For three long hours I worked on creating a very large box that would hold the painting I made of a scene from a Greek island. I called the painting "Santorini," and it was paradise. As the myth goes, at the end of creation God had some leftover stones that were thrown into the Aegean Sea. Eventually, this scattering of islands became known as the Cyclades. So far, I've spent a total of five summers in places bearing names such as Naxos, Paros, Mykonos, Milos, and Amorgos, but I've read there is nothing like being in Santorini--an island geologists tell us was formed eons ago when a once active volcano suddenly blew up, collapsing in on itself to create a crescent shaped land mass with a huge bay in the center of the caldera. For some reason, I prefer the Greek version of the story in favor of the scientific description of events. The volcano may be gone, but the place still churns with the life changing forces of the earth. After you approach the island from the bay by ferryboat and disembark, if you make it to the cliff-hanging town of Oia you can see the whitewashed and sun-dazzling architecture. Homes, churches, and other dwellings were rebuilt after a 1950s earthquake and gracefully piled one on top of the other. At first glimpse, you might ask why I would consider such a place to be paradise, but all I can say is that being on those islands I could feel the presence of a paradise if ever I had experienced it. I knew I had reached paradise; I could feel it with all the soul one person can bear.

I originally made the painting so that upon looking at it I could be reminded how it felt to be in paradise with all its beauty. Regardless, I sold the painting through the Internet to a man living in California on the coast. I can't be sure, but I suspected he didn't want it for himself. He owned a store near the beach and would resell it for a higher price--the same way wealthy people buy up real estate there only to sell it for a profit. When I went to school in San Diego I learned what paradise Californians think they are blessed with, but I wished he would somehow see something special in that painting and want to keep it for a while allowing it to cast its soulful spell. At any rate, since I was bound by the sale I had to get my painting of paradise in a box to him in one piece.

The painting had taken me many months to complete, mainly because I was so intimidated while working on it. I never quite understood that experience. It was as if I was a surgeon and there was a matter of life or death at stake; and maybe there was. But now, I wonder what was so hard about painting a picture of paradise? If I had to start all over from the beginning would it really have meant that I was a lousy painter? No. I was intimidated because I couldn't avoid what I thought were the intricacies of the subject. It had to be convincing. There seemed to be too many details required. There were too many straight lines, and always that quality of the sunlight that created bright contrast with shadows cast by the perfect geometric forms of the architecture. That sunlight was everything, and I had every intention to make the painting look as real as possible, even more than a photo. I have, in the past, been notorious for starting a painting such as this but then never finishing it because of the desire to make it real, which can become overbearing for an artist. You'd never build real houses or a real village so meticulously. When I made mechanical drawings after graduating high school, the architect I worked for would often tell me, "You're building a house not a watch." He didn't know that my drafting teacher in high school had already taught me that scale and precision of the drawing was everything. It takes time to unlearn something like that.

I toiled and strained with the gods watching over my shoulder until the painting was finished, even if I could only endure an hour a day before my hand would get numb from the divine inspiration. In the end, the day that I declared it complete I still thought it needed more work, but I accepted no matter how good it looked I would never be truly satisfied. That was an important lesson. You can always find flaws if you look for them. Still, it was my cathedral, and like a cathedral it was never going to be finished. I just concluded that it was real enough to me on that day to be my window to paradise, and that's what it was.

Right from the start I knew it had to be a large painting so that it might have the same great presence of paradise that I felt. I bought the largest canvas I could find. I had never anticipated selling it, let alone packing and mailing it, and I painted it as if this paradise would be mine forever. I was supposed to never part with it, but soon after the painting was finished I knew I couldn't afford to keep it only for myself. Better to put it into the hands of those who needed it more than me. Besides, I needed some money. I also felt compelled to sell it because finishing this painting left me with little or no reason to paint another one. I had become too satisfied. The only thing that would make me genuinely want to paint another one would be if I no longer had this rendition. Once the painting was gone I would have to either make a new painting or visit the island to feel that same presence of paradise. Since I no longer had nearly enough money to take the trip to Greece, I would make another painting. Foolish though it might seem, it all made so much sense to me that I immediately put the painting up for auction on the Internet. I was surprised that despite a glut of paintings available someone bought mine, and for a fair price in my opinion. Yes, I was doing the right thing. Then again, how can you put a fair price on paradise?

I felt compelled to share my experience of paradise through the painting. I wanted it to almost speak the words, "Let me take you there." Still, I'm sure to most people around here what I call "paradise" would be considered too rugged, rundown, worn-out, or in disrepair. In fact, even for me the very first time I saw those foreign dwellings they did look rundown, but then that changed. Once I realized my first impression was the result of being a foreigner myself I knew I had to allow for some open-mindedness. That was an important lesson. It was one of the things that made it possible to see the beauty. They may appear dusty and barren to you at first, but if you pay attention you'll begin to see that the forms of the buildings on the islands are more in harmony with the natural beauty of the land and the sea compared to most cities. The buildings are pelted by the meltemi, strong winds that blow in August year after year, and the stone facades begin to crumble. So, about once a year the villagers paint the exteriors with a fresh luminescent coat of limestone or white paint, which is offset by the bright colors used to paint the windows, doors, and trim. Somehow, the homes were modestly simple yet so elegant. There was something about those immaculate white homes with their ultramarine blue trim. They were as white as the clouds with blue as deep as the clear sky that greeted me day after summer day.

It was the harmony that I could feel and the simple natural beauty of the place that made me want to never leave. The glorious sun, though it could be dangerous to both your skin and your wits if you weren't careful, gave everything a glowing quality, much the same way I noticed the quality of the sunlight when I first moved to 5500 feet or so above sea level in the New Mexico foothills. I had lived at sea level for most of my life on the east coast, and my eyes were not accustomed to the peculiar light I'm now familiar with at either higher elevations in the southwest or on the islands of the Aegean. I can't really find the words to explain it. That unconventional glow is something you have to experience for yourself.

My days in paradise were spent bathing in the glory of that peculiar sunlight, resting on the smooth rocks of a cove, swimming naked in the calm turquoise waters, and watching the sunlight dance on the waves. Once again, the same child I was--a time before someone told me nakedness is supposed to be awkward, backwards, or wrong. The serenity was so moving that I once spontaneously broke out in tears thinking this was really it--the closest I was ever going to get to paradise! Some might call that a type of healing from the constraints of the modern world and its detachment from nature, but this was no mere catharsis. I've never expected others to know how it felt. With each wave it was the unteaching of the sea, the washing away of norms, the washing away of the human myths that told of the evil being born into sin we all are in the absence of conforming to convention. It was a baptism so watery that it almost washed away convention itself and all its apparent needs. There were no confessionals, rehearsals or rituals. It was the soul of the sea and me, and for the first time I allowed myself an actual feeling with that water. There was something I hadn't known before unlike knowing itself, a knowing that I felt. You could call it a great intuition. Given what I could feel now in that unteaching, cleansed and emptied so that I could be full of new life, there was nothing to be learned except what lay beyond the sea in those transcended waters. At night I slept in a humble tent under a sky that filled with stars like I had never seen. I was transported back in time to witness the same sky the ancients turned into constellations with their myths. In a word, my experience was timeless, as if it would last forever. I too would live forever immortal if only I could have stayed there, but the summer ended too fast and my days were limited. I had felt incredibly at peace because there was no one there to judge what I was doing, not even the Greeks, but then they knew why I was there. Maybe they've just gotten used to the touristis.

Each day filled me with the same playfulness, the simple joy of listening to the waves break on the shore, pondering reality with perhaps some of the same thoughts Socrates knew, anticipating that certain time of day for another simple meal no less satisfying than the perfect island sunset that awaited my gaze. In fact, if you want a quick lesson on the joy of simplicity just visit the kitchen at a Greek taverna, where even a tomato can become a glorious meal simply covered with red onions and doused with virgin olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, maybe accompanied by a hunk of hearty bread--not much more than a peasant meal to many Americans, but some of us know better. The quality of the food is such that you can think about what you're eating and finally know taste. It reminds me of an old proverb I once heard: There is no one who does not eat, but only few know flavor. You can't help but notice something like how a tomato grown on the islands abounds with such flavor, perhaps like when you grow it yourself in a garden.

I don't mean to sound like a travel advertisement, and I can't say what it would all be like for you. You might even find your experience there quite boring. The problem is most people often have a hard time finding beauty in such minimalism. Others know that less can be more.

At the time, I knew how I felt was a combination of who I am, my state of mind at the time, along with the place I was in. I was in both the state and place of paradise, and you can't have one without the other. You see, paradise is not just a function of the place you go; it is also what you experience. You cannot simply be in a place that is a paradise and expect it to work some kind of magic on you, but this is what most people demand from paradise. It's what others tell you to expect. Conversely, you cannot simply will any place you are in to be a paradise. You could say there is a symbiosis between one's state and place, between the inner and the outer. In the absence of both elements, though paradise could be all around you, a person could still be blind to it or even unwilling to believe. Paradise must reside within a person. Only then can it be perceived in the environment (not to be confused with what is commonly referred to as an hallucination). Within me and all around me a great voice seemed to sigh, "This is beauty."

At this point, I suspect many readers will quickly conclude that my idea of paradise is just living a life of leisure, not much better than some island hippie or a couch potato on vacation without a care in the world. They would be terribly wrong and misled about what I have experienced. I am not referring to the conventional kind of paradise commonly assumed to be a life replete with excess and luxuries. There are hardships in the paradise I speak of; or rather there are what some people will interpret as hardships because of their being entangled in convention. It takes a rugged effort to be mindful if you don't simply conform to what everyone else is thinking and doing. No, don't get me wrong. The paradise I speak of is hardly a blissful life of total leisure, but that does not make it any less of a paradise.


--from an autobiographical book that has been a work-in-progress, and yes, that's the painting above.


© P. Kurtiak, 2006. All rights reserved.

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