Thursday, June 15, 2006


I am an Argentine (rhymes with whine which is something we Argentines do very well) who lived in Mexico for many years and then in Texas where I almost became an American. I arrived to Vancouver in 1975 but I didn't really feel Canadian (not when I swore allegiance to the queen with my father's King James Bible) until I participated in the Urbanarium Society's 1998 show, B+W Vancouver. My photos of architecture in Vancouver were up on the wall with the photos of Leonard Frank and Otto Landauer who recorded Vancouver from its inception. I felt that Vancouver was my city and by a logical extension that somehow I was finally Canadian. This comforting feeling of belonging did not last. Shortly after, I met transplanted Argentine artists Nora Patrich and her husband Juan Manuel Sanchez. Juan refuses to speak any English and holds to the daily tradition of drinking mate from a gourd. He reads Argentine on-line newpspapers and asks me if I have read this or that, as if the events just happened outside of his studio window facing Douglas Park. It is difficult to look at passionate and beautiful Nora without longing for the women of Buenos Aires. So I get confused and I have been since I met them. When Argentina won its first world cup game last week Nora called me to tell me, "We won." I felt it necessary to tell her, "You won. I didn't. I am Canadian." I am confused but that doesn't mean I don't thoroughly enjoy being in the company of these Argentines.

In the Company of Argentines
Painting with Argentines