Alero

Some people I meet, i just want to keep in a room somewhere so that i can visit them whenever i want. My favorites... my heroes and my inspriration.

I had just stepped off the plane in Edinburgh in 1999, the first time I met Alero Olympio. I had never been there, but i was going to stay for two months on a painting commission just before a residency in Italy. She had come to pick me up.

I had asked her before hand, "How will i know you when i get there?"

To which she replied, "You will... trust me."

And sure enough as i looked around the crowded baggage claim, i knew it was her. A black dot in a sea of white, with the biggest smile i had ever seen. We knew each other instantly.

Alero Olympio, a name just worthy enough for a face and a presence so seraphic. Eyes that knew everything about you from the moment you met. Some sense of joy just spilling from her. Beaming as if she knew all the secrets, and it was all going to be okay.

Alero came from Ghana to Scotland, an architect and a true artist. She made what she called "eco-mansions", or large housing projects that utilized the the local materials, in a way that was environmentally safe and efficient. She found a way to make her own bricks in Ghana without firing them, using a hydraulic press, and worked on making houses that were completely solar powered. And in many of her works she found a way to use dicarded materials, such as the leftover black cores from trees used to mill paper. All of this, spoken of with a passion.

Alero fought cancer for 6 years. When i met her she was recovering from the radiation treatment of a large tumor in her womb. A friend of mine the year earlier had dowsed her house with two copper rods to discover that she might be having some complications. She found the tumor soon after. The doctors inserted two rods into her and plugged her in to a machine that sent the radiation straight into the tumor for long periods of time, coming in to check on her wearing space suits for protection. And she survived.

I went off to the residency soon after where i painted a portrait of her from my head, her story and her being inspiring me. It would be one of the most important paintings i have ever done, painting in a new way ... realizing a new way of being in myself. In the painting she is holding two rods, to represent the dowsing/radiation rods, and she is standing between the cores of her discarded trees. She is backlit, casting her shadow back on to me, allowing me and inviting me to see my own shadow in her. She opens the door to a new place.

On my recent trip to the UK that i spoke of earlier, i stopped with my Uncle (who had introduced us) to say hi. I was very upset as we approached the house. The soft blue-green door said "healing" to me and comforted me slightly. No one answered. We left a note and went home to the US. Two days ago her partner sent us an email saying that Alero had passed away this past year.

I'm so sad and angry and hurt and i know its going to be okay but it's not right now. A light in my world has gone out and all i can do is tell the rest of the world about her, my way of holding on and letting go. I want to love everyone i meet to the fullest, and i want to stay in my house and not meet anyone. All the politicians i see on TV right now, i want to yell at them and tell them that i have figured out that there are people in this world that are worth 1000 of them, and no matter how many countries they bomb, or cities they flood, or towers they crash into they will never ever have what my friend had. Ever.

crying ... breathing...

Look how beautiful my friend was. Hear her words in this interview. That's all i want to say.

Well, that and.... good bye, Alero. You will always be in my room of favorite people.