Ready for New York E-Book

Dimitri Vojnov

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 89

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

I have pledged myself to painting, like a monk to his church. I do not preach, I confess. I am not a painter, I am a confessor Vojnov

Leseprobe

Forty three true stories about my strange life

Kelkheim 2020

In love … for my parents

The author

Dimitri Vojnov was born in Bulgaria in 1946. He is a painter by heart and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. There he taught Fine Arts and painting for several years.

He has lived in

Germany since 1986,

his studio is located in

Kelkheim-Ruppertshain.

www.vojnov.de

[email protected]

Contents

Birth

Childhood

My time

I made love to the melon

My first muse

My grandfather and mother nature

Music teacher

End of childhood

Levi’s

Little bee

Brass band

Leda with swan

Forbidden fruit

My first exhibition

Mallorca light

Buttock viola

Nestinarki

Ripe pear

Talisman

My teachers

Ready for New York

Can a pair of glasses change art history?

Germany’s smallest gallery

My nurse Mona Lisa

My first painting

Berlin muse

Without Title

Jealous cat

Apple

Certificate

Grashopper

Two Picassos for one “Vojnov”

Colorful bird

Why? Why?

Being good is not always an advantage

Sleep well, little sister

Sin – Swiss Style

The beautiful baker from the Taunus mountains

Vegetable soup

Blue eyes

Art exhibition abroad

Chinese recipe

John Updike

Happy birthday

Birth

According to my grandmother I was born in cherry blossom time.

More she did not know. My mother breast-fed me for three years and I enjoyed that a lot.

My aunt had had a baby daughter, and she did not want to, or did not care to, suck milk.

What was to become of all her mother’s milk? I had to take care of it.

For another three years my aunt breastfed me. She had huge breasts that I could stroke, that I had to suck, that I could play with and wanted to kiss ....

After six years of milk abuse, I could no longer stand the smell of milk, nor drink it, nor even see it.

Up to the present day I am fed up with milk .... Not so with large breasts ....

Childhood

When I was younger I wanted to be a famous painter. But not anymore.

I have now discovered something far better, something far more important. I now have something very special ... what I have discovered for myself is time.

Each morning I go to my studio, make coffee, look at my pictures and I know that I have the whole day ahead just for me.

The next day it’s the same, the whole week is just for me, the whole month ... in fact the whole year. I have endless amounts of time. But that’s nothing new. In my childhood it was just the same. My dog and I in this great abundance of time. Any amount of time.

Today, after all these years – it actually feels like a hundred (ha, ha) – I am still the same child I was back then. I never really grew out of being a child. I have always remained a child.

My childhood never ends ….

My time

I was still a child when I had my first painting-related successes.

I was ten years old and could paint as well as I can now. All the neighbours were fascinated, my relatives too.

My mother was incredibly proud. So was I ... I never dreamt that I would ever become a painter.

Yet I already was a painter and still am today.

I had an old, white-haired art teacher. Everybody called him Maestro.

I visited him once every week and showed my paintings. One day he said:

“Take this little book and read it at home. There is something in there just for you. But you have to find it first.”

I read the book, but didn’t find anything.

The next week my teacher asked me:

“Did you read the book?”

“Yes I did.”

“So, did you find it?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then read it again, but this time very, very slowly. I’m sure you will find it!”

Annoyed, I ran all the way back home and went straight to bed with the little book and read it again. This time carefully and very, very, very slowly. First, the title of the book:

Leonardo da Vinci

Then the next page:

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15th.

I was speechless; it was like I was paralyzed. It was unbelievable to me.

My heart was beating like crazy.

April 15th is my birthday.

I stopped reading right away.

I had found it ... found myself ...

And I won’t tell anyone, it will be my secret.

I made love to the melon

I always spent the summer holidays with my grandparents. Those were the days of happy, carefree youth. Totally innocent up to that one evening:

My friends and I were sitting on the old bridge with our legs dangling in the water.

After a while a guy who we knew came by. He was older than we were and asked if any of us had ever slept with a girl? Some hesitation, then an unambiguous NO! from our mouths. Upon which he asked if we had any idea how it works. Again came a unanimous NO!

Then the crucial question if we didn’t want to try it? A loud YEEES! resounded through the forest.

This is how the story began:

We walked through the wood for quite a while, all excited about what was going to happen.

After a ten-minute march we got to a melon field. There, the older guy said to us: “It’s not melons that are lying there, they’re all girls. The one is called Maria, the other Anna, Lisa, Katya, Rosa. You can take your pick and when you have chosen the right one, come to me with her.”

We went criss-crossing through the field to find the right one. Then I saw her. Round and gorgeous, I called her Maria ....

And each of us found his own. With my prey tucked under my arm I went to the older guy as fast as I could.

He was already waiting with knife in hand. With a swift movement he carved a round hole into each melon. Then he said: “Off you go, NOW FUCK!”

The sky was full of stars, the crickets were chirping, only our moaning and groaning, “Oh Maria, – ahh, Anna, – oh, Rosa, – uhh Lisa …” interrupted the heavenly silence. Two minutes it was all over.

Our bunch grew by leaps and bounds as word got around and more and more boys wanted to enjoy this love experience. By the end of summer I was unable to count how many there were in the field. Unfortunately the holidays are too short.

Next summer I’ll go to my grandparents again.

My grandmother often speaks about that summer. What happened in our village, she says, was a miracle. Never before had so many women been pregnant as in that summer.

My grandfather said, “I don’t believe in miracles.”

NEITHER DO I!

My first muse

In our street, there lived a marvellously beautiful girl. I was 15 and she ... I don’t know. I wanted to paint her but I couldn’t pluck up my courage to ask her.

One quiet, sunny afternoon the two of us were playing cards. She said: “The one who loses has to grant one wish to the other one.”

To win a card game was no problem for me. The problem was, how do I make her understand my wish?

I won, and what I really wanted was to paint her. But all I could say was: “Can I touch your breasts?”

“Yes,” she said, “but only if we keep on playing.”

Winning the second game was even easier.

Came the third game and I was beginning to think, she doesn’t want to win at all, she only wants to lose – always.

So we played until long after dark. When the darkness had grown so profound that we could not see each other, I dared to ask: “Can I paint you?”

“Yes,” she said, “paint me.”

So in the dark I painted. Without brush, without pencil, just painted, painted, painted ....

She was my first muse.

And a genuine muse only wants one thing – to lose. If I recollect how many muses I have had in my life – quite a lot.

But genuine muses – of those there were only a few. The false ones always wanted to win.

The false ones never understood that winning or losing is not important. The most important thing is to play.

Today I have many brushes, pencils and canvasses, and if I had a muse today like that first one of the days gone by, then ....

A muse cannot be bought.

A muse cannot be ordered.

A muse cannot be inherited.

A muse cannot be won.

A muse is a godsend.

So, I will have to wait.

My grandfather and mother nature

Ialways spent the summer holidays with my grandparents. They lived in a small village, in a lovely little house with a large garden, and just a hundred meters away was the most beautiful river I had ever seen in my life.

“C’mon my boy!” my grandfather would say, “take a small bucket and we’ll go fishing. We need three fishes for tonight but they have to fit into your grandmother’s pan!”

A three-minute walk, and we were there.

My grandfather with a cigarette in his mouth and me with a bucket in my hand.

“Fill the bucket with water and stay where you are! I am going to catch three beautiful fish for us,” he said. I sat on the ground with my feet in the water, and what was my grandfather up to?

In a few seconds, he had undressed, pants off, shirt off – until he was just wearing his underpants.

His body reminded me of a saint, white, lean and elegant. Almost naked, he lit another cigarette and started diving into the river. Deeper and deeper. After a moment I almost lost sight of my grandfather. Moving like a submarine all I could see was his burning cigarette slowly going to the left then to the right, backwards and forwards.

After a little while, he came out of the water. His holy body was covered in thousands of droplets from our