the container than to the content”  

  

Antonio: “Horror is part of the evolution of human beings. Art should not be muted, it should be precautious, but it should not be muted.  Velazquez, for example is very truthful. I, as an artist, have the right to express my horror. The basket of Caravaggio with its rotten fruits wounded by worms is of great beauty “. 

 

Mezquita: “We should demand art be sincere, to transmit that which the artist believe. Art is a testimony of the artist and if it has to be horror then let it be horror”. 

 

The open forum finished with a large round of applause from the public, followed by wine and snacks.  

 

The next morning was Thursday…second layer of eggplants…more defined colors. Mezquita came over and encouraged me to see that the dark side contained more black than the dark purple I was using and that the light color was containing more grey.  That day I brought my catalogues because the day before I saw some students showing photos of their work to the maestros.  I asked Mezquita to let me show my work to him and we headed to the blackboard and sat on the stage.  I gave one of my catalogs. The comments were positive. When the teacher says "Yeah, I like this work," it is like the relief we feel when we soak our feet in hot water after a long walk.     

 

A bit later, Antonio passed behind me, the eggplants were almost finished and he said, "This looks better, this looks better.”  I asked him if I could show him my work and he said, “Yes, sure” and we together walked towards the stage . We sat and I gave him one of my catalogs. He skipped the preliminary pages and stopped at the first painting, he contemplated for a few seconds (in my tension it seemed much longer!) and turned his gaze to me and said "This is very good, I like it, I like it, this is very good."  His lips stretched into a closed mouth smile and with a silent gesture of understanding and a caught laugh, he pointed at the ear of one of the characters in the painting and said as he sized up the ears, “In your painting, what does it matters if the ears are big or small, hmm?”  He continued through my catalogue and kept saying "I like it, I like it. You know what you want to paint. You found your world and you paint it and that is important."  I started explaining about this collection, but he interrupted me saying that I did not need to add anything, that paintings had to speak by themselves, that art had to be understood without words. 

 

It was the fourth day of the course. The beef bone stank.  Students commented on the smell and teased each other. A Madrilenian who was painting the bone and sat very close to it said, "I do not care because I'm used to it.”  I said jokingly, "Are you a butcher?” and killing me with his eyes he replied:  "No, I'm a psychopath.”  From the tone of his voice and his gesture, I sensed that he did not like my comment. Later I apologized for which he answered, "No, no, I don’t mind, butchers are good people, what happens is that there are too many butchers and to be a psychopath seems more original.”  He wore a plaid cap and a black apron with a skull painted in white, his face was thin with bulging eyes, like the eyes of the goats which later I saw in a photograph of his dossier - a still life with several objects and in the center, bare and bloody goat heads piled inside a glass vessel.  

 

In the afternoon I started the third painting - two cauliflowers. It was hard to be so close to the bone of beef and not to be distracted by the terrible smell. There was a fly surrounding it which Miguel Roche, the Canarian painter, used  in the composition of his painting -  a long canvas with two watermelons on one extreme and three on the other and in the large white middle area a single fly.  The last day I noticed that the small spot in the middle became seven and asked him if he painted more flies.  He told me that they were the seeds belonging to the open water melon which he was going to add once he was back in his studio in Canarias.    

  

At six o’clock Antonio announced that it was time to share. They sat on the dais, Antonio in the center and his wife and Mezquita on the sides. As her sat up there on the stage I took notice of his appearance. He wore a thin, light green and white striped shirt and thick dark green and white striped tie. He had pulled his pants up to expose his knees.  My eyes roamed from the ground up - shoes, black socks, white shins, gray trousers, tie, and shirt. He rested his elbows on his knees and with his palms facing upward he put his hands together in a way that the gap between his hands, arms, knees and body formed a triangle. While he spoke, he playfully pressed this finger tips in a charmingly childish repetitive style - little pinky fingers, ring fingers, middle fingers, indexes, little pinky fingers, ring fingers, middle fingers, indexes…  The index finger of his right hand is deformed by years of holding a paint brush the way a page in a book will remain scarred by readers who bookmarked their stopping points.  

 

Mezquita, sitting on his right, instilled a tremendous sobriety. His physique is like a solid and wise tree that echoes in the forest. Mezquita’s sincerity is the same as that of forests and trees. When I saw his easel I imagined the painter casted within the landscape as if that was the perfect place to find him; as if the landscape was only complete with Mezquita and Mezquita with the landscape. 

 .   

On Friday, the last day of the course, the cauliflowers were not yet done, but I considered them finished so I could have time to clean brushes, pick up my things, take pictures, talk with colleagues and get ready to attend the last conference. Antonio passed by and said. “It is good, it is good, but you are not painting the reality. In the painting there are two cauliflowers, but there are also two more cauliflowers in the back and half a cabbage on the left and also the base of the table and the background. Even if it doest fit everything in the painting, fill up the background with everything you see. “Try it, try it.”  

 

I disobeyed and I stood up to take some photos and listen to the teachers who were giving the last strokes of advice to each student.  Later, I approached him to apologize for not obeying and he said, "No, no, no, it is not like that, you don’t have to apologize for anything or please anyone, you've done what you had to do, you  have to be honest and be yourself; you don’t  need to show me anything, do not apologize, do not apologize. " 

 

After lunch we sat for the final discussion.  About the artistic career Antonio said: "Without understanding we are lost, and how we can get it?  I don’t know, I don’t know.  Some people get it and others don’t.  Some know to follow the path which benefits them and others seem to always cuddle up to people who are going to hurt them.  There is an intuitive capacity that the artist must develop to create what they have to create and make the right steps without errors. It is a capacity that we must discover, like the ability to take care of your self. How do you know what you should eat and what you should not?  If you eat what you should not, you can die.  So why don’t you eat it?  Well, because we are intelligent and we know what is good for us and what isn’t.  In this matter it is the same, it is the same.” 

 

At the end of the meeting I shared a few words with my peers and teachers. I commented that I recognized Antonio as a Maestro after following many of his interviews via the internet.  I talked about the meaning of “maestro” or as we say in India “guru” – a literal translation is “the one that takes you away from darkness".  I thanked Antonio and Mezquita for their great generosity and recognized the privilege of myself and my colleagues for attending this workshop. The teachers nodded in a gesture of thanks and after a few minutes the meeting and the course was closed.  Antonio stood up, walked towards the door saying good-bye with his wife and Mezquita.    I approached Antonio to shake his hand and say thanks and he took my two hands in his and said with a big smile, "Give me two kisses", and I felt as if Antonio was a beloved one from my childhood, like a family uncle that I had not seen for many years.  As he left, the students thanked him with a big round of applause. This was followed by two more rounds of applause as his wife and Mezquita also exited the room.  I arrived back to my room around eight and went on with this diary which I am now finishing in the bus, on my way to Alicante.   

 

It’s easy to become overly attached to your guru, but the best guru will tell you “Look at the moon and not at the finger which points to the moon.”  Although I understand this, it is natural to be afraid of getting lost in the vast sky between us and the light of the moon. We long for the guru’s hand to guide us.  The teacher's presence reassures us from the beginning and all along the path that leads us to the very heart of our own understanding. 

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Gayatri Gamuz 2010