To Hernán López, a 49-year-old Peruvian who one day got fed up and broke with his life as a construction worker, the other homeless who spend the day in a park in Lake Worth, Florida, call him Picasso, because he paints in his’ studio ‘facing the sea, where he sells his paintings for up to $ 500.
Lopez came to USA nine years ago and already has papers. He is a star among the homeless in Bryant Park who wait for the people of the Burrito Project Foundation to arrive with their daily breakfast.
The park located in front of the ‘intercoastal’ channel, as the piece of sea that separates the Florida mainland from the sleeve of land where “the rich” live is known, as López defines the island of Palm Beach (where former President Donald Trump has his house), becomes the scene of a picnic at 11 a.m.
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It seems like a day of camping, only that instead of children or adolescents there are men of all ages and colors and a single very blonde woman with carts with their belongings, and some with the appearance of having mental problems or addictions.
This is not the case of López, a smiling and jovial guy with a shaved head and slightly overweight who carries a medium-sized painting of fish and a smaller one of two dogs lying on the ground in his cart.
Tables on request
“These days I’m working mostly on commission,” he says. Picasso, surrounded by his friends José, a 27-year-old Cuban living on the streets, and Francisco, a Puerto Rican, who do not seem surprised that Hernán is being interviewed from Miami.
Twice he gets in line to receive the breakfast prepared by the Burrito Project, as a group of men and women who do not belong to any church are called and in addition to food they distribute socks, backpacks and sanitizing gel among the homeless.
“There are two things you should never ask a homeless person: where he sleeps and what is his last name,” says David Seifert, one of the Burrito Project volunteers, who clarifies that they are called that because on Saturday they distribute in this same park Mexican burritos.
Picasso He sleeps in “a room that he has rented out there”, but sometimes it is 11 at night and he continues to paint in his “studio”, a covered area with views of the sea and tables and benches in the children’s play area, the “Quietest” in the park.
Her late work, taking advantage of the good Florida weather, is just another sign of her commitment to what she does and, of course, her passion for art.
‘Past life’
This Peruvian, the grandson of a Spaniard from León whom he never met, lived in Lima before coming to the United States after separating from his first wife, with whom he had a daughter who today is 14 years old and is what he most longs for about his past life.
“The United States is a country of immigrants. There are people whose family lives here for two or three generations, but they forget that it is a country of immigrants ”, he emphasizes when asked.
With the money that he has been earning for five months with his paintings, commissioned by “ordinary people” who see him painting in the park, he sends his daughter money to Peru, but what he really wishes is to be able to be with her and visit sites like Macchu Picchu.
His other great wish – he says – is to have a real studio.
Meanwhile, he spreads his brushes and acrylic paints on the table in the park, cuts a plastic bottle with scissors and fills it with water to moisten the brush and begins to mix colors on his palette, made in the glass lid of a box. of cigars.
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In the absence of an easel, the Peruvian uses his backpack to support the picture of the dogs that he must finish to collect his money. Latin American ingenuity, he says, proud that they see him “solve” his lack of means.
And it is that the same scenario in a city in Latin America might look marginal or decadent, but the table in Bryant Park where it is installed every day is large, clean and has a roof that protects it from the sun.
The appearance of the place where Picasso sets up his ‘study’ is more like that of a private park or a school cafeteria than that of a public square.
In addition, her personal presentation is always clean and organized, not without certain eccentric artist touches, such as the length of her white chivera, which makes her look like a braid.
In the middle of the process, he shows other paintings of his; the smallest with typical Florida landscapes, with palm trees and flamingos that he sells for 12 dollars, and others that he has already delivered, of which he keeps photos on his phone.
In the middle of the painting session, he receives a call on his cell phone from a woman who every day brings food to the inhabitants of the park, which gives him the opportunity to joke about the homeless “obese” of Lake Worth.
Tomorrow they will have hamburgers at noon, in addition to breakfast, and will be visited by some good Samaritans to help them claim their “stimulus checks,” as announced by the Burrito Project.
This life of “people who do not want to stop being children” is not always that nice, he says. López, who claims to have already passed “several covid”.
Before settling in Bryant Park, he lived for a time in Tent City, a homeless camp in another park in the area where people were more violent and there were many who “smoked stone,” he says, recalling bad times. He also suffered from depression at some time.
“Among the homeless there are good and bad people, as in life in general,” López emphasizes, to which Francisco and José, who are listening to the entire conversation, nod their heads.
Although he studied Fine arts and worked in an advertising design studio in Lima and then in Florida in antiques businesses and later in construction, he says that where he has learned the most is on the street.
However, he warns that “the street is never safe”, that you must always be alert.
No to ‘steady work’
And it is that one might think that López is on the street out of necessity and that he paints pictures by default, but neither of the two things are true in the case of the Peruvian.
On the one hand, the choice to “rent a room over there”, having breakfast what a foundation offers you is completely intentional. And it is that, if he wanted, he could return to his job as a laborer or to another more formal occupation to have a conventional life, but he is not interested.
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“I have never wanted to take a permanent job. It has been offered to me several times. But I’ve never wanted to stay in those jobs. I have done it to survive ”, says Picasso.
For him, who even has all his documents formalized to live and work in the “country of opportunities”, a ‘normal’ life with a stable position and routine customs is not an option.
I have never wanted to take a steady job. It has been offered to me several times. But I’ve never wanted to stay in those jobs. I have done it to survive
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“It is a gypsy life that I have led. Today, this job. Tomorrow, another. Sometimes you work with one person for two or three weeks. They call you, or they don’t call you, ”he says.
The painting has given him more mental calm and more stability than his previous work. That is why he does not complain and is grateful to be able to dedicate himself to what he likes and not to what he has to do.
When he enumerates the possibilities of the life of the “gypsy”, López says that he lived worried, with a constant “startled by money. Until one day I said, ‘No. I’m not going to worry anymore. ‘
And the truth is that in his vocation as an artist, he is not worried or stressed, rather he radiates good energy. It is not for nothing that he has made so many friends, fans and clients.
The style of your brush
The visual result of his paintings is clean and reveals that behind the lines there is a certain technique. It’s not just about natural talent.
The handling of the material, the knowledge of the color, the measures of the proportion, the work in the lighting and the concepts of his paintings are not those of an ordinary street painter, because they have technique and a style of their own.
That quality comes from his studies in Fine Arts in Peru and from his time at the aforementioned design workshop in the same country.
What of PicassoHowever, you don’t see much of it. That is to say, his style does not fit with that of the famous Spanish artist, since his paintings are figurative, with little abstraction and little cubism.
However, López assumes his nickname perhaps as a sign of understanding that it is more a gesture of affection and admiration than a critical and elaborate reading of his artistic proposal.
And, beyond style, the Peruvian Picasso of Brayant Park is simply interested in being happy.
ANA MENGOTTI
EFE
MIAMI
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