The restaurant was dimly lit, with green Formica tables and cushioned booths while we, the children of the damned, scrounged around the floor for food.

Still Life (with Psychotic Squirrel)

I must confess, I am obsessed, a true obsessive, a subject controlled by his obsession. And truly I cannot wish for any other way that this, the primary obsession being a divine still life painting, brought to life early to mid 20th century but termed 19th century by the painter, my uncle, Amadeo Sosa. The artist was a painter and artist enormously gifted, an artist to whom all others could only glimpse in fragmented manner knowing that the gift by which he operated was his alone and not for distribution. Oh, so many rapturous days were spent watching him as he worked, mixing paint, preparing the canvas, arranging his models, all leading to the final act of giving birth to a moment. Obsession rules his gifts as well as he could not be finished, could not consider his work done until he had subjected it to numerous personal viewings with a highly critical eye as he weighed line, space, color, medium, and formal arrangement, knowing that each must be executed precisely for his grand design to find life.

The painting under review in this text, Still Life, was one such work subjected to rigorous qualitative analysis at his hands. But it is one that stands above the vast majority of those in its form category. The objects chosen for inclusion are each unique and well suited to a still life rendering, though each is not what one would term the typically chosen items for this task. Gone is the bowl, the apple, the pear, the clutch of flowers, items employed in still life as a form since its inception. Selected are items that offer simplicity in the geometry of line, the horizontal and the vertical, manipulated by placement within the field of artistic vision, a line that moves and transports the viewer to places and times not immediately apparent, places and times of a powerful and deeply personal bent. Looking into the space at left and right of the picture’s center one sees the deep gray background, a color chosen not only for its neutral backdrop benefits but also for its emotional associations. A deep gray symbolizes night in a gradual state of becoming darker, leading to eventual destination of the blackest black. Within the world of this color anything is possible, fantastic, terrifying, all manner of imaginarium and phantasmagoria, a veritable world of the underground kingdom. What could be waiting there? This is the central question: WHAT. And the void is only too ready to provide an answer.

In this zone of gradual impending blackness I see the beginning and the end of life, a crossroads where all possibilities exist, all potentialities virginal and unexploited. The child: that entity at its beginning, its emergence into the cold and uncaring world, its days of easy comfort behind, not understanding this terrifying fact that will make itself felt one day at a time. A man at life’s end, reflecting on day’s past, reflecting on his charity, his penury, wondering if redemption is his. Darkness can do that; bring the incomprehensible to bear on an otherwise peaceful enclave. When nothing is impossible, everything IS possible. At one time in my early years the night, the darkest darkness, held terrifying import for me with good reason. Yet after the eruptions and smoothing of the passing years, the total silence of the night represents something new, something pleasant, a thing that gives me time alone minus the ever-present human interruptions.
I feel peaceful and content and relaxed at night all alone in the darkness. It is a wonderful feeling and I revel in its silent company. It is also with storms I feel a silent kinship. The ephemeral movements of a storm send my mind on a quiet stroll. I catch myself smiling at a pleasant memory and I find myself bringing the memory before me like a moving picture. Yet at the outside of my emotional perimeter the demons of a past never buried lurk and lie in wait.