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| Filomena de Irureta Goyena |
In my 77 years of existence, I have had the fortune to have been first engendered, then nurtured, surrounded, influenced, educated, pushed, nagged and sometimes punished by women of strong character, and upright morals.
My mother had the audacity to tell me, when I was 21, that she
had always loved me because mothers always loved their children. She added that
she had never liked me. She then explained that somehow she thought I had
changed. She was beginning to like me. She often repeated and she did then, “You will never understand because you will
never be a mother.” By the time I
figured that I should have answered, “You
will never understand because you will never be a father,” she was dead.
To my regret I never indicated to her enough that I loved
her very much and that other love of my life, my Rosemary (she and Filomena got along
beautifully) has often mentioned how unkind I was to her.
Since then I have done my best, with frequent slip ups, to compensate
for my ill-treatment of my mother by being as nice as I can to all the women of
my life.
For many years, after the death of my father (I was 21), the
only male in my company was a male cat, here or there. I have two daughters and
two granddaughters. They all have strong character and rarely put up with my
shenanigans.
In my life as a photographer, a good and efficient magazine
photographer, my strong-willed grandmother, Lolita, finally got her wish and I
will now admit that she may have been right. I am now also an artist.
The various women I have known sentimentally I still love
them all. Perhaps Rosemary understands this. When I play Astor Piazzolla she
knows and becomes sombre and leaves the room. She knows I am elsewhere in my
thoughts and memories.
In this photographic career I have photographed great female
actors, politicians, film directors, architects, a couple of prostitutes,
models, teachers, dancers, singers, musicians, scientists, writers, poets, executives, one dominatrix, and
especially women who made it a living to take their clothes off. The latter had infinite patience as I slowly gained experience on how to make them look their best.
All, all of them, every single one of them, taught me in
some way or another something of myself while gently coaxing me on how to
practice my craft. I learned to never make any of my subjects do something I
would not do. I learned that any woman facing my camera had to be in complete
control.
And if I am writing this without too many worries in my life
it has to be that my Rosemary inherited from both my mother and grandmother a
spirit of adventure, a willingness to take chances and to know how to handle
money and understand interest rates and other financial matters that escape me.
And it was Rosemary who when we got married in Mexico City,would serve me a
heaping plate of good food (when she used to cook!) but hers was almost empty.
I was too stupid to realize money was short.
Today Sunday we will have breakfast in bed with our New York
Times, not because it is International Women’s Day but because we do this seven
days of the week for the last 20 years.
To the women of my life I owe it.