When I jumped into the void
With fear weighing on my feet
The universe took me on a journey to the depths
Where the sea flowers awaited me
Summer 2013. There had been a complete turnaround; life was opening up. I was back where I started in 2007, but with different circumstances.
In the days leading up to summer, I was resuming my doctoral studies. I had already completed my research proficiency, and now it was time to write my dissertation, so I was working on the proposal. It also seemed to me that returning to my doctoral studies was a gateway to the outside world, a way to reconnect with other people. And I stole a few minutes each day to write.
It was in the summer that I met my friend, the young Taiwanese painter Lu Yu-Han. I rented him a room with beautiful views of the Mediterranean, and he stayed at my house and helped me throughout that summer. It was a delight to have Yu-Han with me, with his zen-like energy, playing wonderful music, cooking delicious food, and painting his beautiful watercolors in some corner of the house.
I met Yu-han through Facebook. He wrote to me from a small island in Taiwan to congratulate me on my paintings and told me that he was a Taiwanese painter working as a cook for the navy. He was living on a small island with fifteen soldiers but was going to desert to Berlin to live as a painter. Later, he wrote to me from Berlin, disappointed at not finding a place to exhibit his work, and that's when I invited him to my house.
Also during those summer days, the town council offered me accommodation for a family of Russian artists (the mother a painter, the daughter a painter and the son who was a young man of the performing arts, the daughter's husband, a sculptor and blacksmith, and Taras, who was a colleague, also a sculptor) who were coming to do an exhibition at the House of Culture.
So that summer, I was living at home with my three-year-old son, a Taiwanese dog, five Russian dogs, seven cats, two large dogs, and two lovebirds. Luckily, it was a beautiful, spacious house with a garden and bougainvillea-covered terraces and lovely sea views…
It was then that the Oropesa Tourist Office offered me the opportunity to exhibit in their gallery, as an artist had backed out at the last minute, and I accepted. I had two weeks to prepare the exhibition, which marked my return to the art world. At that time, I had some large paintings I had done before becoming a mother, but I needed more work to complete the exhibition, as there were two rooms, and they were quite large. I decided to use watercolors, since it's a quick technique.
And there in the living room of the house—the study was occupied by animals—and amidst the hustle and bustle of all those people, inhabitants of my house, enjoying the summer days, I would sit on the floor and paint large sheets of paper with watercolors. And it was beautiful, wonderful, how easy it was for me to paint with watercolors.
I finally exhibited all my new work in that exhibition, which was put together in just under two weeks. That's how Seaflowers was born.
And from then on, watercolor became my favorite technique.
