Patrizia Barrera - Colours

RHA PRODUCTION

Patrizia Barrera 2020 All Right Reserved..

I wrote the book without thinking about it, but literally listening to the voices that came out from the deep of my heart, from something impalpable and absorbed that I defined my Soul. They are voices, reflections and timeless stories, born in a remote place which is fantasy but that come from my human and psychical experiences. Each story is highlighted by a colour and a picture, to offer you a global and archetypal experience. They are intuitive stories, not very logical, but almost surreal.

Reading these stories is like opening a window on a collective spiritual world, which is in every one of us.

I hope that they can give you a moment of break and reflection with their chorus of memories by touching colours, which is an incomparable heritage of our existence.

PATRIZIA BARRERA

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I am the water who murmurs in the valleys,

who touches the lawn with her dewy hands.

And I am the water who thickly falls from the sky,

who gently masses in the dark hollow of trees.

Water from snowy peaks,

rough and dark water who dryly rains on flowers.

Wherever you are

And whoever I am

I’ll always be water

The flaming and bitter drops

were born

from your love for me.

It was in that summer that I became his wife. I still remember the apple trees that looked out over the fields like celebrating soldiers and the long walkway that separated us from the woods. There was our house, and that's where it happened.

I was young and lost in that voices noise, and in that whirlwind of colours that preceded the sunset: but I felt the night as a friend and I wished that she would come, that my still intact bridal bed would have dressed in pink and would have welcomed me in a nest, as it happens with an eaglet without plumes. I wore his sculpted face in my eyes: his high forehead, his strong gaze, his turgid lips. And then his hands. Those tireless and curious hands that knew how to imprison the world in a painting, forcing the day to appear night, turning elderly into youth. Those tender hands that knew how to cry. My life and his hands: for me that was the whole universe. It went like this for a year, long days of walking in the woods and his paintings, my glances at the river and its colours. The nature was confined there, imprisoned. That was the cherry tree that died in winter and still was continuing to live, and those were the fires of the night when we used to dance in the hills. And the unexpressed desires, the suffered emotions, everything was confused in the moment when the brush widened to discover or hide something. Sometimes he would have painted for hours. Then, as if he woke up, he looked around and watched me, and only then I know that night came down. He took me and we loved each other. His hands still drew on my body and there were no feelings in him. There were only ghosts, only colours. I didn't understand. However, it was beautiful: his magical interest in my hair, in my breasts. He looked at me, and after all, I was his wife. He told me about his confused soul, about those repressed feelings that every night came back to haunt him, about the plans for the new paintings. While he was speaking, he fell asleep, as if he was deeply tired. I don't know why, but I didn't want him to sleep. I felt like I was falling back into the darkness and couldn’t see the end. His paintings kept me company, and when I realised it, I decided I shouldn't had lost them. I swore it to myself and finally I’ve realised; now I am the colour myself.

Sometimes he would leave to exhibit his paintings and I would have been alone; then I wandered around restlessly, not knowing what to do, in my endless days. I used to write to my mother, or go to the lake, or sleep, and stop everything without finishing anything, in distress. I looked at the empty walls, the bare canvases, the brushes on the fireplace, abandoned, without anyone to give them life. It was as if the whole world disappeared from my eyes, only crumbs were left of the dreamed universe. Everything had been stolen from me, his paintings were sold to strangers who didn't know they were buying my soul with them. I felt looted and betrayed, I had seen the birth of a child and I could not keep it.

Then he would return, along with his magic. From those hands a rose was born, a ray of sunshine or even darkness. Out of nothing appeared angels with pure and innocent faces or unhappy children in the wombs of undone women; and bodies brushed, swollen chalices, scenes of madness, of joy, of love. Looking at those faces I realised that I had already seen them inside of me and, touching those canvases, I expected everything to return to me. The fear of losing them again assailed me, languid and fierce: what was the meaning of creating and not enjoying that life? I watched him as he invented new colours and an inconsolable despair was born in me. Powerless, in front of him I thought that if nothing can be preserved, then, it is better to destroy it.

Slowly a treacherous snake crept into my heart, and the Creator whom I thought I was admiring, turned into a tyrant who was insensitive to the feelings of pity that inspired my creatures. I withdrew to his embraces and gave him nothing more, sinking into that bitter loneliness that welcomes dead souls. He looked at me as if he could not see me, and now I know that he was suffering; perhaps he was taken by a choice, by that atrocious doubt that later killed me. Now I understand that he was pining away without knowing how to choose between the woman and her colours.

A new summer came, and nothing had changed, but one day he didn't paint and joined me in the woods: he seemed prostrated by something he couldn't resist, and deeply tired. I found a tenderness and we loved each other as we had never done before, putting aside our complexes and inhibitions, happy to be simply ourselves. In the end he seemed relieved, as if he finally understood what he had to do. We returned back and he took back the colours as well, but this time he had a new subject: me. For hours I remained motionless looking at his agile hands on the canvas, fast and cunning between the brushes as if they had no other nourishment than this. The day went out and he was still bent over the painting: the woman portrayed was laughing, eternally happy in her eternal youth. Looking at her was no longer me. Behind her a half-open door was giving me a sign to enter, and I wondered what could be behind it so secret that I could not see it. Again, that wretched sadness took me, and I could not escape it; and from sadness it became languor, and then madness. Would I have lost myself again, and never be able to find myself again? And who would have bought me this time? My soul was in the picture, and I could not defend it from the eyes of others. He stood up and kissed me for a long time: did he know I was leaving?