I wanted to see her like a doll, not one of those puppets with strings, those that one can move at will. As a doll, forgotten in a drawer with other toys ... stuck there, almost hidden. Quiet and sad ... sad? Not really, I've noticed that's the way she wants to be, just looking at life everyday. She's happy only by staring around and doesn't always want to play. If only she could close her eyes... she'd fall asleep... in that sweet golden light.

While working with this image, I always had in my mind, many women who have been around me in my life ... I've heard their voices, her advices and I have been taught, thanks to several generations of them. They have told me their stories, about their lives and I myself have felt their feelings, as being a part of their daily lives . These southern women are brave, stubborn and hard working, almost to be exhausted. Beautiful and quiet and always very sweet . Jealous of their people and of their things . They'll get worn along with life itself, together with the land to which they belong. Southern women are always present , they're the bliss and the essential, without them, there's nothing. I feel them equal to their environment, like the land, side by side with the vegetation, wrapped in the same light ... for me they're all a similar colour. These women are impressed in my retina, their hands and its peculiar shape that I can't forget; their faces and everything from them inside me, still remains..... what they told me and taught me . Southern women who have taught me so much, that led me to where I am and what I am today. I dedicate this work "Spanish Women" to them , although some are no longer with us.

I do not want to describe all in this work, just to leave a door wide open to interpretation. Every time I look at it, it hurts my soul, it's accurate to how I have imagined it, curd, in this way I saw it in my mind. The title "Holding time in vain," refers to the impossibility of understanding life, we've got not enough time, nor life enough ... to perceive all around. We have to accept it and live in peace with ourselves. Always throughout my life, I have wondered how it would be to be dead. Sometimes I stopped breathing for a while, my eyes still ... i'ts a concern that has always accompanied me. Comments are welcome and I'll be glad if you feel the same as I do when looking at it: a kind of suffocation and anxiety.

Half-way...

Half-way ... where ?, why doesn't she keep on walking? why does she stop?, a sense of insecurity, of fear ?, or is she waiting for someone else? it's cold, very cold and the steam comes out easily from the mouth when breathing. Not only cold shrinks her but also the solitude of the woods too. She brings a light, illuminating her path, keeping her safe after dark. However, in real life she does not need it. Over the years, she has learned to guide herself, to feel instinctively unconditional love or loneliness ... if I turn off the lights in the dark and I start walking, I rarely hit myself with furniture. I've learned to not need any light as a guide. I close my eyes and I can see through my heart!. Comments are welcome. Thank you!.

This portrait is dedicated to my mother. Comments are welcome!.

Judging, loving, some prejudices... all are in the eye of the beholder, not in what he/she is looking at.

Confused

At times, we may feel confused, even tired ... then it's better to stop off on the way; let emotions cool down. Hasty reactions only serve to generate pain, ... let time pass until returning to feel being ourselves again, maybe we'll be stronger than before. Temperance is good counselor. Comments are welcome, thank you! :)

I admit that it's not easy to occupy that empty chair, that empty space, to sit next to me. Must be frustrating sometimes, I do not know exactely... but I prefer to see emptiness to a lack of understanding. I don't like the truth that comes drop by drop to finally end in a misunderstanding. I haven't got any rational within me, all is assimilated by breathing through my chest, like a big colander full of holes with different shapes. I do not know the reason of their forms, or what I will feel, it's unexplained and un expected, but it's what ends by making me react to life and encourages me. The empty chair represents absence and loneliness. Hope you like it. I'll appreciate your comments on the technical side, colours, or whatever this work makes you feel. Thank you!

--Laura Marco

Where are you... Clyde?

You said to me: "You'll never be alone, I'll be always by your side" ... where the hell are you, Clyde ?, my leg hurts, tension doesn't let me think clearly. We two ... we can get through this... together ... it'll be left none alive, I've got no fear. Where are you? Clyde... where are you, my love? ...

Waiting in the cool of the morning, sitting on the cold stone and stepping earth barefoot that makes me feel more alive, as part of my surroundings. Rapt in the colours of dawn, lost in the landscape and in my thoughts ... tied to your love, with my favorite guitar, it does not sound, silent, quiet like me. I know you're coming ... I'm waiting for you!

--Laura Marco

Comments are welcome!

"J'aimerais quand même te dire, tout ce que j'ai pu écrire, je l'ai puisé à l'encre de tes yeux" (F. Cabrel)

--Laura Marco

Sleeping Garden

Before being born, warmth, security, sweetness and our union being in the womb are unique. The most basic thing to start living. When we are born to some extent we lose everything, in favor of other experiences in life, such as independence and personal accomplishments. However, we never stop from bringing back our memories of that time and the need to depend on where we come from. Even sometimes we surprise ourselves happy and without realizing huddled in position "supine", the most essential. Since we can not return to the womb, the only thing left is the heat of the Earth where we will all return, one by one ... slowly but surely. She welcomes us like in the womb. The hanging vines can be umbilical cords, there is the same peace and the same harmony, do you not perceive it ?, loneliness, only we lack the low sound of maternal heart that will not return. Now, leaves crunch under some bird footprints, wind sounds, our breathing ... nothing else. There coming back, hunched, supine, ... or not. Comments are welcome! Thank you!. Please click on the work to see colours in the original size!

--Laura Marco

The paradox of value

Long time ago, I've heard that a character who lived in the middle of a desert, had one of the largest diamonds in the world, but ... finally he changed it for a herd of goats. Here we've got, "the paradox of value", diamonds mean death in such an extreme place on Earth and goats, on the other hand ... mean life. For him, goats had more value. Thus, the value of things will depend on the use we make of them. A life... like in this image in the middle of nature, a simple one... has certainly the same value as a diamond. There is also cosmopolitan people, who love technology, then this mineral would be more important for having better equipments or just decorate the neck of a woman, since there're faucets that give us water all day and "stores 24 hours". Everything is relative. Value is a relative issue. I had a great time photographing goats, watching them eat, pee in front of me without any shame!, and what is not peeing! ... those beautiful big eyes. Hope you like it! please click to enlarge the image and see the colours better, thank you!. Many kisses.

--Laura Marco

My Blackbird

I stopped playing to hear your beautiful song, My Little Bird! and all is enveloped in your charming melody: the air, my ears, my heart and my days. You're like a magical spell on me, Little Blackbird!.

--Laura Marco

Castanets

It seems that she doubts if dance ... if start doing anything else or continue sitting there, just thinking and relaxing in the warm, magic light of the dusk. Is it a moment of rest or a moment of great doubts? only she knows the answer ... Probably she's not going to dance, she does not feel very comfortable in the end...

--Laura Marco

Cannot Play...

I cannot play ... I need your musical scores, the ones that I have, are no useful to me ... they're forgotten at the . No music sounds, the place is empty, it's just filled with a curious hoopoe, which does not hesitate to eat the remains of the meal, slipped through the hole in the roof, attracted by the food. She's not scared, cause there's no much noise in the place. I need to move my fingers, educate them by sliding on the fretboard ... I've got nothing. I stand frozen in the painting waiting for them, now there is no scene with life, just the colorful hoopoe ... will they come?, will I hear to them? ...

--Laura Marco

Bound to Earth - please enlarge to see colours :)

Outside, it's already night and it's slightly cold. The bee-eaters return to their holes in the earth. Safe and warm burrows, tunnelled into the side of the sandy wall. They don't like the cold, so they will soon migrate to warmer lands, they'll go to more meridian places, in consonance with its colourful plumage, made to shine under the sun. Mother Earth is coming out to greet them. She's quiet and serene, spending her time with them. It's difficult to see her in the surface... in a human shape. So, it's a unique moment of closeness. Birds and Mother Earth rest easy, confident, being the same thing, the same natural link. And we all will get back there, returning to those soft and warm colours, to this refuge and calmness that is the Earth. I do not feel like going outside, I prefer to watch them together in this safe place, and you?...