The art course of José Lucas at the Association "La Hoya de los Álamos".

It is very difficult to write this chronicle, an introduction to the upcoming book on Pepe Lucas's painting course, "Research and imagination in the work of a developing painter." During the five-day program held at "La Hoya de los Álamos" in July 2006, Pepe Lucas said, paraphrasing Chillida1Los ojos para mirar,
Los ojos para ver.
Los ojos para llorar,
¿Valdrán también para ver?
, that the emotions of both the painter and a painting's viewer connect and communicate faster than might otherwise be the case in usual, slower, spoken language.

Looking at the students and painters stretched across the land at "La Hoya de los Álamos," I wonder myself at the old palm tree, and indeed, at those great people, poised to follow Pepe's artistic philosophy. What's more, I contemplate what my grandmother might have thought; she bought this property at the end of the nineteenth century, and built the house where my wife, Mercedes, and I take in the splendour of this warm summer in Cieza.

Is it possible that we have progressed so much? Is it indeed a fact that these students and painters have decided to make art the paradigm of their lives, and to take in the landscape with their deep vision of the environment? The Atalaya and the Castillo preside over everything, including the cypresses around the house, the medlar-trees, the peaches, the roses, and even the "madroño," who may be painted by some of the artists, along with the old village of Cieza, as a background for this landscape.

It is so very unusual to fill this property with so many artists, that it is worthwhile to continue the experience some other year, with the same atmosphere in which so much conviviality and camaraderie can be experienced among all the participants.

Pepe Lucas, with his enormous capacity for imagination and creativity, used to come to this farm as an apprentice for my mother. I am reassured that he has thought to impart his years of experience-his immense culture, his embraceable art, and his "savoir faire"-to other artists during these unforgettable days, when the skies and the clouds smiled down at us all, gently thanking them for this event.

The scene is indescribable!

Everywhere, among the orange trees and the tangerines, are painters with their easels; some are also outside the farm, along the small road, projecting their imaginations against the walls of "Los Álamos."

Today, a marvellous conviviality reigns over all of "La Hoya de los Álamos", -it is a friendship brought about around the pencils, the oils, and the water colours, and is one of the things that I do value the most. Early yesterday morning, when we all met, I put name tags on each artist, for we were all virtual strangers; today it looks as if we have known each other for centuries.

We only need to see and listen to Pepe's magisterial words, spoken in the middle of "los bancales2The land where vegetables and trees are planted" He was painting La Atalaya, and asking us for clothes and water to outline the traces of what he called a "spot"; we were all in a kind of Trappist silence, absorbed in this splendid sunny setting, enjoying, as Tiziano said, the time to paint.

A very deep magic of the moment has remained in all of us. Life is made, sometimes, of such magic moments, as have been the days of this course on painting by Pepe Lucas. We will be surrounded by his village and my village whenever we travel the world, bringing always with us its cultured and diverse personality. And I think that this is the heart of the matter. By fashioning variety into unity, and starting oneself on the road to diversity, we always are brought in art to a stable point of beauty and grandeur, allowing us to learn how to look at things and how to enjoy the arts. Although this is the second pillar of our www.fundacionlosalamos.net, it should be, perhaps, the first.

The course also was filled with important lectures. For example, the great composer and pianist Antonio Narejos made us vibrate when he spoke about "the colour of music and the sound of painting", and especially at his concert on the subject of Pepe's "Minotaure", and the way that the arts are linked in a magic but real way.

Our research at Los Álamos Foundation, of a sustainable and progressive education and culture, has been fullfilled abundantly with Pepe Lucas's course. One need only to ask the participants afterwards, or to read what we have published on our website.

I strongly believe that such experiences not only revitalize us with new energy, but are essential to the existence of our Los Álamos Foundation. We are taking our first steps in the Valley of Ricote3A very ecological Valley of the River Segura, which runs over some 20 kilometers, begining in Cieza, and following the villages of Abarán, Blanca, Ojos, Ulea, Ricote, Villanueva del Segura and Archena, contains one of the oldest traces of mozarabique presence in south east Spain. and the Region of Murcia, whose University has conceived this exemplary course. We have over three-hundred members from Spain as well as from foreign countries spanning the five continents.

As Antonio Machado said, "caminante, se hace camino al andar"4You walking man, you will make the road on your way along it.. We are ready, here in this village of Cieza, at the Segura River, and from this "Hoya de los Álamos", to follow this goal with effort, sincerity, stubbornness, and conviviality, beginning first with this course by Pepe Lucas, and with so many other projects that we are seeing on the horizon. With fervent resolve, supported by creativity, we should be ready and able to find the tools that we all need to cope with the global challenges which impact all of us at the very beginning of this twenty-first century.

One final remark. During such a course, the unforeseen, the unusual, and the unpredictable can happen. And this occurred on the second day. In the middle of the "huerta"5Lands of vegetables and fruit trees., a sound of guitar music was heard by everybody who gathered around the space in front of my studio. People at first thought that I had put on a CD, but we discovered that it was real music from the guitar of Ramón, a friend of one of the painters. Once more, the arts, and the poems of Garcia Lorca, as read by Pepe Lucas, were filling our minds and our inner feelings. Once again, the magic of art made music and painting one unique experience. We enjoyed that so deeply, and following Pepe's advice, we baptize Ramón as "Ramón el Álamito de Jerez." Once more, music and painting were unified perfectly and invisibly, confirming for us the meaning of Antonio Narejos's lecture.

Once more, we were confronted with a unique epiphany, telling us that the arts are interdependent and complementary.

And so it is! I close here, for otherwise this prologue might become more a chronicle of the course, "Search and imagination in the works of a developing painter", which follows on our website.But, as these days have taught me, I do remain open to more surprises and unpredictable events.

José Luis Pardos PhD.
Ambassador of Spain.

"Fundación Los Álamos". Cieza, 18 July 2006.