In The Shadow Of The Cathedral Of Saint Mary Of The See
And when it's time to move on, move on
Something was telling us to leave Madrid.
It’s not that we were having a bad time. Not at all. It’s just that Madrid is not what I would call an exciting city.
It’s more like a sprawling city.
Wherever you go, there you are. In Madrid, wherever you go, it all kind of looks the same.
Sue and I are what are known as two peas in a pod. Joined at the hip. Two halves of the same whole. Perfect traveling companions.
When one is thinking or feeling something, you can bet the other one is right there with them or not too far behind. I don’t know who said it first, but someone said, It’s not that I’m bored; I’m just ready for something different.
Yeah, me too.
So just like the old days, we moseyed over to the train station and like kids in a candy store looked at our options on the overhead board and said, Hey, what about Seville?
I’m not even going to go into the tired old diatribe travelers ask all the time about why the United States can’t have an affordable, fast, frequent, reliable, comfortable (keep filling in as many positive adjectives as you can; we’ve got time) train system like Europe?
The United States is a capitalistic country (though now, thanks to MAGA voters, the term, attempted oligarchical coup, seems to be a more accurate descriptor) and train systems and universal healthcare and generous maternity leave will never…
Oh,forget it.
Focus, John, focus.
Seville.
We arrived in Seville after a two-hour forty-five minute train ride that was on-time and so smooth and quiet that at one point I pined for the clickety-clack from riding the old trains, with an open window I could hang out, elbows resting on the edge, hot wind in my face.
When we were leaving Madrid’s Atocha Station I had one of those Einsteinian moments that proves relativity where I couldn’t tell if it was the platform moving, or the train.
Our apartment in Seville is pretty bare-bones and smack in the middle of the old city. Muy turístico, but that’s ok. It’s twenty degrees warmer here than in Madrid (forty-five degrees warmer than home, and no snow) and the bed is softer.
The wifi sucks but the people are definitely friendlier than in the capital.
Definitely.
Tienes usted tajine, a noche?
Si, si.
Es bueno?
And getting my gentle ribbing, he smiled and gave a little laugh, and I said, Esta noche and he smiled again.
In case you’re ever in Seville, Restaurante Al Sultan La Alameda
There’s the largest Gothic cathedral in the world…
…and Roman walls that are over 1,000 years old.
Just an absolutely stunningly beautiful city that merges the ancient—the city is 2,200 years old—with the modern.
With a ton of night life. People flood the streets, cafes, restaurants, and bars every night. The Spanish know how to enjoy life.
Life is good in Seville.
However, we can’t ignore the United States forever….
Do you know what it’s like? If you have any experience dealing with a chronic disease, one that’s always present in your life, it’s so nice to be able to forget about it sometimes and just live like everyone else. Seville is like that. Seville can let you forget.
But suddenly, there’s this thing in your mind that says, wait, there’s something wrong…oh yeah, now I remember.
I immediately made this picture, along with about ten other pieces like it starting when my show, november2024, was still up at Atlantic Works Gallery in East Boston. I had been working on the November show for all of 2024, and it was about the time last summer when Sue and I were camping in Canada that, just like in Madrid, I knew it was time to move on.
If you’ve ever read an artistic statement written by me—and if you don’t know what an artistic statement is, count yourself lucky—
A Quick Explanation: An artistic statement is something that curators, jurors, and the like insist artists write to help them sort through the flood of submissions to exhibitions caused by the internet and the yearly classes of graduating art students.
An artistic statement written about me, by me, sounds like this:
“I am a multidisciplinary artist. My artwork, whether visual, written, or oral, has always been about, and will continue to be about, the individual’s struggle to maintain dignity in the face of societal pressures.”
If you look at the images closely you’ll see the acetate is slightly out of register, leaving a ghost, or shadow, next to the figure. It’s my way of showing the inner self that is within us all.
It’s me, as always, focusing on the individual.
Right now in the United States we’re seeing history repeat itself. If you’re familiar at all with the bios of say, Napoleon, Cecil Rhodes, Julius Caesar, or Hitler, you know these things never end well. The trouble is, men who mistakenly think they’re equal to the gods always take a lot of innocent people down with them. A lot of sons, brothers, and husbands died at both Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz and his defeat at Waterloo. People suffered and died all over the world as these men’s misshapen egos caused them to be deluded into thinking greatness was their destiny.
Just like what we’re seeing in the United States right now. Deluded, egotistical men who want nothing more than their names in the history books.
These are the sort of things I thought about one night when I sat and stared at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See, this colossus, this enormous work of art. I am visiting a city that was once a center for the Spanish Inquisition. Ferdinand III was enormously influential in the Reconquista, the expulsion of the Moors (Muslims) from Spain. And it made me wonder if what I was looking at is in itself magnificent? Or monstrous? Grand? Or grotesque?
I wondered, like it seems I have my entire life, Where do I fit in, in all of this? And by that I not only mean me, but the work I do. What I’ll leave behind.
Like any work of art, whether it’s a painting by a grand master or small print made by a fellow artist, a piece of folk art or a marble statue from ancient Greece, or in this case a building, the longer you quietly sit and look at it—the more you give yourself over to the artwork—the more of itself the art exerts over you.
Like all of the Gothic cathedrals (though this cathedral is a mixture, owing to the fact that it started out as a mosque and the cathedral took several centuries to complete), along with its soaring height, the walls of The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See are covered in a web of seemingly delicate filigree of shapes and saintly figures carved in stone. Your eye can get lost in the intricate details.
And suddenly, for me at least, there it is: The hand of the individual artist.
It’s like seeing paint strokes, and knowing they were made by Van Gogh.
Every stone, every brick, thousands and perhaps millions of them, was quarried, shipped, moved, and raised, laid and set in place by the hands of a laborer. Every stone carving was sculpted, chiseled, etched, notched, and shaped by thousands of artisan masons.
We know Ferdinand III, who decreed the structure should no longer be a mosque, but a Christian church, and that Christianity the official religion. (And I wonder what your average Muslim thought about that in the 13th century.) We know the names of the architects, and the master masons, and the artist who designed the stain glass windows.
But the thousands of people who did the actual work—the masons, carvers, craftsman, and laborers who actually built the cathedral? Anonymous. Faceless. Nameless.
They did it for the glory of God. Then died.
Politics and art are intertwined. There is no untangling them. An artist shouldn’t ignore politics any more than any other citizen should. But I do think the artist has a certain duty. Just like a soldier has a duty to country, I think the artist has a duty to the truth. I’ve never been interested in heroes. Never. Well once: Lance Armstrong, and look where that got me. I will always stand with the individual, because I guess that’s what I am. I’ll never build a cathedral, but you can count on me to tell the truth.
Thanks, John, for broadening the perspective of those of us “at home.” Love seeing the photos and reading your ranging thoughts. Long on perspective - 13th century to now- maybe a good reminder that we are only in this moment in time for a short while. We each offer what we can. Important to keep emphasizing the positive - there is more that unites us than divides us. Muchas gracias💖😘