News

My hair was falling out at an alarming rate a month or so ago, but It seems to have stopped.

My jam-making has come to a stand-still.

My little computer was taken violently ill on Friday. We took her to computer hospital where she was admitted by a computer doctor with a suitably appalling bedside manner. (I know it's a sweeping generalisation, but you don't want your IT guy to be charming, do you? Social ineptitude can be a good sign in these guys...) I wanted to sleep there next to her in a fold out chair/cot, but Salva convinced me it would be better to stay strong and wait for the news. It turns out it's like macbook appendicitis, you know, dangerous but accute, has to be caught in time. She's coming home on Friday.*



This week I was able for the first time, since moving here, to put up a themed exhibition.

It's great! At least, I think it is. It's been up since Sunday evening but I havn't seen it yet. Does that seem strange? I took them in on Sunday evening and the organization man seemed to take his curating fairly seriously.. He sent me on my way and I have yet to return.

I was going to go tonight, but by the time I finished working I emerged into the type of fog that should only surface in those films set in Chicago where everyone wears hats and says "the cats pyjamas". In a land where red wine was against the law, the fog added to the hellish atmosphere, and it does here too...

Anyway. I've heard the exhibition is good. Salva called on my behalf last night and was told that there have been positive comments, and my face was spreading with smile while I tried to remain cool. I'm "opening" it on Friday night, so hopefully I'll have perfected the raised eyebrow, sophisticated "thankyou" down by then. Maybe I'll get a photo of me doing it.

My best friend came over for the weekend. We had one night of home-made Panzarotti that finished with a spontaneous performance in the Italian restaurant downstairs. The other was a tapas crawl. There was time for a few coffee dates and long catching-up chats in between. And it was lovely. I really need friends.

During the car trip home from Madrid a week earlier, I spilled to Salva about how I am feeling this now. I've always been the type of person to have few close friends, but keep them very close. In the last 5 years I've lived in Siena, Bologna, Melbourne,and even England for a time. It's always been the same. I go for quality over quantity when it comes to friendships, which although I am always with my partner, leaves me a little lonely, because sometimes you want to talk about the same thing again and again but you can't do that with the same person (it's like re-telling a joke, or worse, explaining it)...

Maybe I should stop being such a friendship snob. (blogpost interrupted by call from Mum, who agrees.)

In other news, We are going to Dublin for the weekend, and I'm enrolling in an online Masters of Fine Arts.

That's it for now.




*The hospital comparison got me a laugh from a Spaniard (difficult) the other day...just re-working it here.

Anti-Climax

I've been trying to make an exhibition happen ever since I came to live here in Valladolid, and since then I've gone into my studio just about every morning and made something.
Some of it is stupid and some of it is good. Now I have enough good stuff to frame and put on some walls for three weeks.

I really wanted to have a great party, and I even invited my best friend to come over from London for the weekend of the opening, but I had to shift the dates and he is now coming the weekend before the opening. A minor detail, but the first in a list of things that have gone wrong, making me really disappointed about what was supposed to be my event. I might feel better about this if there were more opportunities to exhibit here, but there are not. It's a small city and the art scene is dwindling.

...Oh Well...

On a more positive note, here is a moment I caught between Salva, his friend Kique and one of Kique's new twins, Luisa. (You think I should try to sell it to a gay adoption agency?) Seriously, though... we don't have to joke about everything...



I actually think it has captured a bit of softness here as S considers this little one. Had the subjects been women it might have still been nice, but it's the contrast that makes it. Here is a rare, breath-taking kind of moment rarely seen between men. Quite precious.

May your hands always be busy...

Joan singing Bob.

...

Today I bought some red carnations for 3 euros at the supermarket. I was feeling good about the purchase until 3 people mentioned on separate occasions that carnations were their mother's favourites. And they were not the type to have young, hip flower-loving mothers. I don't really know my european flowers, but I get a sinking feeling that carnations are a bit, well, daggy.

But these are red and lovely.

Today I also framed this. It's one of my favourites in the whole wide world.

Belgium Again

Last time I said Belgium was the land of beer and bikes, this time it's more like bellies and breast-feeding. Seriously, everyone we know there is expecting a baby or has recently had at least one. It's the capital of the european union.... and reproduction.

The reason for the trip is hard to explain, (not least because it would involve the explanation of my partner's PHD research, and believe me, you don't want to hear that from me).

But let me say this:

There were clowns, musicians, and dancers. Professional and amateur entertainers who were so passionate about their belonging to this project.

There was a wild dancing fairy dressed in red and glitter, and an angular, slow-moving Scandanavian angel with a blunt fringe and enormous white feathered wings, who bent down to speak to most people, cupping her hand over her mouth and whispering into their ears.



There were children painting T-shirts with the project's logo in one corner, and learning to walk along a tight-rope in another.

A documentary about the healing in South Africa as a result of this project.





and me, hanging back feverishly, smiling, observing, documenting.

Today

The fireplace and the smell of cold
Re-sewing buttons
Jazz Blaring
Getting a parking fine (but avoiding that the car is towed away. This is positive.)
Spaghetti for lunch
Packing a suitcase, cos' we're going back here

Hope this weekend is merry for all...

Le Tue Mani

means Your Hands.

It's Cold

When I lived with my cousin in Melbourne, we would celebrate the beginning of each new season by listing the things we loved about that particular one on a chalkboard. (all seasons included cinnamon for reasons unexplained, and sex, for reasons that don't need explaining. Sometimes we couldn't think of enough season specific things to fill the chalkboard).

This is quite a common thing to do, I'm not claiming any kind of originality at all here. I see this on blogs all the time, in magazines, and just everywhere.

This is the kind of thing people really usually only do for autumn and winter though, have you noticed? -I get that. This is because that's when we need the most convincing. After living with real seasons* for the last few years, I've noticed that real seasons means that summer is everybody's friend. Everybody greets summer with open, pasty, (but finally bare) arms.

It's when it starts to cool off that I notice people start listing.

"Falling Leaves, Soup...Crusty bread...Woollen Socks...Mick Malthouse...Oh God please help me through to September/April**". I too am trying to be positive, but the truth is that all I can think about is how much I hate feeling cold, and this is only just the beginning.

While I was complaining once that a Melbourne summer was coming to an end, my friend Israel said, in a yeah-well-that's-life kind of tone, that summer and spring are for being inspired, and autumn is for being creative.

To me it seems like summer is for doing, and autumn is for thinking about it.

In Morocco one day, we were flustered and feeling out of control, we both missed our brushes/instruments and Salva put it down to feeling uncomfortable with a life solely lived, and not reflected on. We were missing our creative time, which I guess is, as Israel says, Autumn.

But in Morocco the days rolled by slowly, one at a time and a few weeks felt like months. Now somebody has gone and sped everything up.

Summer was a whirlwind of food, beaches, driving, selling, maps, and Morrocco. Now the vibe at home is pure business. Emails and photographs and event organising.

Here is the latest piece I did for MiradaSonoras.


There is another one of mine too that you can see on their blog.

I'm working on more, and an exhibition in mid-November. So I'm being autumnal, and talking myself into liking it.




*Real seasons, now, means a difference of at least 25ªc between Summer and Winter. You win, Melbourne. You too, Bologna, London, and Valladolid. Northern NSW, and Southern California, you do not fit into this category.
**Depends on your hemisphere, obviously.

Autumn

Red Wine.
Art Galleries.
Apple Pie.
Scarves.
Soup.
Walking/Bike Riding.
Staying in.
Going out.
Festivals.
Pasta From Scratch.
Collecting wood.
Lighting the fire. (soon).
The Library.
Hats.
Home.

The World Through a Pair of Vintage-Coloured Glasses