Italy // Capalbio - How Niki came back, Part 2

June 1983, Florence - platform no. 9

"Painting calmed the chaos that shook my soul."

I love looking outside the train windows. Even if I usually have work to do.

I love trees, grass, houses...that run away. They are so fast, while I am just sitting in my train compartment. 

At that thought... I stood up all of a sudden. 

I had the urgency to move in the movement of the train. 

So I walked through the sliding doors, as if I were chasing after something.. till the handle of my bag got stuck in those unfriendly dirty doors. I pulled .. I walked on... memories came flooding back.

Never mind I didn't have much time to think.. 

That day I had to make some studies for my book .. I ended up into a waiting room of my physiotherapist and I saw her.

Here it is

That was her name. 

Niki de Saint Phalle... almost 20 years later and again that face. 

I was curious. 

I grasped the art magazine and looked for her page:

An Artist, Her Monsters, Her Two Worlds

I ripped out the article.

At home I started reading:

"LUNCH is about to be served at the country home of Niki de Saint Phalle, and there is a worm on her chair. "Yeuuch," the French-American artist says, recoiling in horror. "Do you think you could remove that?"

It is a modest worm, quite still in the summer sun. When one remembers that this is an artist who created a sensation in the early 1960's by firing a gun at her canvases in performances [...] and who has since sculptured myriad serpents and many-headed monsters, the creature appears risibly innocuous. But there is genuine alarm in Ms. Saint Phalle's cavernous blue eyes. 

"I tend to paint things I am terrified of," she says. "Worms, snakes, spiders, that kind of thing."

I fell asleep with my cup of tea still full. I never finished to read that article the day but the thought of that female figure with short-fringe hair couldn't leave me.

[end of part 2, to be continued...]

Italy // Capalbio - How I met Niki, part I

April 1955 - Barcelona, platform no. 23

The train was early that day. For sure not me being late ;) I jumped on it..just in good time..so in time that my luggage got stuck halfway through the train door.

Funny.

I was sitting on the floor..struggling with my bag and my thoughts... "my life is quite often stuck halfway through something..cannot explain how" - I smiled.

I stopped pulling and in that moment - with my back leaning on the toilet door - I decided just to enjoy watching my bag halfway through. Inhaling something new.

Exciting.

In that very moment the toilet door opened. My back was now down to the floor...

A female figure came out with short-fringe hair. Graceful manners. She helped me to stand up and called the train conductor to get my bag unstuck and she walked away.

Hypnotic.

I finally took my stuff and and got to my seat. The woman I met before was sitting right at the window of my compartment. She was reading some international newspapers and out of a sudden she started saying loudly:

"Come early tomorrow, for we shall do very beautiful things". She looked at me.

"Pardon", I whispered.

She continued. "Gaudì said that in one of his last days just outside the Sagrada Familia". She smoked.

Majestic.

I couldn't help watching her. She looked like lost in her thoughts...yet talkative. "A fatal tram accident killed him... I often wonder about life, creative intelligence, sensitivity, coincidences, moments of impact..", she continuted. "As our meeting outside the toilet...a few moments ago...you know.. I can see people", and still..

"Do you know Parc Güell?". I nodded. 

"I want to build something like that one day". 

Next stop Marbella. Next stop Marbella. [voice-over]

She threw her cigarette, took her bag and left the compartment. My eyes followed her silently from the window. She suddenly came back and said: "Niki, Niki de Saint Phalle, nice to meet you. Please... come early tomorrow, for we shall do very beautiful things..". 

She turned her back and left. 

[end of part I, to be continued]