About a year ago, I ran into him at an afternoon coffee. We talked about the divine and the human and he gave me one of the objects he made: a curved spoon with a Franco dollar attached to it (Franco is on the hidden side, … only the value of five pesetas is visible).
He told me to always have it with me, that it would bring me luck. He also told me about things to do: a conference at the Etnográfico, my father and him hand in hand, and that I would introduce them, that I would let them speak. This is perhaps how the forgetful city that let its artists die without dedicating a sad room to them would listen; this humanly and artistically irreplaceable generation of which only Higinio Vázquez, Tomás Crespo and my father, Antonio Pedrero remain.
Just a few months ago, in one of the many flashes of lucidity that still came to him, he reminded me of this conversation we hadn’t had. I don’t know what else to say to someone who spoke to us so much with the language of bronze, wood, stone, glass and iron in large dimensions. And my key ring with Franco’s dollar in my pocket.
When not in his workshop in San Marcial, he swatted flies with his tail, made pieces to give as gifts, and amused himself by bending spoons and teaspoons.
I didn’t know – or I knew it – that my chance was there: to have him near me, to be able to introduce him to my friends, to have a peaceful life as a neighbor, to enjoy him since I was a child, like when he bought a convent near me or his madness during the summers in Sanabria. This man with the untamed beard and all the modernity to boot. Atomic, overwhelming, tireless.
José Luis Alonso Coomonte, the sculptor of the magical, the eternal teacher, the wonderful non-conformist, intelligent, controversial and funny human being. Witty, insightful, wise. The one who invented small and large gadgets, explored all materials and touched all styles, from the abstract to the figurative, from the sacred – its beautiful display, its small and large crosses – to the social; its grape bars in Toro, the magnificent building of the Bank of Spain.
Great figure of irreplaceable genius. The one who got attached to his huge lamppost because the Town Hall had painted it gray. The teacher of entire generations of artists. The tireless conversationalist with a privileged memory. The Popular Wisdom professor in an old barracks that we Zamorans took over and transformed into a university.
The love of Marianela, the woman who made her way and her life with him until her last breath, his refuge. How lucky you were when life crossed your path.
Now that José Luis is gone; Now that he is eternal and the world remembers the great artist, I hold my Coomonte pocket in my hand. And I smile. He left as he came, he was free, he left us beauty. Thank you, dear teacher, for your prolific life.