“A Rag-picker, or Chiffonnier, was a 19th- and early 20th-century term for someone who made a living by rummaging through refuse in the streets to collect material for salvage.” Wikipedia.
This series of illustrations are freely based in a short story written by the Spanish author Pío Baroja. In the original text the action is happening in Madrid around the year 1900. However, I decided to represent it as if it were happening in any average underprivileged area from the US.
I used 6B and 8B on 250 gr Canson paper. Translated into English by Alejandro del Mazo.
I think that, if God is to be anywhere in big cities, it is in the vacant lots.
This irruption of a desolate field within the town is something I love.
This irruption of a desolate field within the town is something I love.
Nothing as interesting to me as seeing a vacant lot through the cracks of a fence, the ground littered with broken pails, old empty oil cans, car wheels…
“Where can all this come from?” I do often ask myself, and I would like the cracked cooking pan to tell me the story of how it came from Alcorcón (small city next to Madrid), and the old broom leaning against the wall and the broken pot to reveal their innermost secrets to
“Where can all this come from?” I do often ask myself, and I would like the cracked cooking pan to tell me the story of how it came from Alcorcón (small city next to Madrid), and the old broom leaning against the wall and the broken pot to reveal their innermost secrets to
There is a lovely site next to my house. If by any chance you come around some day between 4 and 5 am, you will see an old lady and a little girl push two boards from the stockade and sneak out to the street.
The old lady is small, wrinkled, toothless; she carries an empty sack on his back and a hook in her hand.
The old lady is small, wrinkled, toothless; she carries an empty sack on his back and a hook in her hand.
The young girl is skinny, lanky, her face full of freckles and her body covered in rags, even though she looks ragged and disheveled, she still does radiate youth and freshness.
If, once they have left and turned the corner, you inspect the spot they exited from, you will see that the unpinned boards yield to the pressure of the hand, and that it is then possible to sneak into the vacant lot through the gap left.
The terrain is uneven; it has a deep hollow in the space between two houses... Upon entering, the first thing that can be seen is a path, amongst piles of rubble and stones, which leads to the hollow.
In it, there is a house, if we may call so a shed made of sticks, for which a metal door, one of those used to close storefronts, broken, rusty and held by several large rocks, serves as a metal roof.
The terrain is uneven; it has a deep hollow in the space between two houses... Upon entering, the first thing that can be seen is a path, amongst piles of rubble and stones, which leads to the hollow.
In it, there is a house, if we may call so a shed made of sticks, for which a metal door, one of those used to close storefronts, broken, rusty and held by several large rocks, serves as a metal roof.
The shack has no more than a room.
Here, by the window, there is a stove and over the white ash, a few coals that boil a stew with the sound of a gentle simmer. Sometimes a jet of steam raises the lid timidly and leaves an appetizing vapor in the room.
Here, by the window, there is a stove and over the white ash, a few coals that boil a stew with the sound of a gentle simmer. Sometimes a jet of steam raises the lid timidly and leaves an appetizing vapor in the room.
