Up and down. I rise and fall. I move closer and step back. I extend my arm for wide shots and retract it for the details. It's been a couple of weeks since I climbed onto the white wooden chair. It's not very tall, barely elevating me enough to reach the two meters of the support where I paint, but it’s enough for the balance to become a game of patience and focus. The chair is somewhat worn by time, with chipped paint along some of its edges. Every morning, the ritual is the same: I arrange the paint cans, brushes, and rollers; organize the color on the tray, dampen an old cloth, place a tiny pencil tip in my pocket, and create the dominant shade for the area I will work on that day.
The wall is immense and uneven. Cobalt blue, ochre, rust red, Naples yellow, and Indian green in some parts, still untouched in others. Rough, rebellious, it forces me to struggle to make the paint adhere and not resist. I load the brush with lead white and firm up the light. I soften the bone black shadows with the damp cloth. I paint a landscape full of life. I’ve brought with me the reddish rocks from Cap de San Antoni. I spend more time in the areas where living beings inhabit this landscape. There, form becomes more demanding, and light more capricious. I add reflections in the eyes, paint the sheen of feathers, and soften the harshness of their beaks.
The wind rises, the cold seeps through my clothes and settles into my bones. Suddenly, I realize I’ve hardly moved in hours. My shoulders tense, my back aches, and my knees stiffen. Weariness builds up in my wrists, which feel the strain of repetitive movements. The damp air and the overcast sky announce that bad weather will offer no respite. Despite it all, I resist. With my body stiffened and sore, I give shape to another body, one that knows movement in ways I, frozen in my effort, cannot imitate.
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