Marion Wesson: Three years without a car
Valencia is a city that attracts people from all over the world. One person who likes our way of life is attracted to what we haven’t got; an obsession with cars.
When Marion Wesson gazed out upon the Pacific Ocean from her Los Angeles home, and decided that it would be a good idea for her children to learn a second language, she also had it in mind that it would be healthy on many levels to live in a place where, unlike LA, it was possible to lead a life that didn’t involve jumping into an automobile every time you felt like buying an ice cream or visiting a neighbour.
That dream has come true now as since July 2011, Marion, an internationally known artist trained at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, has been living with her family in Valencia (“not too big and not too small”), where she (actually it was her husband, sent on two scouting missions) managed to find the flat that was essential for her idea of living in Spain, with high ceilings, tiles and a wrought iron balcony, as well as a studio, where she can share her ideas and inspirations with a group of six other international artists (UK, France and Spain).
The studio is called ‘Sporting Club de Rusafa’, as apparently it was once their home, and this old factory-like building situated in Calle Sevilla is now a workshop and cultural centre organizing a variety of artistic and musical events.
Marion’s daughters, although reticent at first, have adapted to a totally Spanish school, where only the English teacher, Lola, speaks English and in fact holds a weekly conversation exchange with Marion, although it’s true that the promise that the experience will only last three years has mitigated their opposition, and the elder (they are currently five and ten years old) has expressed an understanding that this adventure is in fact for their own good.
Marion’s husband Marijan is a Macedonian university professor of mathematics, who ended up in LA after various jobs in the UK, and is now semi retired while Marion pursues her career around the global village, with projected exhibitions in Asia and on the Brooklyn based online art gallery www.buysomedamnart.com . Marion also exhibits regularly at Galleri Urbane in Dallas, Texas.
She is currently working on two main projects, one of which is based on the Valencian Mascletà firework display, and which attempts to capture the sensations felt; the tensing of the muscles, the whole body experience that she describes as the ultimate sensational experience.
The other project relates to distortion and explores the idea through overlapping lines of the ripple effect, and how every action has a reaction.
Her main influences are Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler; both colorists, and Louise Bourgeois, a sculptress; and in fact Marion began with sculpture before moving to painting, although one of her most moving experiences in Spain was a visit to Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ in Madrid.
Like so many Americans, what fascinates her about Valencia is the architecture and the age of the buildings (her 1920s bungalow in LA is what people there consider ‘old’), and the fact that you can get around the city on foot or on a bicycle, a means of transport considered provocative by LA drivers.
In fact, with a climate so similar to California, the only thing she really missed about the USA was sour cream, until she found a supply source.
She also feels at home among the local people who, although proud of their city, are not as egocentric as the people in LA, in her opinion, and not as obsessed with success; preferring personal happiness and family as sources of satisfaction.
Valencia-based American artist Marion Wesson is holding a solo exhibition at Sporting Club, Russafa: http://www.sportingclubrussafa.com/
Calle Sevilla 5, from 22 November to 20 December, 2013. http://marionwessonstudio.wordpress.com/
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