Acceptance Love and Sex by artist Manuel Palacio
I haven’t been able to stop making art. My memories are filled with a search for old bubble gum – an excellent sculpting material and clay, that good malleable mud I found in the backyard.
I made drawings on the walls, table, backboard, and under the mattress. I snatched every pencil and sharpener I could find.
My Art is a quest for attention. Although representative, my art represents countless observations from people, nature, sports, and colors, I love colors. I’ll wake up early to watch Lucifer make its way out of the dark.
I’m an American artist whose work developed in Bermuda. How I got here is another of those long stories. I was born on a hot summer day in Managua, Nicaragua. Although too many Nicaraguans will deny that people of my complexion. Fuck’m! Culturally I’m West Indian and Hispanic. I like that. I celebrate many cultures.
This is as far as you need to read. The rest is a biography, interesting for me.
Right off the bat (or Wicket), Race is a social construct I try to leave behind like the sweat in August in Bermuda; It’s unavoidable, so I shower a lot.
After a hot labournig night, that Monday morning, September 21, 1964, my mom was relieved to meet her first son. It was love at first sight. He was big and beautiful with a big smile curly hair and the Palacio forehead. The hospital was filled with congratulations.
I’ve been in the middle of two pretty cool siblings. My sister Juanita Bonita, tormented me with her left hook and Miguel a constant shadow, was always pleasant and confident.
In Managua, Storyteller Panco Madrugal was playing on the radio. We love to listen to his story. Miguel and Juanita were sound asleep, so was my abuela Donia Yoma and tia Maria Teressa. ¿Que esta pasando? I asked Dad, he was always up early, me too. Construction starts early, he said. “Despoes de la tinuble viene la madrugada.” Dad said. Madrugada, that’s a cool word, I thought. Tia will get up to fix breakfast. While the onions and garlic started to fry, Dad was gone to work.
My mom is the youngest of a traditional West Indian family, mainly women, whose beauty is matched by their strength. Although fathers came to visit Granny’s home in Bluefields, the men were long gone. Mom seldom shed tears exept for joy. She’s is always confident with a positive outlook. Those two were opposites in many ways, except for the love they had for one anothe, Jesus and maybe beisebol. With them, I share our older brother Ricardo from Dad’s first marriage. Big sisters Marjorie and Gladys, from mom’s first marriage, I’m a cousin and nephew to many aunts and one badass uncle Adan.
My childhood, although happy, was conflicted. I was an artist formed under demanding, neurotic, hypocritical, religious, ethical, and social matriarchy. Along with motherly love came fear. The strap’s physical and Psychological abuse was common for all, just waiting for slip-ups from conservative values. And for not doing what I was supposed to do, got me into enough trouble.
The seeds for my need for love and excessive approval germinate in this culture. What I am is the result of interaction and adjustments made while navigating my world. Every fruit I bore, although not recognized, comes from this soil with pity, obligation, and guilt. It is the need for this love that shapes and defines me.
In the Beginning, I made this world. I brought it forth; it’s what I thought.
As a child, my dreams had no limitations; my new reality had many. I don’t remember seeing People as different; my family said, people are different. Every smile to me was a reflection of my smile. Nobody was a stranger or a danger.
To protect me, my guardians placed restrictions on me. No became a familiar word; I seldom got right. I never quite settle into altruism; I revel in my need for attention.
My curiosity and lust for observation have been my companion and friend. Shame and guilt quickly follow. I found ways to punish myself for atoning for my childhood disobedience. Yeah, a bit fucked up.
My need for acceptance created paradoxes for fear of the rod. “Serves you right” I will hear: I wanted to run but could not leave the porch; I wanted to play but could not get my clothes dirty; I tried to talk but had to watch what I said. Some children were off-limits, “don’t trust those Spanish kids,” “and don’t trust the neighbors.”
My Guardians, the people I wanted to impress, made me feel anxious, a compulsion that remains. Although gregarious, I was afraid to talk. I was one of those children who love to say how they see the world “He’s an attention seeker, some would say, and they’re right.
I was never tactful. I am politically incorrect. I was afraid to say the wrong things and often did. As a child, I felt very guilty. Something terrible will happen. “God’s watching you,” my Granny would remind me. Your sins, your ungratefulness, will cause you to burn in hell from a merciful, loving God, Bendito Dios y Padre de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo. I was frightened of punishment Diablos, and “Duppy” Superstitions were everywhere. I. I. I can’t stop talking to save my soul…I stutter…stutter…stutter
Being from my region of the world, homogeneous does not describe my culture, and somehow rainbow isn’t enough. This natural blend of contrast is constant in my Art. My family moved to Washington, D.C., when I was ten. I didn’t realize at the time just how diverse my culture was. My rainbow culture bloomed into a hurricane of diversity. I did not know there were different ways to speak and listen to Spanish and English before arriving in D.C. In Washington, variety took an atomic leap. I did not know about the many cultures on display, but I wanted to find out about its many museums in proximity to my new Adams Morgan neighborhood. In Washington, D.C., I celebrated more music, more people, more culture, and more Art.
Also, in Washington, D.C., I found a receptive ear for my Artistic curiosity in the presence of my cousin Rupert, who shares a love for everything Art. It seems familiar to me now. But there was the first time; I saw an Art gallery, ballets listened to Tchaikovsky, and drank Pinot Noir with Jamaican beef patty. In those times, Rupert opened the doors to D.C.’s Art scene like Thurlow Evans Tibbs Jr., House openings that were like a house party with wine and cheese, and seeing African American Art. Thurlow’s advice to me. “Get a business card.” My young adult self was not impressed at the time. But, It was at these openings that I thought, “I could make a living making Art.”
I will never forget when Rupert and George-McKinley Martin took me to one of those cool exhibitions. And then to Rodin exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, despite the warnings, I had to touch; it is in that spirit of curiosity of envy that my Art strives.
Art is a revelation, diverse like many cultures similar to all humans. Like most artists, the emotional payoffs go far back. I can’t remember a time when I did not make a mark on paper or the walls, or the use of my hands to make sculptures from anything my fingers could mold. That payoff continues to be a source of acceptance.
My family moved to Tacoma Park, Maryland, in my Jr. High school years. There I met my best man and longtime friend Biko; we’ve been friends ever since. We moved on to High Point High School, where I met my next big supporters Monique and Big Jim. They’ve been cheering my efforts ever since.
I went to the Maryland Institute College of Art. There I roomed with artist Ken Abrams. We share many things in common: music, sports, dance, books, and Art. I love talking to Kenny; in many ways, we share the same conversation no matter who is speaking.
After MICA, I worked with John Ferguson, a Baltimore sculptor, and head of the Maintenance Department of the Maryland Institute of Art; John Ferguson gave me my first welding instruction.
John introduced me to Mr. Garry Siegel, owner of New Arts Foundry. The single place in which I learned the most about all things relating to casting bronze, and consequently, the best establishment I’ve worked.
― Jean-Paul Sartre
At MICA, I met and married my Bermudian ex-wife and moved to Bermuda in 1991. We have three beautiful daughters, Pharaoh, Indigo, and Maya. I love my daughters, and I’m happy that they express themselves creatively or plain vexed.
In Bermuda, I worked as a sculpture assistant with artist Desmond Fountain. As an art instructor with Bermuda’s Community Education and Development Program and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Arts; and as an art teacher at Spice Valley Middle School and CedarBridge Academy.
As an art teacher, I was successful with an excellent GCSE track record. I realized that I could not encourage my students to take risks that I was afraid to take. Also, the Bermuda government went broke under the PLP leadership of Dr. Brown, The subject of some of my Art. So my teaching career was cut short. Accordingly, I continue to be a tireless and bold advocate for the Arts in Bermuda. As an artist, I appreciate the importance of integrating Art into our lives. Not just for an esoteric few, but all. To that end, my most recent show, “Black Apartheid,” was a success in incorporating Art into the conversation and conscience of the broader society. Going forward, I continue the efforts to integrate Art into our social economy and consciousness. I’m a vocal proponent of both the Government and corporate community to support local artists and talent by acknowledging and purchasing local artists.
Now you might note lots of references to sex. in my Art. Well, there’s a good reason, according to my Psychotherapist Tom Gibbons, MSW. I have childhood issues with the abandonment of my, mom, the focus of my feelings, and my need to impress. This ordeal shaped my adult life. Intuitively I feel a connection with these emotions and my creativity exposure in Art. I compensate for my inadequacy with creativity, passion, and a desire to create.
Mom went to the USA when I was four. At four, it did not matter what reason she left; she was not available to me; hence the abandonment. As an adult, I unconsciously recreate that conflict with the partners in my life, hoping for a better outcome; or probably reproducing the same. That separation is a tug at my core and fuel for anxieties. Sex serves as a substitute for that desperation suppressed in my childhood. But that conflict exists subconsciously in my yearning for attention and the drive to create.
My Art helps me to understand the influences of my world on me and provides options on how to live securely and happily. Being creative makes me feel that I’m a contributor to something greater than myself. With talent drive, beauty, and passion, my Art compensates for the reasonable childhood fears in a safe environment; This is what I like to tell myself.
See Resume
See Paintings
See Bronzes
See Flower Paintings Bermuda a Point of View
Thank you for supporting me
