Learning how to Paint in Spanish

storming the beachI remember on my first day in Buenos Aires I that my host mother was an artist. Once I walked in the door to the apartment she showed me all of her paintings. She told me about the studio she had gone to for years and about all the art she had created.

One day she took me to a plaza where there were people from all over the city painting and talking and learning from each other. I met a lot of people from her studio and I saw the kind of art they were making. After a little while in Buenos Aires I decided that I needed something to do and that taking art classes would be the thing to do.I asked my host mother about lessons and she had me call Marcela, the artist that owned the studio. That next Monday I was in the studio with pencils and paper. The studio can fit about ten students comfortably. Most of the students are middle aged women and they work on all different kinds of paintings. Some are doing extremely abstract work, some are copying Cezzane or adapting photographs into their own interpretation. Marcela started me drawing with graphite pencils. I drew three pieces of still life within about a month. And just a few weeks ago I began painting water colors. I’ve posted a piece of my own the painting of the soldiers I finished today.The best part about my art class is meeting Argentine people. Even though most of them are twice my age I learn so much from them. Marcela in particular likes to teach me bad words in Spanish and French. I also learn art in Spanish. I’m not quite sure the words for certain things in English. I recently discovered for watercoloring what is called stretchy the paper in English is called washing or lavando in Spanish which is different from limpiando (cleaning) which is called washing in English.At break time all the students talk about their families, art shows and museums they have been too, but their favorite topic is politics. They make fun of their president they make fun of ours. They are more excited or more repulsed by American politicians than I am. The last couple of weeks Marcela has greeted me with “O Bam A, O Bam A, O Bam A. With a smile and a “Estas contenta con el?” Are you happy with him. Apart from this I am also happy to begin my education as an artist here. The women in the studio have no fear of color and I’m happy to have inherited it. A brown clue ocean in a photograph suddenly becomes a brown, blue, turquoise, purple, green, red,pink yellow ocean. A brown metal ship becomes a purple and yellow ship. All the women in the studio teach me to be brave with my art. But what has been the best part about this experience is learning that art is created in a culture it does not necessarily create culture. Whereas Marcela and a few other students might be the only ones to exhibit their work in galleries and museums we are all treated as equals in the studio, each persons work is as valid as the rest. My hope is that all art can be this way, not just Argentine art, not just the art made in this studio.