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My Kitchen Table: Sketches from My Life
Pilar Pobil was born on the island of Mallorca, off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, and it was there that she first learned to love the colors that suffuse her art. The tales contained here are those she later related to her own children around the kitchen table; many of them describe her childhood and young adulthood in Mallorca, filled with mystery and excitement, privilege and deprivation, and always a fierce will to face life on her own terms.
Other stories describe her meeting in Mallorca with the Utah man who would become her husband, her journey to a faraway country, the birth of her children, and her discovery of her artistic impulses and abilities. All are woven with the threads of color and culture of her two homes. Filled with wit and insight, My Kitchen Table reveals foremost the voice of a woman determined to be true to herself and to her art.
Accompanying the narrative are some fifty color reproductions of the paintings and sculptures for which Pilar Pobil has become known. This is a volume that art lovers everywhere will treasure.
"Like her paintings, Pilar’s stories overflow their pages. They fold us into their embrace, so we feel and see her dancing in and out of our minds, a curious and mischievous child, a young woman in love coming to a foreign land with a foreign culture and tongue, the heartbreak of her losses, and the continual renewals that have ripened her art. Pilar’s book, like her house, is a magic kingdom and she is the fairy princess who presides. She paints her shoes for social engagements. The seats of her chairs beam faces. Her electrical wiring metamorphoses into fantastic snakes. The garden that leads to her studio is Salt Lake City’s Giverny. Paintings are everywhere and talk to each other with glittering non sequiturs. At the center of it all is her kitchen table, the place from which she serves the voices and visions of her life. The subtleties of her telling, like the bold clarity of her judgments, are those of an artist whose inspirations are a feast she graciously invites us to share."
— from the Foreword by Robert D. Newman, Dean of the College of Humanities, University of Utah
A finalist for the Utah Book Award in Nonfiction.
Other stories describe her meeting in Mallorca with the Utah man who would become her husband, her journey to a faraway country, the birth of her children, and her discovery of her artistic impulses and abilities. All are woven with the threads of color and culture of her two homes. Filled with wit and insight, My Kitchen Table reveals foremost the voice of a woman determined to be true to herself and to her art.
Accompanying the narrative are some fifty color reproductions of the paintings and sculptures for which Pilar Pobil has become known. This is a volume that art lovers everywhere will treasure.
"Like her paintings, Pilar’s stories overflow their pages. They fold us into their embrace, so we feel and see her dancing in and out of our minds, a curious and mischievous child, a young woman in love coming to a foreign land with a foreign culture and tongue, the heartbreak of her losses, and the continual renewals that have ripened her art. Pilar’s book, like her house, is a magic kingdom and she is the fairy princess who presides. She paints her shoes for social engagements. The seats of her chairs beam faces. Her electrical wiring metamorphoses into fantastic snakes. The garden that leads to her studio is Salt Lake City’s Giverny. Paintings are everywhere and talk to each other with glittering non sequiturs. At the center of it all is her kitchen table, the place from which she serves the voices and visions of her life. The subtleties of her telling, like the bold clarity of her judgments, are those of an artist whose inspirations are a feast she graciously invites us to share."
— from the Foreword by Robert D. Newman, Dean of the College of Humanities, University of Utah
A finalist for the Utah Book Award in Nonfiction.
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 29, 2025
This book is horribly marketed as a coffee table book of an old woman's charming stories and paintings. Its cover, while a good painting by Pilar, is too pedestrian for such an energetic, catty book about aristocratic life in the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War and fascist Spain, as well as the bougiest Mormon circles of Salt Lake City. There are moments when I was heartbroken for girl Pilar, breaking out into laughter at her pettiness, and then forgivingly embarrassed for some of the classist attitudes in the book. Pilar is genuinely so charming I don't mind the white upper class perspective no amounts of self awareness and education can entirely undo, even when it's positively socially flawed for today's era, which happens occasionally but not too unforgivably. The book is marked by truly monumental encounters with historic figures, as well as feminist determination necessary for any independent woman of this era. It was such a pleasure to read. 4.5/5
May 22, 2017
I recently met Pilar at an art showing and, of course, was immediately charmed. Pilar's book makes it clear that she was as amazing then as she is now. A good read for anyone who has met Pilar or enjoyed her art.
November 10, 2012
Reading this book was just like hearing all the old family stories from an adored Grandmother. Pilar Pobil is a local artist who lives in my neighborhood, but she grew up on the island of Mallorca, a descendant of the island's aristocracy. Her father, an admiral in the army was executed during the Spanish Civil War, and she later had family ties through marriage to the brother of General Franco, the dictator. Also interspersed are stories of a great-grandmother who climbed out of her casket after the funeral, Pilar's innocent assumption until age 19 that babies were conceived through the navel (!), and after moving to SLC, having a mentally ill neighbor who threatened to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Believe me, these are just snippets, but the whole book is a joy to read, start to finish, and the 50 art reproductions are stunning!
September 24, 2012
So fun to read the stories behind the artist. I had the pleasure of meeting Pilar and participating in her workshop through the Utah Arts Festival and she is such a sweet woman. But after reading her book I realize that she is a very spirited woman too.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews