Artist explores Amazon rain forest

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    DAVENPORT, IA (Quad-City Times ) — ot too buggy.

Hot, like Davenport in July.

Playful monkeys hopping about.

Constant awareness that it he fell into the water, piranha and alligators could literally eat him alive.

Those are four impressions Davenport artist Raphael “Ralph” Iaccarino brought back from his 10-day guided tour of the Amazon rain forest in December.

Widely known for his large, vibrantly colorful watercolors inspired by the rain forest of Costa Rica, Iaccarino had long wanted to visit the Amazon rain forest to see how it compares.

His starting point was Manaus, a sprawling city of two million people on the banks of the Negro River in northwestern Brazil, the capital of the vast state of Amazonas, and a major departure point for the surrounding rain forest.

He traveled in a group of eight that included his significant other, Barbara Maness, a Davenport attorney, and his son, Gaetono, who lives in Brazil teaching languages, and Gaetono’s wife Juliana.

The group traveled by van, bus and boat, using tributaries of the Amazon as their highway.

“Every day, we got more and more isolated,” Iaccarino said, speaking from the kitchen of his McClellan Heights home, a laptop full of pictures on the table.

Just east of Manaus, the dark Negro River converges with the brown, muddy Solimões River resulting in a striking visual phenomenon called the “Meeting of the Waters.”

It’s one of the pictures on his laptop travelogue.

Overnight accommodations were lodges built on 16-foot stilts, elevated to prevent them from flooding when the snow pack melts upriver in the Andes. Electricity was provided by generators and water was bottled or filtered from the river.

Dressed in the recommended long pants and long-sleeved shirts, Iaccarino and others in his group walked into the forest on faint paths or, in some cases, the guide hacked a way forward. Guides also checked the paths beforehand for dangerous animals, primarily large snakes.

But, as Iacarrino said, the tourist company “takes no responsibility.”

“Whatever happens, happens. It was different knowing there were things that could eat you, especially in the water.”

Not as colorful as Costa Rica — lots of green

In addition to weather, monkeys and danger lurking in the water, several other impressions stood out.

First, the Amazon rain forest is mostly green and very dense. There are not the brightly colored flowers as there are in Costa Rica, Iaccarino said. And once inside, the plants blot out the sun.

Second, it’s scarcely ever really quiet. Iaccarino activates the video on his laptop and there’s a constant stream of chitters and chatters.

Finally, perhaps more than any other place Iaccarino has visited, he found the people to be literally part of their surroundings.

“It astounded me,” he said. “The people are really connected to nature and that makes them different. In cities, it’s us and nature. (In the Amazon), everything is tied together.

“Their shopping is the nature around them,” he said. That is, they have such “an incredible botanical knowledge” that they can find in the forest around them plants to treat headaches, to make the roofs and walls of their homes and to eat.

“They are so grounded, so kind, so respectful of themselves and what’s around them,” he said. “It’s not like “I’m here, and I’m going into nature.” No, it’s connected. And that kind of moved into me.”

Painting the Amazon

Iaccarino has already begun painting, setting up in his brightly lighted basement with a picture of what he is going to paint. His first piece will be based on a plant that curves first up, then down, as though it were bowing, or paying homage.

“I always see lines first,” he said. “Then color.”

Because the first thing he sees is lines, the lack of color in the Amazon will not be a drawback. The Amazon is full of lines.

“The gestures of plants remind me of body language,” he said. “The most playful part is the color. The color will be completely my own.”

He tries to create pictures that look different close-up than they do from a distance.

“I call that viewer participation. It’s like staring at clouds,” he said, referring to the tendency for people to see shapes in clouds when they stare long enough. People viewing his paintings close up see things not visible from a distance.

He anticipates more panoramic scenes than in the past. “It will be an alternation of my style. I feel I have a style I’m continually trying to perfect.”

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