Herbert Martinez-Montes remembers a time before the civil war in El Salvador. He grew up there in a small place surrounded by jungle. “When I was getting schooling, it was nice in my country.” He was still a boy when the military came, and he lost his father. The soldiers moved his family to the mountains. “They killed you if you didn’t go.”
“But I escaped — three times.” The third time he left El Salvador, hitchhiking and hopping trains into Mexico and, eventually, the United States. He’s been here 23 years.
Herbert found work doing landscaping in Seattle. He was a passionate soccer player and a regular bicycle rider. He was on his bike in Wallingford when a car going about 45 mph struck him. Although he didn’t suffer any broken bones, he says, “I couldn’t work. I got a pain right here in my back. I can’t lift
30 pounds, and I can’t ride a bicycle fast. I can’t play soccer.”
Before the accident he painted just for his own pleasure. “But now I need it, since I don’t have a job. With the money I make with Real Change, I buy my paints and my frames.” A customer helped him get started, giving him advice on brushes. But his images were his own.
“I put my culture in it. I got a pain in my soul, and this is it coming out.” The paintings draw on landscapes from his boyhood, as well as archetypes from his Mayan culture — jaguars, eagles, pyramids and the sun, among others.
The painting “Life after 2012” shows Herbert’s conception of how the world will change when the current Mayan era comes to an end this year. It’s not a forecast of doom. Instead, the painting shows a pyramid illuminated by the sun, surrounded by trees, flowers and an eagle. “Life is going to come back.”
His mother rejected Mayan culture because she saw it as un-Christian, so Herbert grew up reading the Bible. “My mama said, ‘That isn’t our belief,’ and I said, ‘I know, but it’s our culture. It’s the sun, the moon, the spirits, the plants.’ ”
Herbert thinks about visiting El Salvador, but he doesn’t want to live there. “All my family’s there, but there’s still a lot of stuff going on.” After 23 years, his life is in the u.s. “I want to do this more and more. I want to paint all the rest of my life.”
In the summer, Herbert sells his paintings — and Real Change — across from Whole Foods on ne Sixty-fourth Street., near Roosevelt. “In the winter I sell out of my van, in gift shops, in parks.” He has about 200 paintings in his van. “I wish I had a place to live. I can’t sleep in my van. It’s too full.”