There is an intimacy, and a sense of privelege, in having access to the atelier of a working artist. A library can reveal the formation of a writer but the painter's studio is a peek into something else; objects from a human scale life as well as the manifestation of a conceptual universe and a view into the source of creation.
A collection of drums, panels, rolled canvasses in stacks, artifacts, notebooks, sketchpads, jars, cans of paint, buckets of markers, sponges and keepsakes are on view in addition to funky chairs that seem to excercise free will by showing up or not and moving as they wish. Giant paint-marked wheeled easels (10ft. x 12ft.) are prominent. The paint serving as birthmarks from previous works or simply from regulating quantity on a brush. Looking closely, one can see marked in small print on one side 'Vence Batalla'.
An ebb and flow of works and objects exists, with any one view of the contents providing only a snapshot portrait of an artist's life in progress. An acute sense of loss is felt when the work you saw being made is no longer there, one sees the ghosts of paintings past...a diaphonous 'not there' in front of what is there. Such is what I felt when I could no longer see 'Cosmic Dust' and the other new painting that had struck me deeply 'A Drifter in the Depths of Olokun'.
Getting to the studio is itself a trip. Shie will roll around and pick me up in Little Havana. Even the weather is a protagonist..more than once I have had to run through heavy rain and the rumble of thunder..with on one occasion a lightening bolt striking so close that 'Chango' made me jump.
In the artist's world there is no such thing as A to B and near never is the same route used. Only our delusions are linear. An awareness moves in of moving wheels on the curved surface of a planet, itself in motion in systems and space that are themselves curved and in motion. To perceive being as concrete and finite is to bury the self in vastness, cursed that as consciousness expands the vantage point becomes ever more insignificant and never connected. The artist's attitude is humbler and organic, both connected to and subject to, greater forces. He is ever respectful to the imperatives of living things.
"It is what it is" being a favoured phrase of the painter.
There are preferred spots. Guarapo (pressed sugar cane juice) is taken at a place on Flagler. Fresh coconut water is bought from a Haitian Lady who works the same spot on a city avenue in Little Haiti. She also sells roasted ears of corn and is always accompanied by a small coterie of sitting observers. Places for fish are an excercise in Shie's personal history in the city with many old favourites. The current one is in a strip of warehouses in an industrial zone in the North West. Spots for Cuban coffee are divided by zone, budget and mood. Noteworthy among them are the Latin Cafe on Biscayne, Ocoa's Breeze on Washington or David's on Licoln Road when there is time and mood for fancy...but there are many, many more.
Miami is conceptual and visual. There is among us; a love of place, a sense of a home if not home, a regard for the quirky and a wary view for slithering, poisonous creatures and currents. The city is a strange platform product of violated nature. However, many things are greatly appealling.
The trees that grow here all tell a story.
"Mango City," said Shie.
Miami has more mango trees than any other big city. All of them exist on residential plots. None were planted by farmers or developers but rather all were lovingly planted by immigrants to the city whether Haitian, Brazilian, Jamaican, Bahamian, Cuban or from somewhere else. I would point out the Maleleucas and their part as soldiers in a war on place.
We both share an affection for Royal Poincianas and would laugh at cross-cultural confusion caused by early Shie referring to the trees by their anglicised spanish name 'flamboyants'. Talk of trees would then move to signs as we roll along NW 20th Street whose stores prospered on Caribbean export business in good times and survive on local purchase in lean times.
"You have to see this" and he would point out a billboard for 'LevantaCola' (Buttlift) Jeans. We laugh and riff on the subject. Later the cuban/spanish word for jeans (pitusa) would trigger a memory of 'La Salida'.
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| Poster by Shie Moreno |
"Lechusa, Lechusa..SE VENDE POR UN PITUSA" the mob would shout and continue with "ESCORIA" (scum), "GUSANO" (worm). The artist would remember without anger but with some puzzlement at the things Cuban people will do...shouting at an 8 year old child and his grandmother, holding hands as they walked from the Electric Company 'doblando en Reina' to their home in long ago Havana. A bus to 'Mosquito' and then 'Mariel'. The houses left behind picked clean in minutes. A sour acknowledgement that many of those same people would also move but only to change masters and not vocation..abject servility posing as power and disguised in noise.
A 'Guiro' for 'Eleggua'. Music is played to please God through the spirits.
"Eleggua opens doors and is the owner of crossroads".
Shie is an accomplished musician. His sense for the rhythmic is as acute as his feel and command for the visual. He picked me up and we drove to a small house next to the Palmetto Expressway in the South West of Miami Dade. We met Marquito who would lead the group in the Guiro for Eleggua. The experience had charm and served as a good introduction. In a break in the music, Shie sat next to me. I noted the mirror in font of the door and
said,
"Bad feng shui."
He looked at me. I'm like that. A phrase ocurred on the nature of character and destiny.
'Ache' (ahhh-che)is an important word for the artist. It is a fused meaning word composed of personal power, a blessing, and a gift from God. One can have 'ache' for art, for writing, for music, and or other things.
"You have to meet Pedro" Shie said. So, one day, under a grey-blue sky and a drizzle of rain we drove to South Beach to pick up Pedro.
The slight figured older man inhabits his stories animating them with his spirit. Out would pour anecdotes of bands, spoken essays on the nature of music, seemingly random bits of wisdom and the occasional sharp laugh. On our return to the studio, Pedro sang. Shie played the drums and they alternated on la clave. It was recorded.
Music as living code. Civility. Imperial pasts. Cities by the sea. This living thing stretching from Yorubaland to the the tropics. It would start slow then build, and pick up, then pick up some more.
"Vence Batalla" Pedro would sing.
"Vence Batalla eh.."
"La rumba me esta llamando"..."Vence Batalla!"
When it was over the old man offered a final insight, a wisdom offered as love, "hay que darle con melao". Give yourself to what you do. So true of Shie Moreno, his work and of life.
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