Bonachea 1:1

"No me pintes con brocha seca." Dont paint with a dry brush.

Every single time I pick up a paint brush I hear those words. No me pintes con brocha seca. Then I look at the brush tip, inspect it, make sure there's enough paint on it to spread over what Im painting without any drips or streaks.

No me pintes con brocha seca. That psalm of the painting gospel has been with me since I was 8 years old. Psalm 1:1 from the book of Bonachea.

Bonachea was what they called my father and was the name of his iron works business. Dutifully named after the old man Bonachea that taught both my father and my uncle how to weld in Cuba when they were teens.

Bonachea te la crea! was their slogan. Bonachea will create it.

My father and uncle made everything imaginable out of iron. Everything. From spiral staircases to drinking glasses. From ornamental gates and doors and fences to huge fuel tanks. If it was made out of steel, my old man could duplicate it, or better yet, create it.

He loved his work. Still does actually. To this day, at 75, he is still swinging the sledge, slamming away, putting pieces of steel together. He makes one of natures hardest elements succumb to his very will. And does so quite easily. Although now, at his age, he uses much more brains than he does brawn.

Yet there is one part of his work that he has always hated and unfortunately one that is an absolute necessity. Painting. He hates painting his work. As far as he's concerned, the creating is in the making, not the painting. Slapping a coat of paint on something he's made is like covering up his work. Hiding it.

Which is where I come in. Every Saturday when I was a kid, starting at the age of 8, I'd go to work with my father. I use the term "going to work" here loosely as I was more travieso (getting in the way) than anything else.

I ran around loose through his shop. Like a whirling dervish in some kind of sugar trance. I climbed ladders they were building, hung from the bars over the windows, threw rocks into the big vats of paint they had, grabbed two pieces of steel and spent the day banging them together. I was basically a nuisance.

One day, dad had been putting together this huge, incredibly intricate and unbelievably ornate reja - an enclosure for a porch or something - and it had taken him hours that day to finally get it right and perfectly symmetrical with all the scrolls and fleur de lis all over the place. It was a masterpiece. Absolutely beautiful. Reminiscent of those old iron gates you see in Tuscany or Spain or anywhere else in old Europe.

He had laid it out and set it upon a worktable, meticulously measured and placed every single bar, every single steel flower, every single spike exactly where they were supposed to be. All the angles were square and true. He'd been working on it for more than a day. Now, everything was ready to be welded. The thing was so big that it jutted out over the ends of the table. He used steel sawhorses to hold the ends so it wouldnt collapse.

I remember seeing him standing in front of it and staring at it. Contemplating its beauty. Soaking in the mastery of his design. The other workers would come by and look at it. Nod their heads and realize just what a master craftsman my father was.

I, of course, had been runing around the shop like a madman. Playing war or cowboys and indians or some such. Id run by the table a few times and the one time I got a little to close to it, my old man just went off.

"Coño! Carajo! Me cago en la mierda! Me vas a joder la reja, coño! Dejate de comer mierda!" Basically, stay the freak away from the freaken reja.

You can guess what happened next, right? Yes, that's right.

I was running rampant through the place with a steel pipe pretend rifle, shooting all the unseen enemies trying to capture me and torture me for information. I ducked behind tables and welders, coming up only to shoot a few rounds, lay some cover fire before taking off to the next place for cover. The enemy was everywhere, it seems.

Well, there I was makng a dash for the machine gun nest that was creating havoc for my imaginary platoon when I tripped on something.

The steel saw horse. The one holding up one end of my dads's masterpiece. His work of art.

And I hadnt just tripped over it. No. I had tripped over it and in my enthusiasm to get at the machine gun nest had pulled it right out from under its load.

It - the masterpiece - came crashing down like a mortar round had hit it. Boom! Clangcling! Bam!Clinkclunk! The clammor of falling pieces of steel lasted for more than 30 seconds. I wish I could describe the sound. Not just the banging and clanging, but the rolling of steel on conrete, and the sound it makes at it slowly rotates to a stop. I can still hear it to this day.

Now, if you have ever been to a blacksmiths or an iron works shop, you know how incredibly noisy they are. All sorts of power tools going on, all sorts of banging and hammering, arcwelding machines humming loudly everywhere. Well, at that precise moment, right after the crash of my dad's Venus de Milo, you could literally hear people holding their breaths. You couldnt just hear a pin drop, you could hear it spinning in mid air.

But the explosion of the masterpiece meeting its thunderous doom was nothing - and I mean absolutely nothing - compared to the unbridled tirade that came from my father.

Cojones! Carajo! Me cago en su madre! Coño! Me cago en la mierda! Hijo de madre...!!! Coño, so comemierda!!! TE LO DIIIIJEEEE!!!!! (Basically an "I told you so!" preceded by a whole hell of a lot of cursing where shit and my mother were shat upon.)

I didnt get spanked. My father never hit me in my life. But after a 3 or 4 hour punishment - sitting on a stool in the middle of the parking lot in the Miami midday sun - I became the painter of rejas and steel.

No me pintes con brocha seca. That and dont let the paint drip were the only two things my father told me when teaching me how to paint that day.

No me pintes con brocha seca.

Yesterday, I spent the day at my buddy Tommy's house. I went over to touch up the steel gates and fence and railings that my dad made for his home. Ordinarily, painting all those things would have been a major pain in the ass because, man, I have painted thousands and thousands of rejas in my life. It is a daunting, boring and quite cumbersome task.

But yesterday was different. Each time I dipped that brush I would hear that ominous crash of the masterpiece and then my dad giving me the gospel of painting acording to Bonachea: No me pintes con brocha seca.

And I painted those rejas as a labor of love moreso than as a repellant for rust. Those railings and fence and gates are my dad's creation. Another one of his masterpieces on display here in the city of Miami. His art is everywhere and I know that someday in the near future, he will be unable to wield his sledgehammer of creation. I know the day will come where there will be no more steel Venus de Milos shaped by his strength. No more ornamental iron works of art to hide under a thin layer of paint.

No me pintes con brocha seca.

Don't worry about your masterpiece at Tommy's house, Papi. I think I did it justice. I left no drips, no streaks and not an iota of primer showing through. Just like you taught me.

My brush will never be dry.

Posted by Val Prieto at January 9, 2005 10:34 AM

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