Together his paintings have a cumulative power, and at moments they seem to attract and pull us into another world that stares out at us. You can see his life captured in the still motion of his painting, yet when you soak them in over and over again they change like moments in life that fade in and out. Every brush stroke becomes emblematic of his existence – and De Valdivia is ready to completely embrace the abyss. “If I die tonight, I would just be a dream to the world,” he says, with his wide brown eyes staring up at the sky. See new works by Pedro De Valdivia at “Desmadre: Fresh Latino Perspectives“

Where are you from? What is your heritage?

I am 1st generation American and I grew up in Pasco Washington. My heritage is a mix of more Mexican than Spaniard. Origins: Colima Mexico,Camalote Mexico, Michoacan Mexico and Spain.

What is the medium that you most commonly work in?

My work is measured in a series of years in which I have used a variety of mediums. For Example : pigments, refurbished trash, oil paint, silver (jewelry),etc. As of Late 2008 and the beginning of 2009, I have created over 123 paintings in oil- my current medium.

What tends to inspire you and your work?

In the oil painting that will be available for viewing at Vermillion Gallery, I’m confined by “Critics”. I feel that being a critic involves everyone. Also, I find this in the circumstances of building and making a painting. I hear my conscience become very judgmental in what I dislike and what I find interesting. Quite often this painting reminds me of my first experience of being rejected and critiqued. I became well aware of the fact that to break a mold and create a new movement one has to forget about critics-and even the best critic- yourself.

On the other hand , I find myself fascinated by the complex combinations of color patterns expressed in a single brush stroke. I lean more and more towards applying paint strokes as system of short light flashed that in the end communicate the content of a message . In many ways the paint application derives from my genetics, the system in which I was created from at birth-that no other carries. It is this code which is expressed on the surface of the canvas, the fingerprint of my personality.

3) If it was not for art I would be………..?

A beer making monk.

Do you have any artistic relatives? if so what do they do?

I see my family as people who are unique and vibrant people. Their styles of communication is very flamboyant and dramatic, almost as if they were in theater. Overall, my Grandmother is into culinary arts.

Is music part of your creative process? What do you listen to most?

Yes, it plays an important factor in how my colors seem to explode and dance across the canvas. In many ways the symphony of music relates to my personal method of applying color, its put in order and meshed together to create balance and rhythm . For example, composers create symphonies that add and expand harmonic vocabulary to create romantic music. I love Jazz samba. However, my favorite musicians are: Luiz Bonfa, Duke Elington and Stan Getz.

What food most reminds you of home?

Tamales and Chicken soup. And yes, beans and rice. Most of all -mole! (P.s. someone could poison me with mole and I would even take notice.)

When you are with family do speak mostly in english or espanol?

65/35

What do you think could help raise the profile of young Latino artists here in America?

Hard work, Perseverance, bullet proof faith, Fiery passion, a large dose of love, and of course a good meal!

Is there a connection between Latino artists here in the US and those throughout the hemisphere?

I believe the need for bold forms and vibrant color has always been a trait in Latino culture and unity. There are many colorful and vibrant painted homes in Mexico.

I see it as that we are all connected. Visual language derived from the need to express self before words existed. Hence, the Paleolithic period when humankind gradually evolved and began to produce the earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior.

Anybody you would like to thank or acknowledge?

I’d like to thank all the people who have made hateful and ignorant remarks of Latinos – I use that hate as fuel to feed the flame that breeds brilliance.

You can see more of Pedro De Valdivia’s arte at www.divinepainter.com

«La fundación de Santiago», óleo de Pedro Lira (1858). La obra muestra a Pedro de Valdivia proclamando la fundación de la ciudad, el 12 de febrero de 1541.

Santiago de Chile fue fundada oficialmente el 12 de febrero de 1541 por el conquistador extremeño Pedro de Valdivia como capital de la nueva gobernación de Nueva Extremadura. Siguiendo las normas coloniales, el fundador encomendó el trazado de la nueva ciudad al alarife Pedro de Gamboa, el cual diseñaría la ciudad en forma de damero. En el centro de la ciudad diseñó una Plaza Mayor, alrededor de la cual se seleccionaron varios solares para la Catedral, la cárcel y la casa del gobernador. En total se construyeron ocho cuadras de norte a sur, y diez de oriente a poniente, y cada solar (un cuarto de cuadra) fue entregado a los colonizadores, que construyeron casas de barro y paja.

Los primeros tiempos de la recién bautizada villa fueron difíciles y en varias ocasiones se cernió la amenaza de la destrucción y despoblamiento, tal y como sucedió el 11 de septiembre de 1541, casi un año después de su fundación, cuando los naturales del lugar asaltaron y quemaron la villa reduciéndola a escombros y ceniza, aunque la decida actuación de 55 soldados españoles presentes al mando de la amante de Pedro de Valdivia, Inés de Suárez, permitió que el asalto fuera rechazado y gran parte de la población pudiera salvarse.

Para saber más sobre los primeros años de la conquista de Chile y sobre la fascinante vida de Inés de Suárez os recomiendo el libro de la famosa escritora chilena Isabel Allende “Inés del Alma mía“. Es una obra de ágil y entretenida lectura y merece que le dediquéis una parte de vuestro tiempo.

Un saludo¡¡¡

I was just reading about the Reformation taking place in the 1500s in Calvin’s Geneva, horrified to discover that the Protestants were half as culpable as the Catholics in the witch trial gendercides. It’s not that I thought my family’s church was innocent of misogyny- but I falsely believed that Protestants did not participate in burning women at the stake.

While all that sickness was taking place in Europe, equally horrific conquests were taking place in the “New World.” Most of our history education here in Canada consisted of apologetics, how it wasn’t our fault, how we didn’t do it, and a few brief phrases about the European ‘explorers’ or ‘conquistadors.’ Diseases that the natives didn’t know of ravaged through them. Now one brave teacher told us about how the Europeans butchered east coast natives and made them into dog food to send back to the king’s pets. This detail of barbarism always stuck in my head, a black hole in the human heart.

Sure, I didn’t personally do it, and neither did you, but we have to stop glossing over the massacres in history, stop talking about military strategy and troops, and begin telling it like it is. Because none of us, maybe not even the few remaining natives of North or South America, have been told the full force of what went on.

Ines of My Soul, Isabel Allende’s 2007 epic novel of the Spanish in 16th century South America brings these days alive, with an eye for detail that will leave you sick to your stomach. Told from the viewpoint of the usually neglected Ines Suarez, a real life figure and a female conqueror of Chile, history comes alive. Allende captures the heady delusions of grandeur, the early excitement in Spain, the thrill of exploration for men. The Spanish hear tales of gold, of wild jungles, of ‘uncivilized savages’ who eat one another for breakfast and take multiple wives.

Ines’ first husband went off in search of the fabled city of gold, and she became sick of waiting in black, sewing, wasting her youth without love. She longed for freedom and decided to see what the world was like beyond Spain. So naïve that she didn’t know they wouldn’t see land for months on ship, she nearly bailed. She did survive the voyage, listening to a jaded man talk about life in the New World. He told her that the Spanish appeared on the shores of civilizations much grander than Spain’s, ransacked their wealth, raped their women, and expected them to worship two sticks sewn together. Ines, of course, is horrified by this blasphemy of the cross, but what she witnesses over her decades in South America is exactly that, but worse.

The history here focuses on Peru and Chile, detailing all kinds of native tribes and their cultures, whether grand like the Inca, or humble like dozens of tribes in the mountains and jungles. We know it happened, but it’s always told as if Christians went with a Bible and lovingly introduced the people to Christ. In our hearts, we know that isn’t how it was but don’t think about it. Allende forces us to look at what really happened: armed men, crazy for gold and power, filled with lust, staked their crosses wherever they wanted, raped and impregnated thousands of native women, made these mothers and the mestizos- ‘half-breeds’- into slaves, skinned the savages, cut off their hands and feet and noses, desecrated their graveyards, beheaded anyone they thought was a sinner, paraded the heads around half drunk on glory, filled their ships with emeralds and gold and silver that belonged to those who already lived there, all in the name of God. And disease- God’s will, of course, on the savages- disease the so-called explorers or conquerors spread sexually during their gang raping of any woman or child they could put their filthy hands on. Disease came from Spain not because these ‘civilized’ men of God were so superstitious they did not bathe- immersing in water was sin. Of course, it was not sin to rape and pillage and kill and then say, ‘this is mine.’

I’ve met many, many ‘civilized’ and ‘educated’ people who have a strange way of thinking about conquest. They insinuated, or spoke outright, that the conquered must have been weak, or that they liked it. Well, perhaps. Should we rape and steal from the weak? Then head down to the Sally Ann or the local women’s shelter and take your fucking pick, asshole. They may not have been weak- they may have been MEEK. Hospitable. Ines reports how some of the tribes could be conniving, but some did not have words or concepts for lies and manipulations, because a person’s word was always true. Tricking people doesn’t make you victorious, it makes you sick. Perhaps the people should have been less hospitable, or had better weapons, whatever it is men think to justify their sins. But imagine today, right where you are- at home with your family, watching Everybody Loves Raymond. Maybe you’re atheist, in vogue today, or you are Protestant, and one kid is off at Awana but the others are playing Monopoly. You’re not expecting anyone, so you’re not on guard. You’re relaxed. Suddenly, the door crashes through and some ancient Christians are standing there with some severed limbs. They fully expect you right now to convert to Catholicism, and they are telling you they just came on a ship from Europe, and that they now own your house and yard. Of course, you think this is absurd and totally immoral, and they can’t do this, it’s ridiculous. But now they tie up your kids and cut off your hands, or begin torturing you. They rape your wife repeatedly. They open the freezer and begin warming up some pizza in the oven, grab a bag of chips, and take over the living room, in time for a King of Queens rerun. When your kid gets dropped off from Bible Fun Group, he sees this awful horror. The men seize him and expect him to start slaving for them.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ha! I can hear my detractors, telling me not to be so dramatic. That not all missionaries are or were evil. This is absolutely true. Many followed to try to bandage the wounded left in the darker one’s wake. Many charitable saints have walked the earth. But if you think that any of this is exaggeration or hysteria, you are incredibly naïve.

Then, of course, the priests condemned Ines for living for a decade, loyally and faithfully, with a man, General Pedro de Valdivia, a man she could not legally marry because she did not know whether her first husband was dead or alive. Though Pedro reportedly  had a wife back in Spain, it was Ines who was treated like a whore. The men had servant women they plucked out of any tribe they wished, knocking them up and leaving them to die, but that was easily overlooked in contrast to the crimes of a grown woman who stayed true to one man.

Ines crossed the dessert with this man and built Santiago with her own hands.

Ines de Suarez

Ines is a real woman, though little has ever been mentioned of her as the glory (I call it shame) belongs only to the men of that era. Allende deftly brings the story alive, telling it from the ‘victor’s’ perspective, subjugated enough to talk truthfully about what she did and what she saw. At times, it’s hard to fit the pieces of history together, especially when there are so many holes, conveniently unfilled, where our ancestral barbarism is glossed over. I understand that it’s hard to cope with the truth, but we have to. I also understand that it’s complicated- all humans are in some way victims of their era’s philosophy and doctrine. I doubt that every Christian who went over to the New World dreamed of raping and murdering, but they were incited to rabid lust and power, hyped to fear the half-animal cannibals they thought they would encounter. Nonetheless, most went with greed in their hearts, not just adventure, expecting to rob the people of gold and jewels, and tame their non-Catholic ways.

By writing this book, Allende has helped bridge history. Today we know that the Spanish and Portuguese colonized South America, and my friends from Peru have been Catholic for centuries. They speak Spanish. We live in Toronto, a magnificent city where somehow everyone from every corner of the world gets along and shares their food, and it’s all very nice and very sweet. So we don’t always see the pieces, how this came to be, and what it was really like elsewhere.

Allende does not look away or flinch. She does not minimize the atrocities her people committed. She does not idolize, either, the nature of the people already populating South America, recognizing their moral strengths and weaknesses. She does not lump all of the native tribes together, either, but tells of the customs, civilizations, languages, temples, tents, and graves of different groups of people with different ways.

Pedro de Valdivia

It might be easy to say that this is a work of historical fiction. And many, shame on you, are thinking, it’s by a woman and she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If that’s the case, evidently you know nothing of Isabel Allende, who researches with painstaking care: in this case, four years of intensive Spanish reading. She experienced the aftermath of Chile, born there to a prominent political figure, raised there before fleeing to Peru. Now she writes from the United States, where she met her second husband during a book tour. She says her imagination was used here only to thread the facts together. However, the problem with most books on war is that they leave out those details so inconsequential to men- the warfare tactic of rape and impregnation, used in every war. There are orphanages full of these offspring right now in Serbia and Romania. Because it’s  ‘a given’ most men barely mention it when writing their fiction, making it truly fiction.

It’s important to know how history did its dirty work. We always toss out that familiar quote by Santayana- ‘those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it.’ But we don’t remember the past, because it’s icky, because we don’t want to shoulder any of the blame. Because we don’t want to know how we came to have the things we have.

I admit it was utterly depressing to read this book, despite the lively tales and the lush details and the amazing adventures and all the excitement. When I closed it, I felt such utter despondency at the human race, something that I was already suffering from after reading about those other soldiers of God- the Protestants. Today they are each still blaming each other.

The despair I felt thinking about what it means to be a hero was insurmountable. A character in the story, talking to Ines to prepare her for the inevitable, said it all: all men care about is eating, fucking, and killing. Is this really how it is, how it’s always been?
www.thegirlcanwrite.net

In Santiago wohnen 40% der Gesamtbevoelkerung Chiles, d.h. 6 Miilionen und sie hoert wie alle anderen Metropolen in Lateinamerika nicht auf zu wachsen. 50% der Industrie sind hier angesiedelt und 75% der Dienstleistungen  werden in Santiago verrichtet.  Als ich 1979 nach Santiago kam, waren es noch drei Millionen und die Peripherie nach der Liberalisierung der Maerkte durch die Militaerdiktatur spekulatives Bauland fuer die Mittelschicht. Nach Zunahme der Landflucht platzt die Hauptstadt am Rande eines Kollaps aus allen Naehten. Der Rest des Landes bleibt duenn besiedelt und verharrt bis auf einige Regionen paralysiert auf dem Niveau von sogenannten Dritteweltlaendern.

Nein: Ich will keinen politischen Artikel schreiben. Dazu kenne ich die Verhaeltnisse zu wenig. Heute Morgen wie alle Tage warnt der Wetterbericht vor der intensiven UV-Strahlung. Es gibt eine Skala bis 15. Wenn Alarm gegeben wird, sollten sich Menschen mit weisser Hautfarbe nicht laenger als 8 – 15 Minuten wegen Haukrebsgefahr der Strahlung aussetzen. Das durch die CO2 Emmissionen und industriellen Abgase verursachte Ozonloch ueber Chile und der Antarktis ist mittlerweile so gross wie die USA. Ich schuetze mich also mit einer Sonnencreme Faktor 30 und sollte eigentlich den ganzen Tag wenig Haut der Sonne preisgeben, was schwer faellt, da der Fruehling begonnen hat und es immer waermer wird. Im Schatten aber friere ich. Mit Sonnenschutzfaktor und Pullmankappe mache ich mich auf den Weg ins Zentrum. Die Wohnung von Ema, wo ich derzeit untergebracht bin, liegt so guenstig, dass ich zu Fuss dorthin aufbrechen kann.

Natuerlich will ich hinauf zum Cerro Santa Lucia, wo 1541vom Eroberer Chiles, Pedro de Valdivia, die Stadt Santiago begruendet wurde.

Dort oben gruesst mich Lautaro, der araukanische Held, der seine Maenner gegen die Invasoren siegreich angefuehrt hat. Auch den Inkas ist es nicht gelungen, Araukania, das ehemalige Reich der Mapuche, das weiter suedlich von Valparaiso beginnt, zu befrieden. Bis heute halten diese Konflikte an und die Mapuche, die wie die meisten Minderheiten nicht nur um den Erhalt ihrer Sprache und Kultur, sondern vor allem um Grund und Boden kaempfen, den sie seit Jahrhunderten gemeinschaftlich bebauten, sind bis heute einer starken Repression ausgesetzt.  
Auf dem Cerro Santa Lucía, der im 19.Jhdt nach der Schleifung der Schutzbatterien, die 1820 waehrend der Reconquista, errichtet worden waren, in eine parkaehnliche Landschaft verwandelt wurde, steht ein 2 Meter hohes Steindenkmal von Pedro de Valdivia mit der Abschrift des Briefes, den er dem Kaiser Karl V am 4. September 1545  geschickt hatte. In diesem Brief wird von ihm die wunderschöne Landschaft des neu eroberten Landes beschrieben. Natuerlich sitzt auch auf seinem Kopf eine Taube.

Auch der Moneda, dem Praesidentenpalast und Schauplatz des blutigen Militaerputsches vom 3. September 1973 gegen Salvador Allende durch den Diktator Augusto Pinochet, will ich einen Besuch abstatten. Sie praesentiert sich frisch gestrichen in neuem Glanz. Ich erinnere mich noch an die sichtbaren Einschussloecher.
Auffallend viele Bauchladenverkaeufer und Bettler in den Strassen. Schaufenster wie in den Metropolen Europas. die Waren aber unerschwinglich fuer den Grossteil der Bevoelkerung, die mit 180 $ im Schnitt ihr Auskommen suchen muss.

Morgen wird mir Ema ihre Stadt zeigen.

De Isabel Allende. Narra la historia y peripecias de Inés Suárez, una de las primeras mujeres españolas en pisar tierra americana. Además tuvo un papel muy importane en la conquista de Chile. Fue amante de Pedro de Valdivia, el conquistador (a medias) de Chile, y luego se casó con Rodrigo de Quiroga, uno de los consolidadores del dominio español en aquellas tierras.

La tia es una especie de Agustina de Aragón, defendiendo Santiago de Chile de los indios malulos…Eso en cuanto a personaje histórico.El libro se lee fácil, y es bueno además. Está bien escrito, los personajes son creíbles, incluso muy creíbles. Se intenta pensar el mundo desde el punto de vista de la época, sin prejuzgar a los personajes. Quien siga a Isabel Allende, no va a quedar defraudado, porque sigue con la visión femenina (no feminista) del mundo, y eso se agradece.

Después de leerlo, uno queda impresionado por la crudeza de la época. El libro comienza en Europa, y se ve que los conquistadores españoles ya hacían de las suyas en el viejo continente, sin complejos. También se ve cómo los indios en Chile eran bien aguerridos, liderados por Lautaro, un genio militar de la época. Un libro de aventuras cruel como la etapa que retrata. Menos mal que al final ganan los buenos…

En resumen, buen argumento, buena historia, buen escenario, históricamente fundamentada y documentada, detalles cotidianos que enriquecen el argumento y hacen creíbles los personajes… Recomendable para los que no sabían que los españoles las pasaron putas en América en algunas partes. Los araucanos eran cachas, si… Para complementar, leer el clásico La Araucana de Alonso de Ercilla, contemporáneo de la guerra.

Críticas Expatriados S.L. le da un 8,2

Más info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wts8cGykH2Y

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inés_de_Suárez