Painting The Landscape
Painting the landscape is something I have been doing since I was a child living near Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. Our small home was part of a Cupey Bajo suburb surrounded by a dairy farm that was run by nuns. To look at the verdant hills and the cows that grazed them, I had to climb up to the sweltering roof of our house. Not only did other neighborhood homes block the view, if you’ve ever visited Florida you know that tropical places are filled with large trees. And I remember being so eager to see beyond the trees. Looking out the window of our family car, the only time I was able to glimpse anything else was when we passed a sugar cane or a pineapple field. Even on the highest mountains, trees stood between me and the views I was so interested in capturing.
I took this photo at the Estación Experimental Agrícola in Rio Piedras.
Once in middle school, a whole other world revealed itself to me. I started spending hours at our school library poring over art history books. At home, I abandoned the biblical scenes I had been copying from mormon promotional materials and began using tempera to paint English landscapes filled with hunting dogs and horses. I was taking drawing on Saturdays at the Art Students’ League of San Juan and had not yet received any painting technique instruction.
As a girl growing up in Latino culture, my world was restricted. I was only able to leave the house on my own to go to school. The bus I took crossed an urban expanse devoid of parks and left me in the heart of the island’s financial district. Trips to visit my grandparents were short and always included my three younger siblings. But twice a year we left the suburbs to visit relatives on the western part of the island, and it was during those four-hour trips that I truly discovered the Puerto Rican landscape peeking between flamboyán, mango and African tulip trees. By the time I made it to high school, I put together my landscape fascination with the basic watercolor skills I learned from my Saturday art classes.
El Convento hotel, in Old San Juan.
The work of a New York transplant, Jan D’Esopo, got my attention. She had a gallery in Old San Juan, conveniently located on the way to the bus station. In my young mind, her watercolors stood in stark contrast to the work of most of the (abstract) Puerto Rican contemporary artists I had seen so far. The other contemporary landscape painter I knew at age 14 was Luis German Cajiga. He worked in acrylics, but in the 70s his work was hard to find in the galleries of San Juan and he did not paint outdoors. Once I realized a woman could paint en plein air I became obsessed with the idea, and fortunately our Liga de Arte instructor Carmelo Fontanez took us out to paint Old San Juan.
Patio. Oil on canvas panel, 1979.
I didn’t take long for me to learn in high school (and later in college) that painting outdoors was considered less worthwhile than painting in your studio from references. Accomplished artists in our island saw landscape painting as a cop-out, the realm of mediocre artists selling to the bourgeois middle class. Having been made fun of, I focused on the figure during those years, painting only 4 or 5 landscapes from photos. I had already discovered the work of great plein air artists such as Sorolla, Bazille and Sargent but much as I longed to get out and paint the outdoors, I still had the problem of having to get to places on my own without a car, and without someone to protect me from getting mugged or kidnapped.
Paisaje de Memoria. Acrylic on canvas panel, 1984.
It wasn’t until I got to California as an adult that the possibility opened itself in the form of participation in the plein air movement. By then, I had been able to study the work of dozens of women artists who had been doing what I wanted to do, I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to explore, and had acquired oil painting skills. In addition, communities of plein air artists had sprouted all over the Bay Area. While safety was still a consideration in painting outside, the appearance of email in the late 1980s made it possible to organize artist groups that visited regional parks every week. I met Karen Zullo Sherr in 2007 and by 2008 we had started a weekly landscape painting group. For the next few years I would paint almost exclusively with either Karen or with the East Bay Landscape Painters.
Sao Paulo From My Window. Watercolor, 1990.
The Bay, with its water views and dry mediterranean climate allowed me to paint in relative comfort. I could easily choose any number of beautiful views just minutes away from home. We often painted between 11 and 3 pm to avoid overcast skies or the worst of the wind. Karen and I liked to hike up and down the surrounding East Bay hills to discover new painting spots.
Over the years, as I began to feel more confident in capturing the feel of the Bay Area, a nagging question would pop every now and then: “What landscapes would I have painted if I had never left?” To answer that question, I went back in 2020 before the pandemic to paint a number of acrylics on location. With the exception of Old San Juan, I never painted alone. I learned that my palette would have to be more saturated. Not surprisingly, the weather dictates much of what happens. It is almost impossible to paint between 11 and 3 pm because of the heat and it can rain at any time. But I also realized that even as an adult, I would still be limited in the places I could paint in Puerto Rico because of the difficulty of getting to certain parts of the island, the lack of places to stay overnight to make the journey less difficult, and the reality that no one should be painting all alone.
After I returned I realized my California plein air years had had an enormous influence in the way I went about plein air painting. I acquired the courage to sit outdoors among people and paint. I stopped caring what other artists thought. And I still appreciate the opportunity to portray a place and time through my own personal filter.
La Casa Rosa. Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24.”