a thousand words worth
If there is one regret I have, it’s that I don’t know Spanish well. Yeah, yeah I’ve heard it all before…it’s never too late; there’s still time; your life isn’t over, yet. But, really. Really. It is too late.
I grew up in west Texas. Not what the general public consider to be west Texas, which is really many hours of traveling at 80 miles per hour east of west. But, the west Texas. Any further west and you’ll find yourself in The Land of Enchantment. El Paso, Texas: the west-est of Texas. (half a step south and you’d better have your passport with you. ¡Bienvenidos a México!)
El Paso is bilingual. Maybe dual-lingual is a better description of the city’s most common voice.
In elementary and junior high school (K-8)*, Spanish language class was a part of the required curriculum. *(in the spirit of full disclosure, I never attended kindergarten – jumped head long into first grade) After eight years of Spanish, living in a city surrounded by the language; I came away speaking near fluent Spanglish.
Despite my dismal comprehension of the Spanish language, I find I am not monolingual. I do have an excellent grasp of visual communication – image, line, color…. In this I am fluent. Image is the visual language that surrounds us. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger notes, “seeing comes before words”. It is language immersion at it’s finest; beginning from the very beginning.
And yet, not unlike my Spanish, some will speak visual pidgin. There is a talent, an affinity, and continued practice in becoming and remaining fluent in any language. So, I draw more than I will ever verbos conjugado. Su bien.
Last month, Practical Art’s Lisa Olsen stopped by the studio to take a few photos. Her photo essay (check it out here) is a perfect example of visually communicating art communicating.
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