The old man

This old man, Oscar, is a Costeño. He comes from Santa Marta but has been living in Bogotá for many year now. He is actually an artist who does chalk drawings. I used his photo as a kind of placard for a little …observation, let’s call it that, about the orchestra and attitudes about what is seen by many, I fear, as a non-Colombian form of art. Here it is in English:

Old Man Sinfonica.  He is not young nor is he entirely old.  He walks a path he feels he has walked before, perhaps in another life. He is humble but is seen as haughty by those who don’t know him, he is poor but appears opulent to those outside of his space.  He is not indigenous but he is not foreign either but those who claim to seek their roots feel he is from another world.  Ignorance lives behind him and before him as well as he blows forward in disgrace in the eyes of those other arts.

Old Man Sin-fónica. No es joven ni es del todo viejo. Recorre un camino que siente haber recorrido antes, quizás en otra vida. Es humilde pero es visto como altivo por aquellos que no lo conocen, es pobre pero parece opulento para aquellos que están fuera de su espacio. No es indígena pero tampoco extranjero pero quien dice buscar sus raíces siente que es de otro mundo. La ignorancia vive detrás de él y delante de él, así como él sopla hacia adelante en desgracia ante los ojos de esas otras artes.