By Mary Damiano

	Jay Lonewolf Morales with one of his paintings Photo: Henry Perez

Most people agree that artists see the world differently from others.  In the case of Jay Lonewolf Morales, it’s really true.

Morales’s family got the sign that young Jay saw things differently when his grandfather, a painter, took the boy to the park to paint.  Morales says he followed his grandfather stroke for stroke, in an attempt to duplicate the landscape on canvas.  But his grandfather noticed that Morales was not using the same colors.  A trip to the doctor gave them the diagnosis.

“Society calls it an affliction,” Morales says.  “I call it seeing the world differently.”

	Surrounded by Art: Morales dreams big, therefore, his art is big

Morales’s family believed in his talent and sent him to study art at a school for the gifted.  One day he came home from school with a note taped to his forehead.  The note read, “We cannot teach the ignorant.”  Morales’s mother was understandably enraged and accompanied her son to school to visit his teacher.  She explained about her son’s condition and told the teacher that he had never seen the color of his own eyes.  Morales recalls that his mother and the teacher wept, and he still gets choked up when he recalls the incident.  He’s never forgotten the taunting he received as a child.

“When kids around me found out, they were vicious,” he says.  “I kept it all bottled up inside.  Now I use that when I paint. Now I don’t get chastised, I get complimented.”

The Morales Method of Painting
Morales’s vision difficulties include sensitivity to light.  He used to paint in darkness, but read in a book that when the artist Goya was going blind, he painted by candlelight. Morales tried it, and he’s been painting by candlelight ever since.

“In the beginning, all I was doing was black and white,” Morales says.  “I felt that I needed to explore more.  Eventually I created a system that integrated movement.  What you call color, I call movement.”

Morales has a special process of working.  He sets up his easel to his side, the candles nearby, with his palette of paints behind him.  He sets up fans 15 feet from candles.  The way the fan affects the candle’s flame creates movement on his canvas.  He reaches for the paints randomly, never knowing what color will end up in the piece.

“It flickers in a most exquisite way,” Morales says.  “It’s like a river flowing with a dream dancing on the canvas.  I rush for the paints to get it on the canvas.”

Morales believes his fingers can see the paints.  He experiences a moment of clarity with each painting.

	An art lover uses a magnifying glass to take a closer look at a Morales painting

“In the midst of my painting I choke, like an emotional gasp,” he says.  “That’s when I subconsciously reach for paints.  I never have a clue as to what I’m painting until I’m done.”

Morales says his paintings are the manifestation of his subconscious mind.

“I only paint dreams,” he says.  “I don’t paint waking moments.”

Paintings tend to be big, Morales says, because he dreams big.

“When I paint I have no plan; my dreams give me the landscape,” he says.  “It’s like a barrage of sudden kisses in the wind. I feed off my dreams.”

Morales says he often cries when he paints, because it is such an outlet for his emotions.  He eschews those who think real men shouldn’t be so emotional. 

“If you’re a real man, you can display both the alpha and omega,” he says.

Getting in Touch with Art
Morales says that his colleagues in art disagree with one of his more radical concepts: He encourages people to touch his work.

“Other artists say I’m crazy,” he says.

In addition to the vivid colors, Morales makes his painting textural, using wax and compound materials to give his work a tactile quality. 

“To me, that texture represents the roadmaps of my soul, the journey I’ve taken,” Morales says.

	The artist with his work

He often brings magnifying glasses to exhibitions so that guests can get an up close and personal artistic experience.  While some people are hesitant, he tells them, “If you touch my work you’ll touch my soul,” leading some people to hug his paintings, which delights him.

In one painting, Mystic Totem, Morales wrote a poem in Braille so people who are blind can touch the painting and read the poem.

“The blind should not be excluded from art,” he says. 

An Overnight Success, a Lifetime in the Making
Although Morales has been creating art since he was very young, he’s currently experiencing a flurry of interest in his work.

His work was recently a part of the September Gallery Walk in Wynwood, as well as a show at a gallery in Coral Gables.  He was featured this past summer in Key Biscayne magazine.  Some of his most textural pieces are scheduled for exhibition at the Miami Children’s Museum October 19 and 20.  Both Telemundo and Univision have visited his studio to film him painting.  He recently saw one of his paintings sell at a fundraising auction for more than $20,000.  That particular painting, Morales says, took him eight minutes to complete.  A Morales painting called Jerusalem by a Thread will be auctioned off Saturday, September 29, at the 4th Annual Be a Kid Again Gala: Tropical Twenties on Watson Island, to benefit the Miami Children’s Museum. The painting was recently appraised at $60,000.

He showed his work back in the 1970s through the mid-80s, but had certain reservations regarding his art.

“I didn’t value what I did because I thought everyone thought I was a circus freak,” Morales says.

	Encouraged by the artist, a woman touches one of Morales’s paintings at a recent show

Then one day nearly 20 years ago, Morales stopped painting, putting down his brushes because he felt he had nothing to say.  Morales’s depression was such that he even contemplated suicide.  He says he heard the words of a nun he knew from childhood, Sister Patty, who had told him, “Those teases become homages.” Her words pulled him through, and stopped him from taking his life.  His first painting almost 20 years later was of him and Sister Patty, and sold for thousands of dollars.

When he wasn’t supporting himself with his art, Morales worked as a writer and a martial arts instructor.  He’s a 6^th degree black belt.  Morales describes himself as a bookworm who loves to write, and says his personal library contains more than 1,200 books on art.  He also has a portfolio of more than 1,200 poems he’s written over 30 years.

“Being able to transmit your soul through your fingertips is one thing, but your words have to go hand in hand,” he says.

He’s also made a commitment to help those less fortunate than himself.  He wears two bracelets to remind him of his humility and of his commitment to the poor.

“They’re crimped onto my wrists for the rest of my life,” Morales says.  “They’re my eternal promise to the poor.”

Morales believes in the role of the starving artist.  When he moved from his native New York to South Florida, he nixed the idea of living among the glamour and glitz of Miami Beach.  He prefers humble surroundings to be reminded of those less fortunate.

He fights the commercialism of the art world unless it will help him accomplish his more altruistic goals.

“My message is clear,” says Morales.  “I want to sell work at Art Basel so I can take half the money and help the poor.”

Legacy
Morales says that he doesn’t want to be known as the colorblind painter, he’d like his art to speak for itself.  His vision, he insists, has caused only minor inconveniences in his everyday life.  In some states he can drive, but when Florida gave him a hard time about obtaining a drivers license, he didn’t fight it.

“I have a good driving record,” he says.  “It seems to me that cell phones are more of a danger to the public than I am.”

And the man who has never seen the color of his own eyes is most often asked this question: If he could see just one color, what would it be?  For Morales, the answer is easy.