AN ABUNDANCE OF NATURAL DESIRES: I love color and use it passionately in my real and in my imagined life too.

Today, at the foot of the volcano, in the late afternoon, my friend Juan Carlos took some photos of my most recent artwork.

I sometimes get so close to the actual ¨doing¨ and ¨executing¨ of the work that I feel sort of obsessed.  Not in the ¨must get it done¨ way but into the trying to ¨reach deeper into it¨ thinking and doing as I paint away.

I don´t know quite how to explain it but I think I have so much to ¨portray¨ with my innnermost sense of passion for life.  I have deep resources of rememberance for those people, places and things I´ve appreciated, loved and admired for many, many reasons but mostly they are simple or complex collectables.

I remember much. Even down to a tiny public display of love I once saw demonstrated between two teens when I was a teen decades ago.  They were waiting for an elevator and were beaming with the joy of being alive.  There are so many real life moments that have touched my heart, all the way down to flashing near my soul, I´m so glad to have been so keenly alive.

Summer nights sleeping in my sleeping bag in our back yard when I was a kid and then, suddenly, becoming aware of ¨infinity¨ and my own lack of understanding of what could be beyond the stars.  My lack of understanding the depth of God startled me.

The vastness of it all, as well as the closeness of everyone of you, with me, has always (mostly) been a spiritual and physical thing that I´ve admired and embraced.  Sometimes quietly and sometimes not so quietly as I´m often filled with glee, or pain, or amazement and go ¨on and on¨ (as my Mother would say).

Quite clearly, to me, my artwork represents me seeking beyond the structured life of my understanding.  I strive to go beyond myself by using color. I use color from a down to earth reality and then seek adventure by taking color as far as it, and I, can go. But, like some adventurers I sometimes take the safer way...sometimes I take it all back as I push toward the unknown.  However, each time I go further than I´ve been before as I trudge toward infinity.

Once upon a time, a true story, I was a child riding in the back of my parents car.  My Mom and Dad were in the front and I was standing behind my dad, the driver, looking out the window as we traveled up a very curvy city hill...I remember looking into the cars that were going by in the opposite direction and wondering about each and every person and their lives.  I wanted them to come to my birthday party, whenever that next birthday party might be.

Later we passed a cemetery and I felt sad because I didn´t, and wouldn´t, know all those people who had died...they couldn´t come to my next birthday party, whenever that next birthday party might be.

I was wrong, there are many influences from up close and afar that have been gifted to me...real lives of those living and dead have touched my vision of eternity.

Thank you for being here with me and sharing my life, I cherish your company.

All colors united, Lord hear my prayer

Leonardo Ricardo
Leonard Clark
Guatemala