I am a Costa Rican artist.  Well, according to someone who once told me that the academy only accepts as artists those who have gone through it… Hmmm, I am not an artist! So, let’s say then that I paint… Can I say I paint? Maybe say I am a Costa Rican painter?

I could probably say anything if I wanted to! An artist, a painter, a writer, an astronaut, and the official discoverer of the wheel! An appointed firecracker, maybe.

Here on this white screen, I can say whatever I want; however, it got me thinking:

I may say, raised over the small pedestal of my ego, “I am an artist.” But then again:

What the fuck is an artist? What the fuck is art?

(Excuse my f’s if they bother you.) You may stop reading or find another meaning in the letters. Thank you :D)

Yeah, I know I should go to a dictionary to find a good explanation, but hey! I didn’t stop myself from going to college to discard my own experience as my main source of information, right?

So:

Let’s talk about it.

I am listening to this brilliant concert by Slash in Sidney. Let’s step into music as an art; let’s pay some attention to it.

What is it that Slash does with his guitar that makes him an artist in my eyes?

It is maybe the fact that my mind gets so attracted by its sounds that it goes blank in order to catch every note. The idea of missing this amazing group of notes and silences is almost unbearable! It is pure complexity and beauty.

I can rest in its vibrancy and soul. It takes me places. And grounds me to the core.

It gives silence a chance. It is a momentary pleasure.

An instant of magic that if I don’t catch it now, it’ll be gone forever, and all I can do is pay attention and do silence. There is nothing I can do to relive the instant; I can certainly recreate a new one by replaying the song, but then again, the moment is different and the experience will be totally diverse.

That’s art!

Pure love for the present moment!

Art, in whatever form it takes, brings me here and now. No excuses, or you miss it.

But you see, paint seems to be there; like a tree, it doesn’t go anywhere. You can spend hours looking at it like you see rain through a window. Yes, and no.

When you truly pay attention, you are here and now.

And art does that. How does it do it? I have no idea. I am not an official artist, nor a neurologist, nor a priest.

But I know that, experiencing art in whatever way, as an artist, or as a user (it is exactly the same thing if your heart and mind are in the moment), I am here and now, and that is where God lives.

Art is Life communication in the purest way, straight to the unfathomable.

As an ineffable companion, art looks at you in the eye to remind you that there is so much that the eye cannot hear or see.

A signal to show us that there is so much that the skin will never even know it is there, and somehow, without the slightest touch, art gets the most sensitive area of your soul to awaken and see things in a different way.

Probably that is why it is so ridiculously expensive and so exclusive.

We believe we can lock a feather in a safe box.

But art goes beyond any cage. It is pure freedom. If we open our minds and souls wide enough to feel its call, its message—sometimes it may be pain, sometimes anger—it may be an inspiring movie, a surrealistic tale.

In the case of what I paint, I truly have no idea. They all seem to be the result of a weird perception of life. But I have no idea.

I am always wrong about what I paint! I always start thinking about a cat on a mat, and end up in a cosmic sloth somehow. 

I am a Costa Rican painter, am I expected to paint more sloths than cats? I don’t think when I paint, that’s the interesting thing about this. 

Well, actually, I started this, meaning to write a blog about Costa Rican art. HA! And this is what came out.

You see, clearly, I am not the source of what I paint (or what I write, evidently). I have no fucking idea of how to paint! Neither do I control my writing. I let it come out, mostly because I put my mind elsewhere. In both cases, writing or painting, I am almost waiting to see what comes out of my fingers. It is a very interesting experience if you just see yourself doing it.

And that is the main core of this blog, created in the midst of this amazing concert, playing with words and experimenting with insights as I wrote.

I think artists are simply the ultimate contemplators. And in my own humble case, the less opionated the better 🙂 .