Dibuix del mes

Maig 2008

 

My friend Manel
By Jorge Arboleda

The roads of the Internet are vast and wide. It was in these fast and sometimes congested highways that I first encountered Manel Maseras. A few emails back and forth established an initial good rapport and then, when we finally spoke on the phone, it was all but a revelation: here I was, talking to this lifetime friend that I had just met.
Manel, 63, who drove trucks all over Europe since he had the minimum legal age, loves talking about trucks and the life on the road. His family life has always been linked to a truck. When he was a little boy his father took him in his travels throughout Spain, driving a small truck and working as a cigarette-paper distributor. These days, Manel and his grandchildren spend their lazy summer afternoons painting trucks on a patio table under the breezy trees that surround his Barcelona backyard.
There is always a first time for everything. As the Editor of an American magazine about professional truckers I have interviewed dozens of truckers of all kinds and origins who live in the U.S., many of them from Latin America and even from Spain. My interview with Manel, however, was unusual in many ways. It was the first time that I was talking to an artist-trucker who at the same time was a retired driver and a European professional who had never been in the United States. 
Even if Manel prefers his Catalan language over Spanish, we talk Castilian as old friends and we discovered immediate affinity between us. Coincidentally, my childhood years in Lima, Peru, where I lived until I migrated to the United States, were also populated by memories of sad departures and happy returns –and the enormous satisfaction of sharing a cab with my personal hero: my father, the truck driver.
Manel’s paintings look more naïve than what they are. Most of them seem to be illustrations of a time gone-by, but a closer look makes us suspicious that they might be pictures of a time that never was, exception made of our imagination. Old trucks of the fifties and sixties are surrounded by a perfect world of green pastures and snowy mountains, happy children and wise grown-ups. Not even close to the Transformers culture that we are being sold today.
But here I am, speaking of Manel Maseras as if he were not here. But his amiable look and his generous heart are with us, impregnating the smallest corner of his watercolors, even of the most imperfect ones.
I have no more words, let’s look at the pictures.

August 10th, 2007Jorge Arboleda is Editor of Transportista magazine. Arboleda works and lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the United States.

 

 

 

 

Benvinguts

Aquí trobareu una recull dels meus dibuixos aquarel.la de camions d'època. Sempre he treballat d'una manera o un altre en el món dels camions. Alguns dels camions que he conduït tenen el seu petit homenatge també en aquesta pàgina. Ara que ja estic jubilat, i que tinc temps lliure,em dedico a les dues meves passions , la de pintar i la dels camions d'època. trobareu un recull dels dibuixos de camions que més m'agraden, alguns que he conduït i alguns
que he dibuixat per empreses. També trobareu enllaços de pàgines de companys arreu del món que també com jo,son apassionats als camions.

Welcome

One way or another I have always worked behind the wheel of a truck. In my retirement I have tried to pay a modest tribute to the trucks I drove as a professional trucker and those that I love. These days, with plenty of time in my hands, I am consumed by my two other passions –besides driving trucks— which are painting and antique trucks. I hope you enjoy my page which I try to update it constantly. Visit us more often!

 

Bienvenidos

Aquí encontrareis una selección de mis dibujos en acuarela de camiones clásicos. Del reportaje de la revista solo-camion del mes de mayo del 2007: Siempre dibujó bien, desde el colegio, pero la cabina de un camión no es el mejor lugar para dar pinceladas firmes sobre el lienzo. Una vez retirado, Manel Maseras ha conseguido casar sus dos aficiones: el camión y la pintura.