Rosemary & Hosta 'Warwick Comet' 22 July 2025

 

As a little boy in Buenos Aires my mother was strict and I was subject to whippings with her Filipino chinela (a sort of slipper). Many times I was saved by my grandmother who would tell her daughter that she had to be more forgiving as I was an artist just like she was.

When Rosemary, our two daughters and I moved to Vancouver in 1975 I eventually became a good photographer. I rejected any idea that I was an artist. It was at the end of the 20^th century when my Argentine artist friend Juan Manuel Sánchez (he was living with his wife Nora Patrich in Vancouver) said I was an artist. It was then that I became comfortable in feeling (as opposed to being) I was an artist.

Juan Manuel Sánchez - Abstraction 

Sánchez died about 7 years ago. He was part of a group called Espartaco. In the 70s these artists protested the repressive military governments with art.

Sánchez painted every day. He started with a blank canvas. His obsession was to somehow depict a Platonic Essence of what a woman was. He told me that it was a problem that had to be resolved. He resolved every day. One day as I noted that his paintings became ever more simple I asked him if one day he would just paint a black dot on the canvas and call that a woman. With a smile he said, “¡Sí!”

As I obsessively scan my plants, and these days as I wait for my roses to re-bloom, I am scanning my hosta flowers, I reflect on the idea that just as Sánchez’s daily routine was a lonely one so is mine. I never asked me if he had fun or enjoyed working on his obsession of the definition of what a woman was. I can state here unequivocally that I enjoy the scanning process. I can almost predict what my scan will look like. But always it is a surprise.

I may have 3000 or more of them. I have no plan to make them part of any legacy. As a matter of fact, the older that I get, the less important legacy has become.

Scanning those plants is a lot of fun. Somehow, each scan, in some way records the essence of the plant.

Thinking of Sánchez I know he would understand why I scanned the hosta flower with my 1969 portrait of my Rosemary. She may have known that I was an artist before I realized I was one.