Painting is his window to the world
By CAROL O'NEILL
Eleven years ago, Ed Lopez turned 62, began collecting Social Security, and moved into Westgate apartments on Main Street in Stroudsburg.
Lopez' tiny second floor apartment is his own private art gallery. Paintings cover walls, fill closet space and take up floor space.
This month the public will get a chance to see what Ed Lopez is all about. His gouache paintings will be on view at The Gallery at Liztech beginning Friday, May 4. He calls his exhibit "Tapas," finger food for the soul.
Lopez paints the landscape. But Lopez is no ordinary landscape artist.
For one thing, he has been painting on brown paper bags since 1978. "You're always aware it's only paint smeared on brown paper. It's the natural color of paper, like brown rice or brown sugar or whole wheat. It's the natural product, so it resonates."
The brown paper works well in Lopez's landscapes. "Bare branches in sunshine are the color of the bags. It's an economy because I only have three or four hours. So, if the paper gives me one of the colors, I'll be glad to have it, and the scene comes out of the paper in a magic way."
For another thing, Lopez likes to write captions under his paintings.
A painting of laundry on a clothesline is captioned: "Deaf garage doors and blaring trumpet vines, sexy clothesline and blind windows."
Lopez explained, "If you knock, nobody is going to answer. The deaf doors can't hear the red trumpet vines and the blind windows can't see the laundry on the clothes line."
Of a fall landscape, Lopez explained, "was driving along a country road, coming around a sharp turn. There's this tree doing a pirouette. I said, I gotta paint that."
He did, and he captioned it: "Maple in an orange tutu pirouettes around a hairpin turn."
A painting of a neighbor's house that had been seized for the Tocks Island Dam is captioned "Spring verdure burgeoning oblivious to a tenant's eviction."
Lopez explained, "It's a beautiful house, but there are no kids playing in the front yard."
Why the words? "While I'm painting, words occur to me. I'm painting the mood," Lopez said. "A couple of words will establish a dialogue. The caption is a lead in, and you can take it from there."
Every caption is 17 syllables, a haiku.
Time is always a factor. "I can get a painting going. I have a window of opportunity of about two weeks," Lopez said. "After two weeks, the sun has moved on. The season has changed."
NOTHING HAS STOPPED Ed Lopez from painting landscapes. Not even the Tocks Island fiasco, not even homelessness.
Tocks Island, located upstream from Delaware Water Gap in the Delaware River was the controversial site of a dam, proposed after the devastating flood of 1955, which would have created a 37-mile long lake between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Although the dam was never built, the federal government seized 72,000 acres of land, which became the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Unfortunately Ed Lopez was living on land the government wanted back in the 1970s.
"I got evicted. At the same time, rents tripled over night, and I couldn't find a place to rent," said Lopez, whose house was totally trashed within two weeks after he moved out.
Having no place to go, Lopez spent the next 10 years living out of his van. At first he had a Volkswagen Mystique, got fed up with the repair bills and got a Dodge van. Now he drives a Ford.
"It's OK in the summer time," Lopez said.
In winter he would drive down to Florida and hit all the art festivals and escape the cold.
"It didn't affect my work because I'm always driving around looking for things to paint," Lopez said.
For the past 11 years, he's been living at Westgate, and still spends many hours outside looking for landscapes to paint. Explaining his craft, Lopez said, "You haven't really seen something unless you try to draw it, to get the exact color and proportions."
Of the art hanging on his apartment walls, Lopez said, "Every one of these paintings, something was happening while I was there. Drawing forces you to stay there, and slow down, and pay attention. It takes willingness to hang out with it, fighting the mosquitoes, getting a sunburn, freezing your buns off."
Name: Ed Lopez Age: 73 Address: Stroudsburg Family: A daughter, Nola Lopez, 45, is a photographer in Manhattan. Education: Attended Arts High School in New York City, now called the School of Art and Design; studied painting at The Cooper Union in New York City. Employment: Worked in advertising as an art director for print and television in New York City, retiring at age 62. Interests: Gouache painting on brown paper bags. Exhibiting: "Tapas, gouache paintings by Ed Lopez" at The Gallery at Liztech, 95 Crystal St., East Stroudsburg. Reception: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, May 4. "Tapas" will be on display through June. Information: 570 424-3177 or visit www.liztechgallery.com.