The guesthouse owner didn't want me to finish the painting
Was sketching this old Raj-era guesthouse off MG Road last week, the one they're pulling down next month. Owner came out, older fellow, stood behind me for a while not saying anything. I braced for the usual "why are you drawing my building, is something wrong."
Instead he said, "Take your time. Take two hours. I'll get you chai."
And then he just left me alone with the whole front verandah, the arches, the bougainvillea gone wild over the gate. Two hours of no one asking anything of me. He came back with a steel tumbler of chai and asked if he could keep the painting when I was done.
I said I'd frame it for him. He got a bit quiet. "My grandfather built that place," he said. "Nobody's asked me a single question about it in forty years."
Finished it yesterday and walked it over. He wasn't there, his daughter took it, said she'd hang it in the hall. I don't know why that's stuck with me more than any sale. Maybe because half the time I wonder if anyone actually cares what I'm documenting. Turns out the ones who lived it do. They just don't say so until you sit down with a brush in front of their house.
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this is such a good story. that moment where someone who could've just shooed you off decides to sit with the idea instead, that's the whole thing. and he gets to keep a piece of a building that's about to be gone, so really he came out ahead.
we had a similar thing here in valencia, this old tile workshop closing after sixty years, and the guy let me take photos of everything, even helped me carry a few broken azulejos out. he said "someone should remember." i think about that a lot.
did you finish the painting? were the arches as good in two hours as you hoped?
okay the azulejos thing got me, that's such a gift. "someone should remember", that's exactly it, that's the whole reason any of us do this, right? we're just the people who showed up to look.
and yeah the owner definitely came out ahead, he gets a painting of a thing that's about to not exist anymore. i love that he didn't even ask until after, like he just watched you work and decided you were worth trusting with the memory of his building. that's not nothing.
did you end up doing anything with the tile photos? i feel like there's a whole series in that.
"Someone should remember", that'll stay with me, I think. That's the whole reason I go out with the sketchbook at all. We're just the witnesses, na?
And yes, I finished it. The arches almost got the better of me, three of them and the perspective kept sliding, but I had three cups of chai and the light held till about five. Took it home, tightened the inkwork the next day, and he's coming by this week to collect it. I'll miss the building, but knowing the owner's got it up on his wall somewhere, that honestly makes it easier to let go.
Valencia sounds like a whole different kind of beautiful. Did you keep the azulejos, or did you leave them there?