MY LITTLE EMPIRE
21 October 2007, Cervera de los Montes
Once a week, I go to Talavera de la Reina, the nearest town, to some shops, the post office and the supermarket. It’s a kind of important day, I have to wear decent clothes and wash the car and I feel excited. But then the permanent traffic jam makes me nervous. And I lose my patience looking for a space to park. And I can’t stand standing in a supermarket line. I´m used to spend all my time in my little empire, my house where I live and work. The world outside of my empire is chaotic and scary.
I say that I do art about the real world. I don’t like autobiographical art or art about art. My statement is that I do art about the everyday life, realistic art, but I don’t mean my own small and safe life. The real everyday includes some riots and carbombs, or at least a little bit more noise than the birds singing in my patio. How can I make art about the world if I live in another planet? Maybe I have to move to a big city or begin to do art about the impressive wedges of migrating cranes that are passing our village this weekend.
BORING FRIENDSHIP
18 October 2007, Cervera de los Montes
Yestrerdays' friendly match between my two homelands ended a draw, 0-0. Finland has a solid defense but no ideas how to score. Spain moves the ball with a great virtuosity but nobody assumes the responsibility to finish the play. The result is boring football but it tells maybe something about the two countries if you believe in the cliché that the national football team's style reflects the country's lifestyle, ethics and attitude.
I had planned to watch the game in the Bar Cazadores, buy a round of beer to everybody when Finland goals and after the victory drive around the village honking. But my wife had to work and I tried to watch Eremenko and Cesc playing football while I was playing with my daughter an her dolls. She was angry because she thinks that the TV set serves only for watching Moomin.
BAD BAD PAINTING
17 October 2007, Cervera de los Montes
Leevi wrote in one catalog text that I continue the tradition of bad painting. I said him that I try to draw and paint as well as I can. I think Kippenberger and other Junge Wilde knew to paint. And Picasso was as good as Leonardo.
I never had any talent. My father is architect, I learned to draw straight lines but not to draw a human body or an apple. In the university, I didn't learn any technic because I had to learn to be an artist, think like an artist and live like an artist. Actually, I didn't remember to do any work but I was considered an outstanding student.
Now the only problem is that I decided to be more or less a traditional painter. And I don't know to do my job though I have a Master of Fine Arts diploma from the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts. I get nervous when I go to the studio to paint. I smoke a pack of cigarettes though I've quit smoking. I just try to remember that the Art is not in the products but in the attitude. And mine is extremely serious.
600KM FOR A CUBA LIBRE
11 October 2007, Cervera de los Montes
We came back from the lovely Cuenca. We escaped from the official dinner of the evaluation board and had some croquetas, revuelto de boletus and jamón at La Posada, where we slept in the presidential suite. And after that - this is why I actually joined my wife to Cuenca - we went for a drink to La Jovi. I hadn't been there for many years but almost nothing had changed. Maybe Santiago had more grey in his hair. The bigger novelty was Estrella, a new waitress. I felt somehow uncomfortable because I had never before seen a woman behind La Jovi's bar. I like to drink without sex in the air. I like waiters. Waitresses disturb me. And Estrella is definitely too pretty. Anyways, La Jovi is still my favorite bar in the world and seriously I think it makes sense to drive 600km for two Cuba libres prepared by Santiago.
INDIANA JONES STYLE
10 October 2007, Cervera de los Montes
We are going to Cuenca today. Some evaluation board has invited my wife to tell her opinions about the university where she gained her PhD in Fine Arts. I really want to join her because they have reserved a room in our favorite hotel La Posada de San José and we are going to have a drink in the best bar in the world - La Jovi.
My alma mater needs me too, that's what the professor Riikka Stewen wrote me from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. They organize a drawing event in the Kunsthalle Helsinki and she invited me to do a wall drawing there in December. It's fantastic to do something with my university. One day, I wish I could be a professor there. But then I should have the PhD. Once, I applied to their doctorate program but I wasn't accepted. I don't really understand what kind of research they do. I think lot's of writing and references to philosophy. I like Slavoj Žižek but I've never read his books, I don't have enough patience. I can't be that kind of scholar. I'd prefer to do research like Indiana Jones.