Coincidentally, I created this painting at a time where I was grieving many things in my life. I would go through waves, I would be sad, cry, take a nap and feel better. A few nights a week I would drive down to Pilsen from Streeterville, sometimes stop at the studio but mostly with the intention to go to Pennywhistle and play pool. My studiomate Daniel and I had become weeknight regulars there and it was a fun time. There were many characters who’d frequent the free pool table at Penny and because the regulars there played a doubles format we quickly became acquainted with everyone. In fact, I met one of my closest friends there. After a night at Penny, I’d usually crash on Daniel’s couch, who lived a few blocks away. In the morning he’d make us a cup of coffee. He’d prepare it on the stove and agitate the milk with a handheld frother. I’m not a coffee drinker but I’d always look forward to it, it was the perfect consistency and had a taste that was slightly sweet but not sugary, to this day it’s the best homemade coffee I’ve had. After, I’d drive home or go to the studio but I wasn’t making as much art, and I no longer kept my midnight studio practice. The looming colder weather had taken that from me along with my frequent bike rides on lake shore drive. The days were getting darker earlier and I knew I didn’t want to sink into a seasonal depression so I’d look for other things to brighten my day. Sometimes I’d dance at home. On weekends, I’d pick a direction and drive. Sometimes the grief would hit randomly, and I’d cry and cry until I could get myself out of it and find something of joy again. Sometimes the joy was just day dreaming, sometimes it was something to distract or to feel excited about. Eventually the frequency of the grief subsided.
I did not intend for this to be a weeping painting. The dripping occurred when I mixed linseed oil into the pigment that I used to darken the top third of the painting, which I consider to be “the sky”. Since the canvas was standing upright, the medium, through the course of a few days, made it’s way down and dried into a hardened texture of droplet streams. And because it took me days after applying that layer to return to the studio, I returned to a painting that had released tears of its own.
In some ways I think of this painting as my own version of those miraculous Catholic weeping statues that were frequently featured on segments of Primer Impacto. (Did this happen with english news? For some reason there was always a segment on some “supernatural story” featured in the Spanish-language news, I digress).
In other ways, this painting transports me to a landscape that smells of rain and wet dirt. I once heard someone refer to that smell as the smell of “God”, and the memory of that scent comes to mind when I look at it.
The painting now hangs in my basement study area, near a window where the natural light makes the droplets more prominent. In the mornings I sit here, spend time with it and take in the morning light. Even though it is a relic of this time in my life, it brings me so much joy to be able to see it in my day to day, and it’s become my most treasured piece.
Reading / study nook in our basement where the painting now resides, it is a special area in our home
Bellow the painting is my candelabra. The candle wax that drips from it mimics the tears of the painting
The Miraculous Weeping Painting, October 2021, Oil on Canvas, 18” x 24”. NFS
Nighttime image of the painting taken at my old studio in Mana Contemporary, where this painting was made. During this time I was transitioning out of my Midnight practice, a period of my life where to go to the studio late into the night and work on art. The weather was getting colder and I was spending more weeknights at the Pennywhistle.
Sunday October 17, 2021
The hall outside my studio, late at night
