Paintings by B. F. Postel Sicily - 1968 & 1969

Window on Via Chiavietieri oil/linen

Kitchen on Via Chiavietieri oil/linen

Sicilian Pears oil/linen

1968   last stop - Palermo, Sicily -Originally my boat ticket was for Majorca, a Mediterranean Island, near the coast of Spain. Two 2 days out to Sea on the Michael D’Angelo Cruise Ship with my cabinmate, Anita, nicknamed little Caesar, everything changed. She decided to throw my clothes on the floor after the first morning out at Sea, announcing it was her turn for the lower berth. On another occasion she refused to get out of the bathroom because she was busy putting on her lower lashes. After the Stewards pulled me off the door, I told the Captain I was changing my ticket, take my trunks out of the hold, I'm not getting off, as we pulled into port.  Next stop Genoa, no, Sardinia, no, Naples, no, Palermo is the last stop, I’ll take it. Mt. Peligrino greeted me as the ship pulled into port, and tears were in my eyes. Alone in a country where I could not speak the language, with 3 huge trunks of art supplies ready to be put on the docks. A gentle hand on my shoulders, and a voice repeating, no preocuparse, no preocuparse. It was Ernesto, a small elderly, Sicilian man, whom I played poker with. He and his friends did not speak English but we all joked, making gestures and grimaces, at the hands we were delt. One five card stud game was unforgettable. I had one Ace and asked for 4 cards. When I saw that I had received 3 more Aces, I broke out with non-stop laughing, as opposite a poker face as possible, every one looked puzzled, but kept adding to the pot with no one folding. With all the lucky hands I have been dealt, this was the most exceptional for five card draw with 4 new cards. We all became hysterical laughing as I scooped up my winnings. Ernesto was waving at his Niece Olive and her Nephews, waiting below with a tiny truck, guiding me as he ordered the deck hands to take care of my trunks first. Everyone knew Ernesto and he seemed to command much admiration and respect. Olive took me to her home, a large apartment in a Palermo Barons home, next to the Butcheria, where she lived with her husband, 2 daughters, Maria and Tanina and a son, Lino. They were all Palermo University students. There were also a few young female students from Malta, living there as a sort of part time pension. After several months I rented a 7 room apartment, with cracked walls and bullet holes, in a bombed out building on via Chiavietierri (the key) in the butcheria, near the docks. It made an ideal studio where I could tack up my paintings to the walls as I worked on them.   The Butcheria The marketplace three stories below, was considered rough. I could see and hear the fisherman early in the morning bringing their catch to market. Everyone looked out for me and even threw more oranges or vegetables in my bag if they thought a merchant was shortchanging me. There was brutal competition among vendors and they would scream that the others fruit or produce was rotten, also there were always strikes of some kind. Once there was 3 or 4 Persimmon vendors all near each other, yelling they had the best, the sweetest, with smiles on their faces. The screaming got louder, prices got lower and lower till it was a giveaway, then it erupted into a tempest of persimmon throwing, with swirls of airborne lush orange colors, splashing as they hit their targets. Crowds of people enjoyed the performance as did the venders. To add to the mess, it was also during a garbage strike (Strikes were the norm), how heavy my shoes got, with all the banana skins and other debris sticking to them, but I did not mind one bit..

The Catacombs, Palermo, Sicily   George was horrified, the first time we walked down the worn marble stairway. Im not sure if it was the musty smell, of the catacombs, or the dried bodies standing in the stone alcoves, that upset him, but I wasn't leaving. I told him Shut up and draw...........Much later I found him in a dark corridor, sketching a group of abandoned bodies that were standing en masse, in a Corner. Maria, had first shown me where the Catacomb entry was, inside the old Palermo Church, months before. I had returned often, sometimes to just be with them (the dead), sometimes to draw and explore all the corridors, but always I was facinated..........hung up high, on the stone walls, were Woman's Pelvis' with a backbone half circle arch on top, they had died giving birth........a childs orange face (above) was perfectly preserved in a coffin covered with glass, while two men were seated behind a box with ones head/skull fallen off, it appeared to have a broomstick installed to put it back on. The individual alcove corridor people had priority over all the rest, most of the men wore tattered black jackets, some with top hats, all covered in a thick gray dust. Many of the mummified corpes were so dry they had lost fingers, some hands...... The deeper corridors, opened up into larger cave like rooms, stacks of standing bodies, mostly woman, some children, appeared sorted by size with the smallest in front...Maria had explained that the families of the dead had to continue paying for the alcoves or they lost there position....................

Roberto oil/linen Roberto, a neighbor from my previous residence in the Barons Palace, would often come over and model. Many of my paintings of him were destroyed by a flooded basement years later.

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