Roadies

It is hard to blog when I am on the road. Courtesy of Joe you see Tony here walking away in a small town in Germany. Tony spoke a smattering of German, enough to get by. During his Air Force days he was stationed near Munich. He got to restore murals in chapels and churches and learned the needed techniques. He kept a love for things German, also Sauerkraut and Bratwurst...

red times of some

This photograph catches the essentials of this painting: the embrace and just a few words: red times of some and possessions... There is a large oil where the male figure is similar, so I would place this drawing in Veyle, Denmark late sixties, seventy... It was all love and peace in those years, no possessions... Life must have been good, yet hard.

Abstract faces

The name of this painting, painted in Hoboken in 1999, should have been 'Abstract faces and dancing nudes'... It an oil with parts where the paint is almost sculpted on. Other parts of the canvas can be seen through the light wash. Explore the secrets hidden in the colors. Find the forms and tell the tales that come to you.

The artist

In this picture taken in Montellano, Spain, Tony is looking at a master guitar builder making his guitar. Tony loved all the arts and was good in several of them. In May this year 10 years will have passed since his demise. A Dutch poet Hannie Rouweler took the initiative to compose a Tribute to Tony. She asked five Dutch and five Flemish poets to write a poem inspired by Tony's work, or as the case may be by Tony himself. On the link you can click and then you'll see the front and back cover and you can read a series of comments on the different poems written for this publication. Also you can order the book or download it through that website. Obviously it is a bilingual publication with a beautiful lay out and great and thoughtful poetry. I thank Hannie for the initiative, John Irons for the help with the English translations and all the poets for their honest and thoughtful, beautiful poems.

Green Indians

Green Indians in the woods and water are obviously an imagined landscape, a dreamscape. Tony's brother told me that Tony identified with the West. As kids they would regularly see westerns. Also one set of grandparents was full blooded Indian. As a grown up he reflected about his identity and claimed his Indian heritage more and more. It was a recurrent theme in his life and work.

Toreador

See the sword in the background? This is a continuation of the bullfight theme. I spoke to a friend of Tony Mafia who has actually seen the bullring he painted in Tijuana. It was indeed done probably late fifties and splendid and special. It was still in good shape in 81. So is doubly sad I never got to see it. There were also facades of houses in Tijuana Tony put murals on: two stories high in magnificent colors. Here it is pen and ink and probably a sixties drawing...

Bullfights

This bullfight scene in an arena reminded me of something Tony told me. I am not sure when but the story goes that he painted the whole bullring of Tijuana. In Tony's rendering it seemed to be in the fifties maybe later. He had several colors of oils on his pallet, a few buckets of paint which he threw on the stuccoed wall of the bullring. The Major got angry till the moment Tony with his brushes pulled out the figures and brought the painting to live. The Major is quoted as shouting: 'Viva el maestro pintor!' I have never seen it, since when I was in Tijuana a long time ago the bullring was closed. It is probably lost by now.

The cormorant

On an old found canvas, Tony painted this happy bird with a large nest egg. It was 1992. It was the silent bird we had, next to the many canaries. See the dancing, the spheres of the sky, the sand and dry grass. See the free brush strokes and know that Tony's freedom sometimes was hard won, a freedom as reckless as the joy of life of this bird.

Circushorses

Keeping a promise by doing this blog about Tony's work has brought some surprises. Total strangers have send in their work, others have shared their experiences and memories. Some have given their views, either in the blog itself or in the comments. So Tony's past, which isn't my shared past, will come up once in a while. Many stories have been told by him to me and that is what I have been posting and of course, part of this is also my story about him. I hold no definite truth about Tony. He was multifaceted, like magical lantern reflecting what you projected onto him. He was all horses: an Arabian race horse, a war pony, a painted pony, an elegant circus horse or a huge Flemish Brabander, some special type of draft horse... You get to chose what horse he is to you... You get to choose the lesson's his work brings.