CAN Farrera, the end

Today our stay here at the centre d'art i natura has come to an end. Three weeks went by faster as imagined but I accomplished a lot of work that I'm very happy with. I'm sure that I will be working from the images found here for a long time to come.
Being in this part of Europe was such a happy reconnection with my former life, when I spent so many vacations in France, Spain, Portugal or Italy. The pace of life, the old, old villages and towns, the smells, the food....
Tomorrow it's goodbye here and on to Barcelona!
Here some pictures of the center d'art i natura as well as the amazing surroundings and views.
It's been a wonderful time and I can recommend this artist residency to anyone who loves nature and is not afraid to be in a remote place, away from stores, television etc. Visit CAN for more information.

Farrera, part 2

The full three weeks we have as an artist residency are progressing rapidly. As always, first you feel like you have a sea od time and then, before you know it the last week is on its way and the end of all this beauty, quiet solitude, flowing inspiration comes in sight.
First of all some photo's to illustrate the beauty of this place, if you look at the one with the church (from around 1600) we are in the building at the right side of it. It looks small but going downstairs it unfolds into a wide building that houses a double studio, an apartment with 3 bedrooms, kitchen and bath and downstairs a communal dining room where the most delicious meals are being served by Cesca, another large studio and a patio. The views are beyond believe and description, the one with the moon, taken early morning after full moon, is the view from my balcony.
The weather is still warm and nice, no jackets are required, on the roadside we find plenty of blackberries, the biggest mulberries I have ever seen and tasted and an abundance of bright orange rose hips. I can only imagine how these bushes will look and smell in May, reason to come back in another season.

I may have mentioned in my last blog that I initially started to work with the landscape - however, as I'm painting in acrylics here and on small panels, whatever I wanted to express did not come out. A day of contemplation was needed and after that I repainted the panels I did and used the remaining ones to create a series of small abstracts that symbolize Spain to me.
It's revisiting the Spain of Tapies, Picasso and Rafols Casamada that I visited several times before and that I'd never been able to capture in my work the way I wanted. Now I'm translating all that into my own 'language' of abstract signs.
Some are in dramatic dark reds and blacks referring to Spains certainly dramatic history, some have the sunny lightness of the seaside, referring to its recent prosperity. The acrylics, through there different consistency as the oils I use at home in the studio, have given me the chance to use a more pronounced 'handwriting' with visible movement and a little less subtlety, all of this very exciting.

Now the panels are done I'm working on a larger square paper format in acrylics, continuing the theme. Besides that I do almost one watercolor a day of the landscape directly outside. It's fascinating to be surrounded by so much texture, mass of rocks, an abundance of greens, hazy blue distant peaks, centuries old houses that are made of artfully piled rock, giving them the appearance of growing organically from the sides of the mountains. It does not stop to amaze me that every part of the world has its own unique characteristics, these mountains are completely different from the ones in New Mexico or Colorado where I was this summer. So much to explore always!
A couple days more here and then we're off to Barcelona, for museum visits, shopping and for me also some family time as my daughter will join us there before we return to Wisconsin!

Late summer in Spain

A week ago we, my friend Rebecca and me, arrived in Barcelona and the day after here in the Centre d'Art I Natura in Farrera, a medieval village, perched on a mountain top with an unbelievably beautiful view, for three weeks of contemplation on our art. There is a wonderful studio or atelier as they say here, for us to use with tall windows overlooking the mountains, down below is a valley where people have their vegetable and fruit gardens and some meadows.
Up till now I have been doing water colors and small acrylics, mostly inspired by the landscape surrounding me but today is one of those landmarks where I started to contemplate on the work I was doing back home in the studio. It feels like I need to make a link somewhere and I feel like I almost know how but not quite yet..... That was bound to happen ofcourse. But it s very hard not to be overwhelmed with and inspired by these surroundings. So that makes today a day of more thinking than painting, sitting quietly in my room, on the balcony or now here behind the computer, all with the same great view.

I have never been homesick for Holland after my move to the U.S., but when I came here I knew that my roots are in Europe more than anything else. Walking through Barcelona or the small town of Sort where we went to stock up on groceries feels so familiar to me and all the vacations we took throughout France, Spain, Italy and Portugal while I lived in Holland, came back to me. The smells, the sounds, the way of life.
One thing in particular that always strikes me is that it is so much easier in Europe to find furniture or houseware of modern design, even in relatively small towns you can find amazingly modern things, while in the U.S. .......well, I am rolling my eyes here, there is only one store in Milwaukee, which is a large town, where design furniture can be found, for more choices you have to go to Chicago and even there you have to really know where to go while here you just stumble upon it. Ofcourse it is different in New York or on the West Coast, but I often wonder what happened to the heritage of Charles and Ray Eames, Frank LLoyd Wright and others that we are now stuck with the kind of cheap knock-off antiques or other non descript trash that go with these phony MacMansions that pollute every other subdivision in the U.S.
I had an interesting conversation with Rebecca about this, who confessed that she knew very little about either architecture or furniture designers, according to her, art school education in the US is more limited. Somehow in art school in Holland architecture and interior design were subjects that were discussed, even in the painting department, sometimes during art history classes and sometimes just so, it was just part of the package.
Anyhow, that was one of my thoughts strolling the elegant streets of Barcelona.

Today is a holiday here so people are off and the village is kind of busy, there were a mere 6 cars to be seen! It is a lazy late summer mood, thick flies are buzzing in and out, down below I hear the dimmed voices of people working their gardens and dogs barking, the swallows cannot decide whether it is time to move south yet or stay on for a while, they keep chittering and gathering on the electricity lines and then, all of a sudden one must say' let's go, because then they whirl up in a big move of wings and tails, only to return to the line a few minutes later. Ah, the entertainment nature offers!

Yesterday I was fortunate to find a recent catalog of the work of Catalan painter and poet Albert Rafols Casamada and the address where to buy it, thnaks to Google Catalunya. More than 20 year ago I found a book about him on sale at a bookstore in Rotterdam, that is how I first heard about him. being here I knew this was my chance to find out more about him and hopefully even see one or two of his paintings in person. And of course everyone here at the art center knows about him!
Cannot wait to get my catalog!

Time for more contemplating in the sun now........!