Silviu

La Pedrada de Noemi Residency Journal 7

The space at La Canela y Hierbabuena was different than the one at La Casa Museo Orlando Hernández, so Silviu and I had to figure out how we'd display the works.  Silviu had a few Ikea frames he wasn't currently using in his house, so he lent them to me and I spent some time figuring out how to lay out my pieces, spraypainting the backing of the frames to better match the artwork, and getting it all installed appropriately.  We then had to figure out how to get the frames onto the walls themselves which only had a few hooks to use - but Silviu came through again with some ingenious hanging solutions and we got everything up on display in the end - including my two assemblages and a framed assortment of my greeting card reproductions as well!  Silviu brought a portable microphone/speaker setup (singers have some handy equipment!) and opened up the reception, I introduced myself and my artwork as well, and then we headed back.

There wasn't a lot of time left, but somehow we squeezed in a few more events and excursions.  By this time I had actually just moved into Silviu's extra apartment since it was easier than commuting constantly from Noemi's, and because he didn't seem to mind my staying there rent-free (I would have loved to offer him rent as well, but I'd already paid Noemi and I unfortunately didn't have the budget to contribute it twice; I hope Noemi will perhaps share some of her fee with Silviu since his generosity knew no bounds!).  One morning, Silviu and I had coffee with a local artist who is planning to branch out into offering his own artist residency. Silviu started some pieces of artwork under my supervision and learned how I use watered down acrylics and spray bottles to create some of my backgrounds.  We had some lovely dinners.  Noemi took me on one last trip out to see an old volcanic crater, and it gave me some call-of-the-void vertigo feelings since there were no safety railings or anything, but it was a nice hike up the volcanic side and we got to see a couple wild lagartos on the way back down.  Silviu and I went out for one last scuba dive - it was really windy, and the dive group he often works with had canceled their dives that day, so I was a little worried, but I also have full trust in Silviu so when he said it'd be fine I was excited to get one final chance to dive.  It was more than fine, actually - while it was so windy it did cause a lot of turbulence even below water, which kicked up a lot of seaweed and sand, it was also octopus day!  We got to see two different octopi while out, in addition to the other beautiful sea creatures that I've gotten to see before but are nevertheless a joy to get to see again.  I also held my artist lecture and QCC demo at La Canela y Hierbabuena, and sold a decent amount of greeting cards (yay!), and Silviu and I hung out with a local curator and her very sweet friend who had made our acquaintance earlier as we were coming up from a dive a couple weeks before.

My final night Noemi came down and Silviu, Noemi, and I all had late night tea and dessert, and then I started to pack while Silviu and Noemi chatted.  Ricardo came by for a while, and then eventually they all headed out as I finished up packing (I couldn't do it earlier as I had to wait to take my artwork down from this last show and pack it into the bottom of the big suitcase first).  By the time I was done, it was about 1am, and I had to get up at 4am, so I got about three hours of sleep.  As did Silviu, as he was sweet enough to wake up early as well and drive me to the airport.  Fortunately, given how tired I already was, the flights back while long were completely trouble-free.  One interesting fact I did learn through watching Disney movies in Spanish on the way back is that the songs are not the same.  This is probably already knowledge you have, but I did not and I was really startled when the first song in the Lion King was neither just played in English nor a direct translation - I mean, it makes sense because then it wouldn't rhyme, but still.  People all over the world have different Disney songs.  I actually really like the song "Be Prepared" from the Lion King and it sucks in Spanish.  But in my opinion, the song "I'll Make a Man Out of You" in Mulan is perhaps even better in Spanish than it is in English.  When I got back to Kansas City, Susan, another amazingly kind person in my life (my Art Program colleague at USM), came to pick me up and drive me back to my house.

So I am now back and am just getting caught up with the readjustment, which is good, because summer's almost over and I have more artwork I want to do from this residency before the summer ends!  So hopefully I can get a little more done before the school year gets back into full swing... that being said, I'm already getting caught up in work now that everyone knows I'm back!

I feel extraordinarily lucky to have had the opportunity to meet Silviu, as he is, honestly, the nicest, most open person I've ever met.  I have never been received with such hospitality and friendship from someone who has no preexisting reason to do so, and I am fortunate enough to know and count among my friends a lot of amazingly nice people.  And not only that, but he's so skilled in so many areas and he was generous enough to share so much of his time and knowledge and talent with me.  Not only does he know how to scuba dive and how to teach others to do so, he's also fluent in English and Spanish (and many other languages) so I felt safe going scuba diving with him; I don't know how I would have felt about attempting it with someone who, if I was having problems, I perhaps couldn't communicate with clearly.  And then to top it all off, Mother Nature was clearly on our side as well - in our time in Arinaga's waters I got to see a cuttlefish (!!), two octopi, a giant ray, pufferfish, scorpion fish, trumpet fish, a moray eel, starfish, sea slugs, nudibranches, a fireworm, damselfish, a giant crab, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, lizard fish, schooling fish of several shapes and sizes, all wild in their natural habitat.  I also really loved getting to know Noemi, as she's fantastic as well - she apologized a couple times about being so busy that she didn't have much time to spend with me, when she spent the most time with me that any residency director has!  Plus, it is because of her friendship with Silviu that I got adopted by him too.

Overall, this was my favorite residency to date, which is not at all to say that others weren't outstanding as well.  But the combination of everything I got a chance to do this summer - scuba diving, improving my Spanish, befriending Noemi and then Silviu, meeting other wonderful friends and family of them both - it was just perfect.

La Pedrada de Noemi Residency Journal 6

Sorry for the break in updates - I ended up being in several places without internet as I'll be discussing!  Anyway, back to the journal...

It turned out Sunday ended up not being so good for Sella either, and I had gotten wrapped up in a painting, so I had another studio day.  Then Monday was spent getting ready for the solo exhibition Noemi had arranged for me in La Casa Museo Orlando Hernandez (The Orlando Hernandez House Museum); we got the keys to the place from the local government and scoped it out, prepared the exhibition room, and got double-sided mounting tape to help secure my pieces to the walls.  Tuesday evening was my opening, but that morning Noemi had arranged for me to visit the northern part of the island's recycling center for a tour as a part of a group (she had originally planned to come as well, but ended up needing to sit for state exams that day).  I was a little skeptical of how interesting it would be and also had yet to install the artwork or shop for the reception refreshments, but Noemi said she thought it would take around an hour and really wanted me to go.  So I went!  It actually took three and a half hours, and only about half an hour of it was interesting (touring the actual facilities).  The other three hours involved watching videos and protracted lectures and Q&As about the importance and minutiae of recycling - in my case, at least, preaching to the bored choir.  But I got back with - just! - enough time to eat lunch, install my artwork, and run to SPAR to buy some refreshments.  The reception went well, and then the rest of the week I babysat the exhibition (with no internet) and started some new pieces from within the exhibition itself - a sort of performance art in its own way!  On Friday I did an artist lecture and a demo of QuickCure Clay, and then later on another exhibition opened up in an adjoining space, and their reception also flooded over into mine and I had a hopping second reception-of-sorts as well.

Over the weekend Noemi took me to the north to see the towns of Arucas and Gáldar, and we visited the Painted Cave museum, where we got a chance to glimpse aboriginal cave paintings from a carefully monitored chamber so as to attempt to preserve what's left of the paintings after severe degradation from tourists during the late 70's and 80's.  Noemi also thought I should try paragliding, so she arranged for a friend to take me up in a tandem parachute!  I'm up for new things, so I did it, and I'm glad I had the experience - but I didn't enjoy it very much.  I get pretty motion sick, and the turning and swooping set it off quite strongly.  I also got bored with it after the first few minutes - we just sort of looped back and forth over the same bit of land, and once I'd taken it in... the views were extremely similar to what you'd see out of an airplane, so it felt more normal than I would've thought.  I love scuba diving, though, and I know that is not everyone's bag, so I'm still pleased I gave paragliding a go.  On Sunday we visited the Maspalomas area so that I could see the sand dunes, which were beautiful, and I got a taste of the Maspalomas beach as well which is a tourist hotspot (it turns into Playa del Ingles, which is the most well known) and was absolutely crammed with people.  I prefer the beach at Las Canteras in Las Palmas or in Arinaga, honestly.  Then we went up to see Sella, finally, and her place was great!  She runs a retreat center called EcoTara where groups with instructors book in to run yoga and other health and lifestyle retreats.  We spent a lazy afternoon there, and the drives along the way both coming and going were spectacular as well.

Then we took my show down (the other exhibition in the adjoining space kindly babysat mine as well over the weekend), and I went down to Arinaga to rejoin Silviu, who had been busy scoping out opportunities for me to have a second exhibition down there, because he's just that lovely of a person.  We spent the next day figuring out where I'd have the second show, and La Canela y Hierbabuena said they'd love to have me.

La Pedrada de Noemi Residency Journal 5

We decided to do a late evening scuba dive on Tuesday afternoon so I headed over to Arinaga and we went out at around 7:30pm.  It was a really magical dive - at first, I saw many familiar fish, but we got closer to them (I think Silviu realized from seeing my paintings that I really make use of detailed reference imagery).  But then toward the latter half of the dive we saw: a moray eel - its head, at any rate, a trumpet fish up close (we'd previously seen two from farther away), a cuttlefish (!!!!!!!!), and from rather afar, a very large manta ray, locally called a "chucho negro."  Some we didn't necessarily get good camera angles on or my camera itself couldn't handle the distance, but it was nevertheless completely magical.  I had hoped I would get to see a chucho negro at some point while here, but I never imagined I would be lucky enough to see a cuttlefish.  They are possibly my favorite marine animal.  (Though this dive's perfection was a little bit balanced by the fact that I was wearing a different mask and it kept letting in some water such that I couldn't see everything quite so well and was a little preoccupied by it; it's not that it's super problematic in that you breathe through your mouth anyways when scuba diving so having water around your nose isn't so bad, but depending on your orientation in the water - if you turn upside down due to buoyancy issues or because you're looking under a cliff - it can get in and around your eyes and it's ocean water - plus even if it's just hanging out in/around your nose, it's not the most comfortable thing in the world.)

We spent quite a while on this dive, and when we came back we got cleaned up and then had a meal and I spent the night in Silviu's spare apartment since it was so late.  The next day we thought we might go for a very short dive again, but we didn't have that much air left in the tanks and Silviu had a sore throat and felt very lethargic so we scrapped that plan - I totally understood and anyway, the dive the night before was so amazing I'm not sure an immediate follow-up could have possibly lived up to it.  Silviu has been wanting to do some art projects of his own and wanted to trade expertise with me, so we spent the day looking at the materials he already has, discussing options, and then in the evening we went to a giant Chinese bazaar to buy more LED light strings for his projects as he's interested in making artistic light boxes.  I spent the night again since we were doing stuff quite late into the evening.  Sadly, the next morning I too woke up with a sore throat and somewhat lethargic/dizzy.  Since Silviu wasn't planning on doing a whole lot that day art-wise, and since I was likely coming down with what he had had, I begged out of sticking around midday and went back to Noemi's place to chill.

The following day was meant to be a work day, but I was definitely sick.  I thought if I tried to paint that I'd just make more work for myself to have to undo, so I sorted some beachcombed findings and created a couple of assemblages.

I was going to go with Silviu up to Noemi's sister Sella's yoga retreat in the mountains on Saturday (Noemi wanted to take me, but she is taking a state exam to attempt to win a highly competitive place as a public school art instructor this weekend), but Friday was rough enough that I still needed to do basic things like shower (well, here it is somewhat more involved given that the water is only intermittently warm and my shower doesn't have a shower curtain so I have to be rather careful about where I aim the shower head) and buy groceries so I could eat breakfast, so I thought trying to spend the whole day out and about sounded overwhelming.  Luckily, when I asked if we could postpone that a day Silviu said Sella was a bit busy on Saturday anyway and Sunday was ideal.

Fortunately, Saturday I woke up on the mend - still sick, but with a much clearer head and the energy to actually shower and walk to the grocery store and work in the studio!

La Pedrada de Noemi Residency Journal 2

The fourth day I took the bus (called la guagua here) down into Arinaga to meet with Silviu.  This in itself was more complicated than I would've thought as no one sold ticket cards in the station until later on and also while Noemi thought buses ran every half hour, they actually only run once an hour.  I had planned on taking the 10:30am bus, but since that wasn't actually an option I had time to hunt down a different card vendor.  I could also have just paid in cash, but that costs more.  Finding the open vendor took a bit, since all I had to go on was that it was on the Parque de los Moros, and I had no idea where that was despite some iffy verbal directions, but I found it and purchased the card.  Sadly, the best card is only sold in Las Palmas and requires a photo of you (it is good for whatever destination you want) so I just got a ten-trip Agüimes-Arinaga version and got back well in time to take the 11am bus.

I got to Silviu's place around 11:30am and he invited me upstairs for breakfast.  I had already had breakfast, but his version involved tea, cookies, and a friend, so it was all good!  His friend was a biochemist retiree named Trev from England who moved here very recently.  Due in part to Trev who doesn't speak much Spanish but also because of my not-full fluency, we all spoke in English.  Silviu is fluent in at least Romanian, Spanish, English, German, and conversant in Italian and French and possibly more?  After our very lazy breakfast (my second) we went down to the beach at Zoco Negro, which is a tidal pool with a manmade rock barrier to calm the waves and allow for a more relaxed beach experience.  Silviu left us there to gather more stuff, and upon his return he and I went snorkeling in Zoco Negro.  He very kindly lent me all the gear, including a mask, the snorkel, a swim cap and hood, and a neoprene short-sleeved/short jumper that was his partner's as I had expressed my fear of being freezing (the water is quite cold and the weather is so temperate with so much wind that you have to sit in the sun for some time before you even want to get in the water, and then if you are me you want quickly to come back out!).  The neoprene helped with the warmth, and also lent an extra level of buoyancy that was helpful in letting me not work at all at floating but instead focus on taking photos with my new underwater camera.  My mask initially didn't work and kept letting water in but then Silviu switched with me and it worked perfectly.

We stayed out for a while - maybe 45 minutes to a hour - and then hung out on the beach for a while longer.  Then we ordered some pizza.  Silviu is mostly vegetarian himself and he's also the most hospitable person, so he just ordered vegetarian ones and we had some wine with dinner.  He told me to come back tomorrow at the same time, and then he drove me to the bus stop and I took the bus back into Agüimes.  I looked at the photos from this first snorkel and while a few were good, a lot were out of focus.  It requires a lot of multitasking to take good underwater photos and I need to learn how to do it all!

The following day when I came in we ran some errands first - we stopped at Trev's to pick him up, and went grocery shopping at Lidl (a German chain of supermarkets) where I picked up a few extra things as well.  We then went to a dive shop (!!) and checked how late we could get equipment to go scuba diving (!!!!).  The shop is open until 8pm, so there was plenty of time as Silviu thought a late afternoon dive would be nice.  Then we went back to his apartment and unpacked the groceries and had some tea, and Trev came over, and then Silviu said he had to run some errands so Trev and I talked while Silviu picked up some goat milk and other items.  When he got back he made a late lunch of pasta, and by the time we were all done it was around 7pm!  He got out his own scuba supplies (suits, flippers, hoods, gloves, shoes, masks) and I tried to get in my 7mm neoprene suit, which was again actually his partner Ricardo's.  Ricardo is, I'm told, heavier than I am, so from what I gather it should be easier to put his suit on than one that actually fits me... if that's the case, I don't know how on earth I'd get into one that fits me.  Even with Ricardo's, I couldn't get into it the way I needed to and skinned a finger trying to pull it on!  Silviu however is magic and also strong and managed to get me into it, in part using the aid of plastic bags to get my limbs to push through and then managing to pull the bag out the end.  He said it's easier to get into wet ones than dry so that next time it wouldn't be as bad, which I hoped would come true!

Then he left to the swim shop - at about 7:35pm - to get the air tanks and regulators.  By the time he got back, it was about 8:15pm or so, so we were officially doing a twilight dive for my first one as sunset is around 8:55pm here.  Then Silviu showed me the tanks, and mine looked enormous!  I learned later that it was in fact bigger, and that was because a first-time diver might freak out and hyperventilate the whole time and use up the air very quickly.  The enormousness meant it was super, super heavy.  The whole jacket rig was 45 pounds.  It was a lot.  Then Silviu added 6kg to the pockets, so approximately 13 pounds, as divers need weight to counterbalance the neoprene and their own fat reserves' buoyancy.  Then we had to walk down two flights of stairs, across the promenade, down another flight of stairs, and down a ramp.  I was already tired from wrestling the neoprene on so the walk with around 58 pounds of weight on my back was brutal.

We decided to do my "baptism" in Zoco Negro, a somewhat familiar stomping ground since I had snorkeled there before.  I didn't take my camera on this first trip to focus on just being present and safe in the gear, watching the pressure and popping my ears, and so on.  We got into the water, Silviu put my fins on, I got my mask on, tried out the regulator, and soon enough we went under.  I didn't love breathing through the regulator above water, but doing it below is actually much better.  The first few minutes I had issues with water getting into my mask, but we figured out it had an improper seal due to the swim cap getting under it so we fixed it and then I had far fewer issues.  Silviu controlled all the depth and pressure-related decisions and also watched the gauges, so I didn't have to learn about that part, he just made it happen.  Zoco Negro was magical at night - all the sea slugs were out in force - and by the midway point of our dive I really wanted my camera but the first half I would've hated having it so it was probably good I didn't bring it along.  The latter bit of our dive it started getting quite dark and we soon wrapped it up.  The whole thing was probably around 35 minutes or so.  Getting out of the water, my tank and weights felt so very heavy!  Silviu offered to carry it in addition to his own, and I didn't know how he'd manage and said I thought I could do it but he insisted.  He did get both of them back, but it clearly surprised him how hard it was to do!

That evening he suggested it was late enough I could just stay over (he has a second apartment in the complex I could use) but since I hadn't planned for that I didn't have anything including nightly medicine and stuff so we decided he'd bring me back that evening and the following night I would spend the night.

The next day I actually felt rather ill with stomach upset and frequent trips to the bathroom, and I considered canceling, but then Silviu had to delay our start time and in the hour-long delay I felt pretty crappy so I figured I'd feel crappy wherever and I might as well be doing cool stuff instead of laying in bed.  So I went in, and we had some tea (I did not eat anything though!) and we went for a late afternoon scuba dive - around 4pm.  I still had a lot of air in my tank since I did not hyperventilate the first dive so we used the same equipment.  Getting in the neoprene was slightly easier since it was wet, but that just meant it went from impossible to slightly less impossible.  I still had to have Silviu's assistance to get into it properly.  This time, I carried my tank but he didn't put the weights in until we got to where we were going, which made it better.  He mentioned his air was low in his tank so he might need to use my emergency regulator.  We saw a different area, actually in the ocean proper and not just a sectioned off pool, and it was really neat.  On this dive, I did take my camera.  At some point Silviu did need to switch to my regulator, and I thought the dive would be over, but then we kept on!  One trite but true takeaway - the ocean is huge.  Really, I know it is, but being in it and just swimming about underwater and seeing it just go on and on and filled with life is amazing.

After our dive, we got out of our suits (not as hard as getting in, but still quite a workout) and rinsed off, got dressed again, and then went to Moya in the north to run an errand and then went back south a little to an all-inclusive hotel where Silviu sings (that's his current job - he's a singer in a few different places, and earns enough at each gig to only have to work like four times a week for a couple hours).  I watched him perform - I recognized some and I know several were Sinatra - but also took in the all-inclusive vacation atmosphere, which was interesting because since it is not to my personal taste when traveling, I don't have much experience with it.  Then we drove back to Arinaga, got late night tapas from a couple different restaurants, and then went back to the apartments at around 1:30am (!) and Silviu showed me the one I'd be staying in.

I got to bed around 2am and woke up at around 9:30am, still tired, so I leisurely got ready and left the apartment at 11am.  Silviu was coming back shortly, so I beachcombed for around half an hour and then we had breakfast together, returned the dive shop tanks and regulators, and then he drove me to catch the bus... but as we were waiting for the bus, I mentioned I was going to try to find a pharmacy when I got back to Agüimes as my skinned finger had gotten a bit infected and somehow I managed to forget to pack band-aids.  Silviu thought we had time, so we caught a pharmacy just as it was closing for siesta and I bought a package of band-aids, but then when we got back to the bus stop the ladies waiting said my bus had already gone.  So then Silviu, who is a complete gentleman, just drove me back instead.  I invited him in and gave him a choice of the greeting card reproductions I'd brought along (he selected two) and an alcoholic chocolate bar I had purchased for myself in Ireland since I felt like I needed to attempt to balance at least a little tiny bit the amount of kindness he gave to me.