Friday 31 May 2013

Purpose. Freer. Adrift.

Made a mold of the most recent sculptures, Dos Cojones and Travel. Rubber went on on thursday and jackets friday by lunchtime, not very big molds but there was purpose. No procrastination. I just got in, did it, cleared up, mopped and out again.

Usually I am sick bored by mold making and I take forever but I don't seem to here. I knew I hated it so I just got it done. When I work here its done quicker, you start and you get to the end. Ideas like Travel seem to pop out and I can take tentative steps out of boundaries. Not carefree but it is freer. It's not playing but it maybe less restricted, more adrift.

Maybe its not the freedom, its the intensity of being adrift, you make sculpture quickly like clutching at rafts that go by to stabilize yourself, at home you feel safe on your container ship of stuff. Of phone calls and business. Of the studio, the shelves, the boxes hidden in cupboards stuffed with separation anxiety, of memories of girls gone, me's of yesteryear in angst written dairies held onto for what? for comfort, for having been there, for marking a page.

Am I not me, now, here. Not the angst girl of 16 in the dairy, do I need to know her, I dont really remember her, she is not me now, so much has happened since I was her, she is no longer, can I go home and throw her away so my little boat remains smaller, more agile, more adventurous.

Here I have 11 boxes, 6 buckets, 4 plinths, 2 tables and 2 easels and a trolly. A van with four wheels to put it all in. Not forgetting my gorgeous boyfriend and sometimes faithful dog. With these I am who I am now and it can be just as much.





Love is....... seeing your boyfriends shirts hanging out of your balcony window when you return home from work.



my little boat person being cast



Wednesday 29 May 2013

Walk to work, wednesday

Took Molly to work today which means a 4 hour walk ( 2 hours each way ), well its supposed to be 11/4 hours acording to google but I either get distracted by taking pictures or veering by parks for Molly or I get completely lost. This time distracted on the way there and then lost on the way back, it seems my inside compass has interference in Barcelona, especially around Sant Antoni, I seem to find myself in circles, fine on a bike but after three hours walking it gets a little frustrating. Graham says its my inner girl coming out which makes me even more mad!


Molly waiting to go, watching the street from the balcony.

 Morning light




Molly having a quite moment to herself...sorry Molly


potential painting







another absolutely terrible barcelona sculpture, I am afraid the sculpture is considerably lacking here. Not in attempt but in execution. I wonder wether people notice the difference between this sort of work and mine, make s me think I dont like figurative art as there is so little of it I like, and def none here!



pop out the top of espania with thingy in the bacground



Friday 24 May 2013

Two Balls... Dos Cojones



"Cojones is a Spanish word for denoting courage when used in the phrase "tener cojones" (equivalent to English "have the balls to") or testicles. It is considered a curse word when used by itself as an expletive in Spanish. In English, as a loanword, it means courage, brazenness, "nerve", "guts", etc."

I started out with the intention of making the piece called Dos Cojones as I always heard it as meaning big balls which I now know to be "grandes cojones' which doesn't sound as good as Big Balls. Anyway the piece is about what people said then ( what ever it was ) in Los Lobos when men jumped off rocks to surf in shallow water above scratchy volcanic rock, think there were boulders as well but cant see in these vids



So, in a long about way I dont know what to call it now

Cojones ( which would be rude here )( I think )
or 
Two Balls






I like the fact they are boules ( a man's game here ) as I wanted....want to paint them playing at some point.








note to self....people laugh in the same language

Rocío Molina

For someone who makes a performance over things, is prone to being dramatic, making things complex when really they could be taken lightly, flamenco is right up my alley.

For a northern european it seems strange to have such a gut reaction to it, but I always have, and the flamenco festival was one of the highlights of this trip I was looking forward to. We have been to one tourist flamenco place which was brilliant and small and hot and sweaty, young performers use it apparently.

This woman was another thing altogether.

She was 'woman' at her very finest.

She was stunningly tense, powerful, beautiful, sexy, precise, sensitive, accurate, delicate, poised, spoilt, tempestuous, shocking, clever ; a wild spinning magnificence. Sometimes a bull, sometimes a snake. She was like a musical instrument that could move. The four of them together made unbelievably complicated rhythms of stamping, slapping, clapping, clicking fingers and guitars and the singing was so full of pain and strong and loud.


ROCIO MOLINA, dance 
EDUARDO TRASSIERRA, guitar 
JOSE ANGEL CARMONA, “CARMONA”, singing and mandola 
JOSE MANUEL RAMOS “EL ORUCO”, handing clap and beat 


The whole performance was so tense I had to concentrate to relax.

You can see a bit here but it doesnt give their presence, the noise they made was so much part of it which doesn't seem to get across. To me it had so much more than any other dance I have seen as it seemed so full somehow. And, real, in a way. Obviously hours and hours of practice and experimentation but it less formal somehow, I will think this through a bit more as I am out of my knowledge base, obviously there are formal elements....any way here is some info

http://mercatflors.cat/en/espectacle/danzaora/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V7u2HffQAE&feature=player_embedded

http://www.rociomolina.net/the-telegraph-critica-de-rocio-molina-en-sadler´s-wells/?lang=en

http://www.rociomolina.net/


Thursday 23 May 2013

Breakfast on the beach

OMG ( sorry had to write it ) just had an amazing journey to work this morning. Checked out the new apartment ( for last 2 months aug,sept ) its in Barceloneta and I just wanted to make sure we can take Molly for walks etc, there is a nice park which first thing in the morning is really lovely and if we got up really early, a run along the beach or a swim in the sunrise might be an amazing way to start the day me thinks!
couldnt resist a coffee on the beach and then a practice cycle from there to work, all along the marina. Watched about 6 competition sailing boats circle waiting for the bridge to change, beautifull shapes and amazing to watch after making my little boat yesterday. You could imagine the day they would have out on the water, a big crew,  big sales and the hull cutting through the water, it looks like a very sleek sharp axe......terrifying!




Molly's new morning park, we are still round the corner from cuitadela park though for longer walks, and of course there is all that jogging down the beach we will be doing in the mornings!


 Outside the flat


Having a coffee a stones throw from the flat, about 8-9am ish people are swimming already, a good sign! Cant believe the massage touting people start so early, they even asked this comatosed man if he wanted one, v funny.



then cycling to work



think barcelona have won something....prob should remember what it is, will ask Graham!


Wednesday 22 May 2013

Travel

Playing with my clay, alone in the studio quietly expressing my anxieties I realize the possible simple answer to my wrangling and upset over the past few days. And why, when I decided not to paint for a while, I felt a sense of ease. Like a strong plunge of colour dispersing as it filtered through. Like strong red tea in clear hot water, a puncture of the hot surface and in, the colour seeps, curls, drifts, creeps round the glass and finally disperses changing the liquid completely, into something delicious.

Sculpture, my clay, is the way I communicate with the world, in painting I was speaking in a language I knew nothing about, no wonder I was feeling so dumb.


'Travel'





 







Tuesday 21 May 2013

JJ Cale

Since cambridge and my attempt at a foundation course, since ploughing the fields as a summer job in hampshire; there has been one constant man in my life. A calming influence that glides over the ruts in the road, slides through the days turning them silky warm and sunny.

Went back to him today after my turbulent days of painting, back to JJ Cale* and I also returned to my clay. Maybe yes, out of cowardice but also to enjoy life.

as the man says

aint no shame in trying
aint no use denying
everything will be alright


I am adrift when I am painting; in Barcelona I am just too much adrift already. I am bobbing about and I want to enjoy it. Take away home, friends, family and language and then change my work as well is maybe too far from the shore for me to feel ok.

With my sculpture my raft is large, I can enjoy the turbulence, lie back in the sun and feel the movement beneath, not care if I go into deep water, just think its funny and exciting.

So bye bye to the rotten vegetable shop ( we keep missing the market ) with the flies, bye bye dark peaches and wriggly peppers, I am gong back to the flying girls of my imagination.

It could be lack of cojones but I am not worried, I will try again later, just thinking of it makes me feel light again. I had put so much pressure on myself to be Rembrandt in a few days and I only had this chance here to do it, now, it was wearing me out. Like Chesil beach with its slippery pebbles, weighed down by heavy diving gear, in shallow water so the weights weren't carried by the free deep sea, crawling on all fours trying to extract myself from the cold foggy water as each wave pulled me back under. Half drowning in shallow water. Quite the beach babe I seem to remember.

I send Graham a link on spotify of a 'sensitive kind'  as a way of an apology for being such a nightmare these past few days. He said we knew it was coming, the transition from holiday to living, the come down from the excitement of all the work to get here and getting here, the moving to the bedsit in the dark streets from the lovely apartment with the sunny terrace of opera.

But I am going back to holiday, to being a tourist, to seeing the world in it's best shiniest light. I remember thinking this living in London part time, I think its the best way to see things, just remain a tourist so you remember to enjoy things, see them for the first time. Do the nice things as well as the work. I am going back to being a guiri* and to bobbing around on my big raft of sculpture.









Think this is pretty much finished now after leaving it a while, I couldn't decide about the hands before wether they should be flat on her legs like the swimmer sculptures ( it sort of makes them point forward more ) but I like the idea of the hands making her look like an insect more. I also couldn't decide wether to fill her wings in, I have wanted to do fragment sculptures for ages so this is a part way to that I guess ( and I can always fill them in later in wax ) and I like the idea that

she has put on her wings and her flying hat but it is futile,
she cant fly.

( if thats too sad I can fill them in )

she can fly in her head?!

John Terry's comments


I love your 'bug', poor girl with great holes in her wings -but she will fly despite or because of them - it's how we use our faults that defines us. No room for ego - which is a lead balloon.









* not what he looks like mind, just his voice and his music!

* ironically a teenager shouted guirri at me as I cycled along on the way home, I was completely fully dressed, I am not burnt, I was not wearing flipflops, I was not looking at a map on a street corner, I was not lost! Maybe the little cow bag was just reminding me of my place here!

apologies for the cheesy water analogy, it must be the sea getting in, its a bit much this time but I cant help it!

Monday 20 May 2013

Poblo nou party

Left home about 10 ish to go to studio party in pablo nou, biked pass the willy building and the design center was open as it was galleries open all night night. Part of the studio mezznine was held up by shelving, if I ever worry about mine I can think of these tiny ones holding up about five studios. It reminded me of the sculpture shed a bit apart from the performance parts, we didn't tend to put a square marked out by red tape, get naked and rythe to music, well not the naked bit anyway!

















Saturday 18 May 2013

Open studios Poble Nou

Lots of big empty looking buildings, wandering round looking for studios, slight reluctance to get in the lifts, avoiding a big black cloud, Graham practicing spanish, property speculations!





 This lady does art and supper club







Nothing open, well nothing there so head to the beach for a tourist lunch mistake



The black cloud represents my lunch!


Slightly feeling sick head back for more studio action, the graff sign person is out here too, go to really nice couple with live work. She does enamil jewelry and he paints lots of faces and collages out of fag buts, below is a detail of one of his paintings.




Graham chatting in Spanish...!





Go to amazing lithography studio where they are using a road tarmac roller to make some prints, met a guy who was similar to Martyn Grimmer, had amazing place, huge with a sort of flat at the back for visiting artists. Was chatting to him so forgot to take photos.

Then a slightly deranged place next











more chelsea like building action, really like the area, really open wide streets and loads and loads of industrial buildings, worked out where the shopping trolly people take there stuff. There is a like a gap in between here and the Rambla de poble nou, really exciting places if you could get hold of one but you might be a bit out on your own at night...spooky.