Peta Kaplan Paintings

Peta
Kaplan
Paintings

Sketchbook of Peru
Canvas Murals

Sketchbook of Peru

Peru is a painter's paradise. I didn't realize that until I spent a week in Lima in my capacity as Director of Sourcing for Ethnicities, an importer of ethnic furniture and craft from South America. Once in Lima, many of the artists and artisans I met invited me to visit the regions they came from and I decided to extend the sourcing trip into a broader immersion into the Peruvian culture.

During the following five weeks, I traveled the country with minimal pre-planning and let myself be guided by opportunity of encounter. Sketchbook in hand, I started my discovery of Peru in Cuzco, the former Inca capital. While the city's Spanish colonial architecture was majestic, I soon found myself spending hours sketching scenes from the city's teaming marketplace. The colors, the women, the children, the vegetable stands were all recorded in pencil or water colors. Chewing coca leaves to deal with a bad case of altitude sickness, Sorocho, I adjusted to the local speed and captured images from the heart of the city that is the old market.

I had my first introduction to Moche ceramics in Cuzcos Museo de Arte Precolumbino. Even though I have studied art history, most comprehensive books devote no more than a page or two to Pre-Columbian ceramics. Seeing them within the context of the people, the culture and the history had a huge impact on me and the the visual impressions have stayed with me ever since. This rich heritage of ceramics - pelicans, ducks, llamas and human figures is mostly found in earth toned bottle vessels. By depicting these images in large two-dimensional form, I wanted to make a connection between this artistic history and the current remnants of a traditional culture.

From Cuzco, I made my way to Chincherro, an expansive open air market that features local red and orange textiles. Discussions with textile weavers pointed the way to spending some days in the Sacred Valley, and specifically in the Inca administrative center of Ollantaytambo. This jewel of an Inca village is almost a living museum in that the architecture set up by the Incas remains intact and some of the villagers don traditional colorful textile costumes. It was in Ollantaytambo that I met a local artist whose work inspired this 'Sketchbook from Peru' body of work. Wendy Semanas, an avid adventuress and painter who traveled the Amazon jungles in the mid 1970s, settled in Ollantaytambo. Wendy introduced me to the concept of large canvas murals.

I was fortunate to be in the Sacred Valley region around the time of the fiestas that spring up in local villages to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. Once again the colors of the dancers' outfits filled my sketchbook pages. The procession in the small village of Huayoccari was boisterous. After being invited to share a meal with villagers, I sketched young adults and children dancers in Huayabamba.

I wanted to broaden my exposure to Perus grandiose pre-Columbian past. New-found friends pointed the way and I made my way to the North of the country, starting with the fishing village of Huanchaco, then further inland to Trujillo. I was here to visit Chan Chan. Chan Chan turned out to be an architectural treasure trove. Nine palaces constructed by nine consecutive kings. Red mud adobe walls reflected the influence of the sea in the lives of the Chimu civilization. The walls of Chan Chan are carved with motifs of sea otters, fish, pelicans and fishing nets.

I remain fascinated by all that Peru has to offer and fully intend to return to gather more visual imagery for Sketchbook of Peru II.