SOCRATES AND INNER TRUTH
Socrates, 1980
It was a warm summer day in 1980, and I was taking pictures in Ybor City, Florida. Today, Ybor is a vibrant destination with National Historic Landmark status. However, at that time it was struggling to survive after suffering the affliction of Urban Renewal which erected an eight lane interstate highway through the center of the community ten years earlier.
About ten o’ clock Tuesday morning, the sidewalks and streets were almost deserted except for some discarded paper cups and crumpled up newspapers. I glanced over at an old man sitting on a concrete planter facing the street, sporting a baseball cap and a maduro cigar dangling from his lips as he watched the occasional car pass.
He agreed to allow me to make his portrait and after I took two shots, he asked, ”Why? Why do you want my picture?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s because you have an interesting face, the cigar and baseball cap, you have--your face is interesting to me.”
“Hmm…Why?” He asked.
“Why what?”
“Why is my face interesting to you? Why would anyone find my face interesting?” He smiled because he knew he had me and he was right.
Art to me had always been about faces and the human figure. My father, Frank Rampolla, was a well-known figurative expressionist painter who taught painting, drawing, intaglio, and art history at the University of South Florida. From an early age, I was surrounded by artwork by my father and art books with the works of Rembrandt, Ruebens, Carravagio, Goya, Davinci, Dore´ and so many others, all of whom were figurative and figurative expressionist artists. We did have some contemporary art in our home, usually from other art professors at the University, but of all the art books my parents acquired, I don’t recall any books that were of abstract or contemporary art and I studied all of them.
“I really don’t know. I never really thought about it.” I said this almost like a question. I didn’t have an answer for him and much worse, I didn’t have an answer for myself. I never asked his name, nor did I see him again but in my mind I refer to him as Socrates.
That one question rocked me in the best possible way. It opened up a space I hadn’t explored yet. Looking back, that encounter planted the seed for something that would take root much later—my journey into non-representational art and an all around deeper meaning in art. It wasn’t just about the face anymore; it was about the truth beneath it.
