Our little house on Planet Goodaboom...

We had a green molecules rain this afternoon on Planet Goodaboom, just upon our little house. I wonder if they are some kind of primitive Martian Creatures... Our hair curled up to the sky and our heads felt like millions of tiny antennae, but until now we haven´t be contacted.

Busy busy at our little home today! Much painting and writing...
Especially Kevin, who is becoming a words machine, cannot stop writing anymore, short stories, diary, travel tale... if I am his muse, as he claims, then I must say: I do my job pretty well!

Who knows where it came from but that afternoon I saw a woman´s head. Only the head. The female eyes were staring at Kevin. The mouth opened, and from the lips there extended a very long tongue which ended in an enormous crawling yellow spider. The spider scrabbled all over Kevin´s face. Then the head disappeared suddenly but came back some seconds later, and the same scenario happened again. Awful! At the end, quite annoyed that a female tongue was licking my Kevin´s face, I took a pair of scissors and cut the tongue. The spider exploded in a thousand blood tears on my face and the head disappeared for ever.
Whoever has already read Kevin´s new short story "Room without a view" , knows where my vision comes from.
Who hasn´t, should be careful if he/she has sensitive nerves...

Cutting my teeth

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Planet Goodaboom, Sunday 1st April 2007

This is Dutch Esmee, my new child... a pretty girl, my Esmee, isn´t she? To tell the truth, I had some troubles with the birth, as Esmee´s Grandparents were not quite happy with her first teeth... Well, Esmee´s Grandfather was a dentist, specialising in prostheses, and as he says, his attention was focused on teeth aesthetics his whole life. Esmee´s first teeth looked a little bit too aggressive, as if she wanted to bite everything she found... what babies normally do, don´t they? Anyway... Esmee had to go back into mother´s belly, and mother had to work on her dental genetics. Half an hour later -a second birth is always much faster and far less painful than the first one...- Esmee was reborn, with a gentle soft mouth, and I got a gigantic bottle of red wine from Grandpa Frans!
Also: Thanks and Cheers, Frans & Henny, you are wonderful people, and I have no doubts: the best and youngest grandparents in the world!
By the way: Frans is not only a dentist, he is pianist too, and a very good one! Have a look at his website.

Frans told me when he was making teeth prostheses, there were sometimes old ladies bringing the prosthesis back and telling things like:
"The gap between the front teeth is too big!"
or
"The teeth are not white enough!"
Frans had to find a diplomatic way to tell them that, at their age, the rest of their teeth weren´t exactly snowy white either!
One wonders that old ladies are still bothered with such imperfections, but somehow, it is nice, that women fight for their beauty until the last moment!
Frans told me, that he always felt bad when they brought the "dental art work" back. So he said, he could understand my feelings when I have to retouch a portrait...
But honestly, it is not a problem. A portrait is a difficult work, and it´s normal that I might have to do some tiny changes when I think it is finished. I exactly know that a tiny detail, which bothers the eye, can spoil the whole painting because the eye of the observer always focuses on that imperfection. And in the final analysis my job is only finished and the painting only complete when the client is happy!

The Last of the Mohicans

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Planet Goodaboom, Monday 26th February 2007

Yesterday, after 4 or 5 weeks pause, I exhibited again in the Street Gallery. Against my expectations based on former experiences with the local authorities, one week after my request for renewal of permission I received an official letter from the town hall, saying that they agree. Hurrah! It feels as though I have won a war!

I thought I had no chance, because in the meanwhile I am the only painter left exhibiting there, you might say: the last of the Mohicans.
Did I already tell you the story of the Street Gallery?
It started 3 years ago, from a collective painting exhibition organised by the local Lions Club. I met there a Spanish painter, Concha. We were both exasperated by the lack of exhibiting possibilities in our area, and had the idea to try to make the only pedestrian street of the city OURS, at least on Sundays, organising an exhibition of paintings from international painters there. It took three months till we got the permission – a perfect example of the „mañana“ principle-, and we only triumphed because Concha & me are the kind of people who take it to the wire until we get what we want! We were sent backwards and forwards through all the departments here, the culture centre, town hall, police, traffic, economy, simply because nobody really wanted to make the decison. It even became a political matter! But finally we got what we wanted!

Well... we were 7 at the beginning... 4 Spaniards, 1 German, 1 Swedish and the French Miki. Unfortunately it is very hard to work the street, and we had to face all kind of calamities like sudden storms, electrical shorts , sewage smells from the overworked drainage system, Dogs fouling path AND paintings! etc. But the worst were the critics: many people could not understand that professional painters like ourselves could „demean“ themselves by exhibiting their paintings in the street, and most of the time under very unfavourable conditions. They thought the street was the wrong „frame“ for our paintings, that it would totally diminish their value. So one after the other my painting companions deserted the Street Gallery. Just Concha and me were still there last Summer. Unfortunately, in the autumn, she gave up, too. I then wanted to stop myself because I found it too hard to stay there alone, and anyway it didn’t correspond at all to the original idea of having an international gathering of painters working in different styles and techniques. But in the last 3 years the Street Gallery had become quite well known in the area, people really enjoyed it, and they tried to convince me to go on. But it is only thanks to Kevin, who motivated and helped me so much all the time, that I am still there... and very happy about it!
As hard as it is, it is really the best way to reach the maximum number of people with my art, people coming from many different countries and social backgrounds and occupations. It is also the best place to observe the public reaction to my work.
In the meantime people no longer think it is a shame to exhibit in the street. I like to think of it as striking a blow against the collective prejudices...

And as if the gods wanted to reward us: it was a very successful day yesterday, I´ll tell you about it next time.
And the curtain fell on the Street Gallery with an astonishing sunset...

Oh God, I am pregnant again!

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Planet Goodaboom, Wenesday 20th February 2007




As I told you yesterday, I have just finished giving life to the Dutch „twins“. They are still not out of the house because the grandparents –in Holland- decided to make me frame them here in Spain, thinking –probably rightly- that the artist knows better which frame will best match the paintings.

And now, oh God, I am pregnant again!!!!

One could mean I´m too old for all these maternities, but the good thing in art is that you are never too old to give life... and the even better thing is: the children leave your house as soon as they are born and you don´t have to change their pampers or have the responsibility for their education!
Yes... pregnant again. It came quite suddenly overnight. Strangely enough: I spent the night alone! It must be one of those immaculate conceptions... quite logical indeed, as I was born near to Lourdes!

The scanner can already tell: kind of thrilling this time. Two girls and one boy. And don´t ask me how I managed it, but: they don´t even have the same father, at least as far as I know... and not even the same nationality! Must be the miracle of modern technology...

Anyway... dead again the dream of freedom, the foetuses are shouting already. urging to come out, I must work right now!


And speaking about babies: here, an as yet unpublished, (until now) Goodaboom exclusive view of Kev Moore, the biggest baby of all time:

My Well-priced Gift to Humanity

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Planet Goodaboom, Monday 19th February 2007


I told you already about my most recent portraits on commission and the resulting hunting trip through the galaxies after an eye spinning around his orbit...
I sent the photos of the portraits via mail to my clients some days ago and these two Dutch kiddies have been approved by their proud grand-parents now.
I received a very nice mail from them, expressing their happiness and gratitude about my work.



When you get such compliments, really, however much you have suffered before and doubted your aptitude as a portrait painter –and this was the case this time by one of the boys, believe me! Kevin saved the poor innocent boy more than once from the garbage bin!- you forget all that pain and just feel deeply fullfilled to have given your clients such happiness.

I never experienced in my life, in other domains where I worked such a feeling to have been „useful“, to have something important to give to humanity.
I don´t know if I told you before, but my first profession is mathematician. I initially worked teaching younger students mathematics in the University and later on, in the industry as a consultant resolving inner structural and financial problems of companies in trouble. Even if I know that what I did was very useful, for the students as well as for the companies, I never felt so inwardly accomplished as when I create a portrait which make my clients happy.
This is especially true of portraits. I already made a lot of paintings on commission –landscapes, sport scenes, flowers, animals, etc...- but the satisfaction is never so deep as with portraits.

Why is it so?
Honestly: I have no idea!
But it is almost certainly to do with the intensity with which I invest myself within the portraits when I paint them. It evolves into total identification with the subject. And of course it is quite hard to identify oneself with a dog or a flower....

Anyway: in life the satisfaction we get from some work done is always proportional to the inner effort we had to do to achieve it, isn´t it so? And everybody knows it: portraiting is quite a hard task!
So lets hope I´ll always have occasion to make this special gift to humanity... well, I know, it is a special kind of gift as it is not quite free of charges, but I am sure you will forgive me!