sketches from my brother's garden

My brother's garden, Keats Island in the Gulf Coast, B.C.   A few sketches of fireweed, sunflower and sweet peas, all in reverse as they are photographed with a computer camera, ink line drawing not photographing too well.  a great time sketching and painting on the island for a week, the most beautiful weather in BCs history, the ocean good for swimming, no deer sighted.  and a portrait done of my brother Fred which I will include when I return to Mexico at the end of the week.  Connecting and communing here with family, walking in cool weather now, a pleasure after Vallarta's scalp sweating heat and humidity.  The fireweed a special treat, a memory of youth in Northern Manitoba. where it was scrubbier and covered hills a rocks with purple pink and lavender, the first growth after the trees were cut, cut, as I recall, to make a fire break in the bush.

Painting Carmen

Carmen was newly pregnant when I painted her portrait. She was one of the Yelapa beauties and had been wanting a baby for so long, her sisters had already had a few. Even though she was the youngest of all the beautiful sisters, she was eager to have babies just like them. I had been told that her father was very handsome and that is why the girls were so gorgeous. He had taken off to California with all the girls and a new woman, abandoning their mother, Maria, in Chapala. Carmen and her beautiful sisters spent their formative years in California but the father sent them back to Mexico because they had begun to run with a wild crowd up there as they grew older. This seems to have added much to their personalities as Carmen and her sisters were worldly in an unassuming way, they spoke only Spanish in Mexico and had an independent flair and were quite uncontrollable. I remember one night of the full moon, climbing the rocks and mountains of the pueblo with Margo, the aunt, in search of one of Carmen´s cousins who had disappeared while at the disco. Quite caliente, they rushed the cousin back to Chapala the next day, Sunday. The sisters had followed their Aunt Margo to Yelapa when she was released from prison and there they stayed, oblivious to the stir that they caused and the frustration among the young hoods who tried to conquer them, oblivious to the envidia, the outright envy of the pueblo women, free to do what they wanted whenever they felt like it without the least concern for the mores of this small indigenous village by the sea. So when I asked Carmen to pose for a portrait, she was willing and took it all in stride. She was a nervous mother to be. There was no father around and only her sisters to help her and help her they did, when the time came. This is the painting that was chosen by National Geographic to be used in a story they published in their book, The Edge. I last saw Carmen on TV, sitting around her pool with her children, being interviewed about her husband, who is now in jail in Texas for the murder of his first wife. Yes, we had worried about Carmen.

Portraits of My Neighbors/Retratos de Mis Vecinos

Jose is a sculptor and his medium is sand , his studio, the playa and that is his gallery too and I painted him there on the beach at the malecon in Puerto Vallarta. He told me I painted him as he saw himself which was a great thing to hear, one artist to another.

Portraits of My Neighbors Painting Bico and Chato

The annual exhibition of my recent work continues at my studio, Cuauhtemoc 635, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico.

Bico and Chato are neighbours just down the street and I have known Bico since the beginning of the construction of my studio. He is an ironworker and fearlessly worked to install my metal roof up high . this was the least expensive roofing possible, I had run out of money building and needed to get a roof on before the rains came. Clay tiles are too dirty for what is underneath, my studio and paintings. That was years ago and the roof still stands clean and impervious to the elements and Bico remains my neighbour.

I ran into him in December and he asked if I needed work, his herreria had closed for the festivities for the month of December and he saw that there was ironwork that needed painting at my Casa Brava. I needed a model, not an ironworker and so we arranged for him to model for me, he would have work and I would have a model for my work. He came the following week in a nice dark blue shirt with pink and orange dragons and he brought me the horns of a bull to paint. I was touched, it was the first time I had received horns of a bull for a gift. And down the street we went to paint, he sat on a white ironwork bench under a big tree along the Rio Cuale and there, surrounded by his gang, pandilla, we began the work. They were entertaining and distracting in their macho way but I kept my focus, that is until the dog, Chato, appeared. I don't know if the dog was Bico's dog or if he belonged to one of the pandilla but he wore a lei of limes around his neck and I was charmed to see this. This is a well known treatment for a dog with a cough, this is the great part about being a stranger in a strange land. Normal to the gang but to me, magical. and so the next day and the last sitting I brought over a small canvas and painted Chato with a lei of limes and he sat proudly and somewhat shyly and these were the last paintings I did in 2007, "Bico" and " Chato Tiene Tos " Chato Has a Cough ".

My one woman show of Portraits in Mexico

This is my first blog so patience is a necesity, i don't know what happened after I checked my first and last posting. But will try to attach photo of the painting now in progress.

The first entry seemed to disappear after I checked it so I repeat that I am back to the easle after having a collapse following the opening of my show. It opened February 7 which was Chinese New year and it was a blast, very high energy and good work and sales and music and friends and new clients, positive response to portraits of my neighbors. Now I am back to work, check it out at http://www.angelinekyba.com/