I learned this was his mission only after I had asked him for a favor, that day I met him with Allison, of helping me to find someone with whom I could have some sort of ceramics or tile painting lesson with. Little did I know this was right up Rui's alley. A couple of weeks later Rui got back to me with the contact information of a woman he knew who agreed to give me a lesson. Little did he know that I had already spoke with this same woman in her little shop in Alfama a couple weeks prior and had been politely turned down because her space was so small.
...perks of making a friend who has a tile painter as a "dear friend" who will happily help another friend out.
So the tile painting lesson was in the works.
Later that week Rui and I grabbed lunch, he showed me around Alfama, and then introduced me to Elisabete. She didn't remember me from the polite, "that's sweet, but no" conversation her and I had, which was a-okay with me. Afterwards I met back up with Rui, we walked around Lisboa some more, there was a fashion show involved and also another one of his friends selling perfume products there. That'd be a tangent story though, so I'll just keep on with the tile painting...
This past Thursday I finally had my lesson with Elisabete. I messaged her in the morning the day of to clarify if we were still on. It was raining pretty hard and she had mentioned that in April her sister, who she works with, paints outside when it is nice. This April day was not so nice, but she said we were still a go. So I went.
I met her in her tiny tiiiiny, sized shop (that is about the size of my bathroom back home) and she took me back outside and to the shop's neighboring apartment. I believe Elisabete rents this apartment out, she explained the woman "living" there hasn't been back for a year now. She lives part of the year in London and the other part...well still in London at this rate. She is in her eighties and the travel is not as easy for her. So, Elisabete transformed a little corner of the, bordering hoarder-like, apartment into a little studio for our lesson on this calm stirring rainy day.
The lesson began.
I never had a lesson with painting ceramics before, my only experience is those therapeutic crafty events Loras puts on and the occasional childhood birthday party that was thrown at a pottery place. It's harder than you think...or than I thought. I like acrylic because you layer and overlap and mix and add texture and get messy and let it become what it will be as your hand is moving and moving slowly but surely and intentionally yet sporadically...
Yea, water color, which is what we use for said tile painting, is not like that.
We plan it out, use rapid brush strokes, and never ever go over it again...ever. Elisabete reminded me of this more than once, from my own fault. Hey, this is why I wanted a lesson, so I could learn.
I also learned to embrace those mistakes and not let my instant reaction to "touch it up" get me sweetly scolded in Elisabete's enduring way. Just roll with it. The mistake becomes the character of the piece when you let it happen and keep on moving, but when you try and go back and fix it, it becomes the center of the piece and un-ignorable. This isn't my point, but there is definitely a lesson bigger than my painting skills in there.
We'll see how she turns out, I'm not expecting a masterpiece, but only a reminder. A reminder of Elisabete, Rui, adventure, embracing mistakes, and the beautiful tiles plastered all over the city that will be my home for two more months. My mom's little idea she mentioned before I left evolved into a staple memory of my time here. Now I too have hand painted my own tile, even if it's just to be in solidarity with Elisabete or to more deeply appreciate the tradition (and skill!!) evolving from Portugal's Islamic influences or to now be able to say "hey, that style is called figuras avulsa!" when I see a tile similar to mine or all of the above.
Ciao.
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