Chapter I
There is nothing more suggestive in life than having a transcendental experience. Transcendental in the sense that you discover things about yourself that you didn't even know existed or belonged to you. You have to know that I do not like to feel like a tourist for the simple reason that a tourist is simply an onlooker with a well defined execution plan: I have to return safely to where I started from. That determination in your plan creates an invisible bubble around you that prevents any transcendental connection to the outside. However, I like to feel like a traveler. Unlike the tourist, the traveler has the ability to blend in with the environment and, on some occasions, be part of it and contribute to its history. The tourist travels with a return ticket, the traveler, however, does not know when he will return and under what conditions.
A traveler exposes his body and spirit in front of a new reality unknown to him.
However, it is not enough to be a traveler to experience a complete and transcendental experience, there must be a series of causalities that some call magic or destiny. Your inner music has to be in tune with the reality that surrounds it.
In London, that happened.
Arrive in London from Angouleme, a charming but small and quiet city in France, near Bordeaux. My older brother, who lives in London, offered me indefinite accommodation and do not hesitate for a second to reject his generous offer.
I had had some success in recent months with my curved drawings of classic cars, in France, Greece and Spain. Being England the cradle of the classic car hobby, I thought that success would continue in those lands.
However, forget one of life's invincible laws:
I arrived in early April, flying from Perignac to Luton.
I already saw myself in the best neighborhoods of London, like Mayfar, Chelsea or Kengsinton drawing all kinds of unimaginable cars, working for billionaires, being invited to their country houses drawing their houses, their horses, their furnitures, making money with a brush and a sheet of paper. However, rare was the day when it was either raining, or windy, or just cold. I soon realized that to draw classic cars outdoors, you need good weather and that is precisely what there was not in London.
-Well, the cars will have to wait, I told myself.
I decided that I had to find other opportunities to draw. Then Life drawing came to my head. And that's where London started surprising me.
I had practiced Life Drawing during various phases of my drawing life. In Madrid, my hometown, in Paris when I lived there for a few years.
In Paris, there where two or three centers where Life Drawing could be practiced, such as the historic Atelier de La Grande Chaumiere in the heart of Montparnasse, or in Madrid int the upper floor of El círculo de Bellas Artes, where you could freely draw on Saturdays, without having to pay for tutored course. This is called free Life Drawing. Model is managed by a supervisor who decides the timing of the poses, attendees just stand in front of their easel and try to do their best.
Both in Paris and Madrid, Life Drawing was an activity rescued from other times, something akin to cooking in fire and cast iron stoves. Few people, most of them aged, sometimes some art students, but rarely and few places where to practice it.
In London, however, it is a renewed and modern activity with a large influx of audiences of all ages.
With amazement, I realized that I could do free Life Drawing every evening. The offer was awesome: In neighborhood Community Centers, in pubs, in artists' workshops, in Museums.. I started looking for where to draw, I had at least 4 or 5 different destinations to choose every evening!
I understood that London's relationship with creativity does not exist anywhere else in Europe.
But this was not going to be the only surprise.
