Week 7

Now that I’m past the half way point, time seems to be speeding up and there suddenly doesn’t seem to be enough time in the week!

This has been a week of visitors which has been brilliant. Rups was over for a couple of days. A visit of two halves I think it’s fair to say… first 24 hours rather out of sync with each other and so full of frustrations and misunderstandings. It's probably inevitable when we only see each other every 3 weeks and are relying on phone and email to stay connected. But then the last 18 hours, back on form. We had a really good evening out in my neighbourhood, hopping from bar to bar, having a ‘vino tinto’ in each, and a nibble of something lovely. We found a brilliant bar on Calle Colon. It was dark with tiled walls, jammed with people, shelves to the ceiling full of dusty bottles and smokey old adverts. The guys at the bar wore white collarless shirts and black braces (very 1940s), and were carving jamon from huge legs with the hooves still on. To get to the other room we had to literally crawl underneath the bar on our hands and knees. I loved it!

We ended up at a jazz night at Barco. It seemed like everyone else in the place had brought an instrument and after every song the band changed composition… the saxophonist left and was replaced by a fluteist, the girl who played the bass guitar two songs before was back with her bongos, someone else came on with their violin etc. Everyone was very friendly and really getting into it.

It was a bit tantalising to have him leave just as we were getting on well again… but guess that’s the way it has to be. He’s in LA now with Izzie (his sister) for a couple of weeks so we’ve got a 10 hour time difference to try to manage too. But hopefully nothing we can’t cope with. Only 4 weeks till I’m back anyhow so I think best not to fret about it, and try to make the most of talking/emailing when we can.

On Thursday after Rups left in the morning, I had Spanish class with Feli, and then went to college for Pintura Mural, before heading back to the airport to meet Sue (my wonderful sis) and the two babies: Louis (who’s 3 and loves to tell you that fact!), and Rosie (who’s 7 months).

I still can’t really believe that they came. She decided on a bit of a whim to jump on a plane with the two little ones to come from Basel and see me in Madrid (Phil’s away with work in Bankok for the week). It was so great to see them all, and we had a really fun time. Considering we had said we’d keep it pretty low key, we managed to do masses (must be something to do with the kids waking up at 6am – poor Sue!).

Obviously we managed to sqeeze in watching Shrek, Tractor Ted and several episodes of Charlie & Lola on DVD, but also on Friday we did plenty of wandering around Malasana to the various kids playgrounds (there are so many of them – it really is very child-friendly here!). We bought croissants at the Panaderia and went to Café Commercial where we managed to cover most of the table with sticky hot chocolate. My favourite waiter was fab and as friendly as always. He’s just had his 2nd baby and nothing was too much trouble.

We tried to go to a gallery but poor little Louis was a bit frazzled and he had a bit of a tantrum about not going the way we were headed. It was fine in the end (but tough at the time – it does break your heart to see him so upset!!). Mostly it was fine because we just stopped and waited, but it was opportunely helped by a nice old Spanish man who flashed a sweet at Louis as he walked by as a temptation to come, which Louis in the end decided was a good way out of the impasse we’d reached! Smart kid.

People were most taken with the gorgeous kids (not surprising as they are adorable!) but it was funny how many people kept saying “guapo” (“gorgeous”) and wanting to stroke their cheeks. I guess the blue eyes and blond hair really stands out here. Or maybe people here are just more open with each other’s children.

We had lunch by another playground (in fact Louis ate his lunch on the slide) and then in the evening I went out to the market to buy the ingredients for one of the recipes in the cook book Rups bought me (“recipes inspired by the markets of spain”). I impressed myself by my ability to converse with all 3 stall holders that I bought from: the chicken man (yes ONLY sells chicken), the olive man, and the fruit and veg lady (from whom I managed to discover the words for ‘rosemary’, thyme and ‘mint’ which were not on display so I couldn’t use my usual pointing approach!). It tasted pretty damn good though I do say so myself! (chicken with onion, garlic, herbs, sherry (although had to substitute red wine), lemon and olives).

On Saturday we headed down to Sol, and walked up to Plaza Major. Discovered on the way a FANTASTIC ‘Articulos Religioso’ shop. Its windows full of figurines showing (kind of) biblical scenes. Most of which have a single moving part (eg: forward and back hoeing the field). There were some brilliant chickens going up and down feeding, and a rather peculiar ‘Churros’ maker with a magi-mix machine (don’t remember that particular scene in the bible… “blessed are the churros makers…for they make our breakfast?!?”). I imagine this is prime season when all the churches kit out their nativity scenes. Can’t wait to see them in situ!

After more hot chocolate for Louis in Plaza Major, we headed over to Retiro park where we watched a kids open air puppet theatre (reckon the Spanish was pretty much at my level… it seems I’m already speaking as well as a two year old which I think is a pretty good achievement in only 7 weeks!).

Following lunch and the purchase of a special push along helicopter, we went rowing on the lake. Sue was by far the better rower… but Rosie (tied to Sue’s front) didn’t much like the motion so I rowed us - mostly in circles - while Louis captained from the front.

One of the things that was so lovely about having them here was the excuse to play imaginary games all day. I loved it. Louis and I played trains on the high stools in my flat (he was the driver and we went up the mountain and down again, and then to the seaside where we climbed onto my breakfast bar and caught imaginary fish from the side of it. We spent a lot of time doing make-believe tyre changes and various mechanics on a kids seesaw motorbike in the playground. We played at being turtles in the ocean (Louis got to be the shark), and did lots of pretend fishing when in the boat – catching octopuses and jelly fish as well as scary sharks. And then we played nests on the sofa. I was the baby bird and had to lie upside down in the nest that Louis made for me out of all the cushions in the apartment and he fed me lots of imaginary things to eat. Brilliant! I love that the most important thing is to keep the game going and to be able to create a world. Logic doesn’t come into it one jot. You just have to make things seem real through words and acting stuff out, and making silly sound effects.

It was hard to wave them off. Especially when Louis (wearing his monster hat and pulling his little red Maisy Mouse suitcase) on the metro to the airport looked very glum and explained “Me not happy. Me want to stay”. We had to do more nose licking to cheer ourselves up (mine tastes of strawberry apparently, his is definitely banana).

Needless to say with so many visitors I didn’t do too much work during the week (although I like to think that acting like a three year old has to be good for one’s creativity!). Perhaps it was, as all day Sunday I spent doing some paintings, writing in my log book and taking photos. I’m not sure it’s exactly thought through work, but it felt good to be doing stuff.

The paintings are sort of memory paintings. They’re of things that I’ve seen here that I have painted from memory. They are kind of clunky. I think that maybe they’re a reaction to having to do so much work direct from life and observation – and for such long detailed poses (15 hours). It means that I’m quite interested in what one remembers about things and how unreliable that is. I guess it’s like I was saying about lostness last week – noticing details is an inconsistent thing.

I’ve been trying to paint the Virgin Mary altar piece that I saw in the church during the Bach concert a few weeks ago. I have the image of it very vividly in my mind, and yet trying to recreate it without something in front of you is difficult.

I think it’s because you don’t remember all of the elements equally. So for example, I seem to remember quite vividly the pattern on her dress and the light on her halo, but have no sense of her face at all. It makes for a peculiar painting because different parts have different amounts of detail. But then maybe that’s more true to the experience of life. Some parts are rich and full of texture, and others pass in a blur. That’s why things like maps are an odd way of representing space. They are so uniform and consistent which isn’t how one experiences a place at all.

I think that the idea of experiential art is an interesting one. By that I mean people like Francis Alys (his work keeps bugging me and I can’t leave it alone). Like Richard Long, the work is really an action which is then documented. Like him I’ve been making patterns from maps of Madrid (patterns based on the suburbs of the city). I think that perhaps they’ll form walks, in which I’ll discover or collect things. It’s odd marking routes on the maps of places that you don’t know. I can’t help but imagine what the place will be like and use all sorts of instinctive ways of planning the walk. For example street names become important to give a picture in your mind of what a place might be like (even though I know they are usually chosen so arbitrarily). Without knowing anything about these places, I already have quite a strong idea in my mind about what they will be like. I almost don’t want to go, as I know that my picture will be instantly erased when I’m actually there.

Emma and I have been talking about souvenirs and photographs and why one feels the need to make memories tangible. I know that I have quite a mania for collecting evidence of my experiences. I love to take photos (especially with me in them!!) to somehow ‘prove’ that I was there. And I always keep the tickets and leaflets and flyers of places that I go (even in London). This blog is a classic example of how I need to give my experiences some kind of form. Maybe it’s about sharing the experience. Perhaps it doesn’t feel real unless it’s acknowledged by someone else. Or possibly I doubt my ability to remember accurately, and believe that I need triggers to hold onto an experience in my mind. Yet there is not reason why today’s recollection would be more reliable (or ‘true’) than the memory I’ll have in 10 years time.

Inspired by our Pintura Mural class, and a conversation Rups and I had about graffiti, I went out for a couple of hours to photograph the streets near where I live. Sunday afternoon is a great time for it, as all the shops are closed and so the shutters are down showcasing some really impressive work.

It’s an interesting spectrum from grubby, messy tagging with pens, to big bold visual grafitti, to independently commissioned (or permission granted) street art, through to corporations appropriating street art and turning it into advertising.

Interestingly I find either end of the spectrum annoying, but love the middle territories (huge value judgements inherent there!).

The messy tagging is interesting. There is MASSES of it, and it is very intrusive. And yet, although visually it’s not attractive, I am intrigued by two aspects of it. Firstly the need that it reflects. Why do people feel they have to make their mark on public space? Is it anger at being disenfranchised? Is it a marking of territory to give you a bigger sense of yourself? Is it leaving a souvenir of your having been here (like my photos are)?

And then I like the fact that it’s not stopped. I love the fact that there’s no CCTV in Madrid. That despite all the controlling elements of this culture, there is also a sense that public space is really public (which we don’t have in the UK). Perhaps it's because people spend so much time out of doors, walking around in the evenings, that people do feel that the streets belong to them. There is something very liberal about allowing (or at least putting up with) the tagging. Perhaps here no-one really owns the outside walls of buildings. Something I don’t think we share in the UK where graffiti is seen as destruction of private property, and therefore a crime. Although if you think about it, it doesn't actually take away any of the building's space it just adds a layer - taking from the air space around building.

At the other extreme I find myself angry at the sanitised, corporate use of graffiti for advertising (trying to borrow some cudos of the 'cool' area which the big brands are targeting). And yet why should it be OK for a small independent shop to hire an artist to paint their shop front (it’s charmingly unique!) and not a big business? Likewise why should I love the old Farmacia covered in patterned tiles advertising products from the turn of the century, and hate the slogans in the Sfera mural? Surely advertising is advertising? Or maybe not…

So as you can see my work is not really following a specific theme but developing in a number of directions. Emma and I have agreed to write our wish-list of all the things we want to do in our last few weeks in Madrid. To be honest I think that’s the best way to continue. Get stuck into as much as I can while I'm here, and absorb as much as I can from this experience and digest it when I get home at Christmas. Suck the marrow now, and sort out the bones later.