Firstly, thank you to everyone who contributed to our HONEYFUND last year for our wedding gift. Your gifts made it possible for us to enjoy traveling to 3 cities in Spain over the course of two weeks, see some incredible art and spaces, eat deliciously every single day and even get a few tattoos. Friends and family, thank you again and forever for helping us do what we love to do together. Here is the recap by city:
MADRID!
We felt very at home in Madrid. We stayed in a modest spot in the Anton Martin neighborhood. I loved walking out in to the street and immediately seeing the butcher, the cafes filled with people chatting, having drinks, eating tapas and immediately feeling the energy of the city which was fast but not overwhelming. We did not feel like tourists here. The people were welcoming in a really genuine way. Being fluent Spanish speakers certainly helped. Public transit is efficient and easy. We had made tattoo appointments with artists we had both researched and booked months in advanced. While our tattoos were at the same time in different parlors in different parts of the city, we were both surprised and warmed to share that we were received with the offering of a cafecito to start and a parting of a hug from our artists post tattoo.
I’m still thinking about the jamon serrano, croquetas, and tempranillo I had as often as my guts would allow me. The ham is just so good there. Cuban cuisine is criollo, meaning part colonizer food (thats the Spain part incase you weren’t sure) and African influenced, so there was a lot of what we ate that felt very familiar from Miami and Cuba. I wondered what our families experiences would be if they had immigrated to Spain instead of the US or in my case (Mexico to Miami)?
We were lucky enough to see our Venezuelan friends, Diego and his cute family, who had recently moved to Madrid from Cali. It was fascinating to talk about what our lives are like now since we hadn’t seen each other since COVID in LA. By their reccommendation, we took a little day trip to Toledo, just under 2 hour train ride outside of Madrid. The Catedral Toledo is worth the whole trip. It is probably the most decadent cathedral I’ve ever seen with super baroque sculptural representations of the virgin that extend up to the pilars with a skylight that is framed by more frescos and figurative sculptures. I’m a maximalist, I ate it up. This cathedral has been very obviously loved by the Vatican. Go much gold and gems.
The PRADO was AHHHHMAZING. There are no photos allowed but wow. I saw so many works I had only seen in text books growing up and I can’t even properly put in to words what it is like to stand in front of Hironimous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. To think this was painted in the 1600s with hand mixed paints, is beyond my understanding of that artists capacity. It is such a bizarre flurry of activities in that painting. When you look at it, it tricks you into thinking the figures are moving out of the corner of your eye. Nothing from this time period comes close to this kind of psychedelic, narrative abstraction, if that makes sense. I was surprised by how raptured I was by it.
I also really enjoyed seeing a few large works by El Greco and the Dark Paintings series by Francisco Goya, which have their own gallery in the basement with lavender painted walls. I am grateful to still be moved by these classics. I think I’ve been so entrenched in contemporary art and perhaps so lacking access to seeing historical works like this on the regular that I forgot how loaded and relevant they can still be. But also, the painting! I have always been too much of a new genres snob/coward to ever call myself a painter even though most of my closest friends in Charleston are wonderful painters+ (shout out to my girls Susan Klein and Katy Mixon RWAR!) and I’m starting to think I sculpt to paint, but, I digress, it was refreshing to see these old works and still salivate when I stood in front of them. They suspend time.
Lastly, we did go to see some contemporary art thanks to our friend Diego tipping us off to and being willing to bring his whole family to the CAN Art Fair Madrid. Almost every booth in this fair had some sort of ceramic presence. And great pieces too. The fair was modest in size but gave me a good fix. It was art week in Madrid but I try to keep my art seeking time in balance with just being on vacation. Sort of……
BASQUE COUNTRY
Basque Country felt like the actual honeymoon and also somehow like being in the Bay Area, specifically the central coast & Sonoma for so many reasons. It smells like ocean andwild kalalilies, lavender, rosemary grow everywhere. The fog rolls in at dusk, there are eucalyptus invasion, cool nights, everything is accessed through windy roads that hug the coastal mountains and it is very visibly extremely liberal. We rented a car and went to many small towns, Lekeitio, Ondarroa, Guernika, Zumaia, and larger towns like Bilbao and San Sebastian.
The fresh and tinned seafood here is phenomenal! We loaded up on tinned bonito, mussels and sardines but they did not last at all. The quality is incredible. GILDAS all day everyday please. I never even got a chance to take a picture of one we ate them so fast. Some of our best meals were had in lunch places recommended by town’s people in very humble spots that had a “menu del dia” meaning, an appetizer (gorgeous potato and tuna soup or lentils with chorizo flavor bomb), a protein or heartier dish (usually whole fish or pork shop) and a desert with a glass of table wine. Basque soups are so rich in flavor, my god! We stayed in a sheep farm run by a family of musicians. It was off season so no musical gatherings during our stay but I’d love to be there again when they host the giant orchestra jams. Most evenings we made dinner in our cottage. We even made dog friends. We always make dog friends when we travel.
Basque people speak a language all their own , Eusakara, and it is not like Spanish at all. But navigating around this part of the country was not as difficult as we anticipated. There is even a particular font specific to the language so all signage uses it. Every town has an emblem that is part of their street signage. It is a very visual culture despite how rural is it.
I would love to spend more time in Bilbao. The Guggenheim is most definitely at the center of the urban planning of that city though we saw many protest poster against the museum’s presence. All the exhibitions were incredible. The Ruth Asawa Show was being installed and opened right after our departure but there was a show called Artes De La Tierra that gave me such a good fix. A strong representation of great curation elevating ceramics and textiles as the conceptual mediums they can be. This exhibition validated my ambition for wanting to come back to and continue expanding on large scale textile and ceramic works. I unfortunately was not impressed with the design of the catalogue, otherwise, it would have come home with me. I only buy catalogues if I’m very moved by a show AND the catalogue represents the exhibition well.
San Sebastian was fine. I really wasn’t that impressed by it. I know that is unusual to hear but I would have spent more time in Bilbao over our day in San Sebastian. We did however see an exhibition in the San Sebastian Cathedral which is was a first for me. It is rather unusual to find a church willing to host an exhibition of contemporary art but the contradiction worked. Especially since the church was centered around San Sebastian (the queerest saint of all and my favorite next to Saint Jude) with a gallery full of sculptures of him with all his arrows piecing his body in ecstasy. There was also an print of a man that looked just like Ilya from Heated Rivarly. I know I’m late to the game but I’m obsessed with Hollander and Rozanov love story. IYKYK.
BARCELONA
Barcelona was our final stop on our trip. Barcelona reminds me of Miami. Hot party town, lots to do, lots of immigrants, lots of people out and about and lots of attitude. The Catalans were the least welcoming. We anticipated some difficulties given that we come from the country that seems to be proudly screwing literally everything up in the dumbest most catastrophic ways. Maybe we thought being fluent in (Spanish which is irrelevant there) and Cuban and anti-Trump would work to our favor and people would cut us some slack but it did not. In several cases restaurants workers were blatant about not wanting to serve us. There were some people that were lovely, most were immigrants from Latin America and a handful of locals but it made enjoying the city difficult. We made due though and saw lots. The persistence is impressive but then again this is something people are experiencing in our own country in violent extremes.
Barcelona was about seeing Anton Gaudi. We only had a few days here and really wanted to experience these architectures. Casa Batlo was first. I love the exterior and the blue tiled atrium. The experience felt very rigid with how they map the movement walk through the space as well as the multiple gift shops that are obviously placed so that you are encouraged to buy. At the end you are taken to video cube room where you watch an AI three minute video piece that bleeds across all the wall, floor and ceiling…..simulations always make me fill so queazy. So does AI.
When I walked into the Sagrada Family, I felt like I walked into a divine spaceship. I saw parallels to how Sci-fi films possible were influenced by this building. I wonder what the acoustics do during mass. It is a breathtaking space that is otherworldly. Overwhelmingly beautiful. The final tower had just been finished but the cranes hadn’t been moved yet.
On our way to dinner one night we heard casuela’s banging and yelling down the block. In the Caribbean, that is a protest sound. It turned out we were standing right in front of the Cuban consulate. A group of Cubans were gathered and speaking in favor of US intervention and taking turns telling their stories on a mega phone. A man came on lifted his shirt and exposed a massive scar on his belly that took up most of the skin in his abdomen. He said this happened while he was incarcerated in Cuba for criticizing the government, he talked about how he was assaulted, put in prison, how he was treated, the racial slurs the guards called him and how he feared for his life. Another woman said that Cuba is desperate for any intervention. They just want some dignity to be restored. I plan to write more about this at some point soon but the topic is difficult to be open about. The situation is heart breaking.
Admittedly, by the time we got to Barcelona we were getting pretty ready to want to be home. Its crazy how much you miss your dwelling, studio, creatures, plants, bed. Pre-Eduardo, I use to travel for months on end with little plan or care but I think so much of that had to do with age, and with the not really having a real home base that was truly mine or something substantial to return to.
My life is very different now and so much of that has to do with Eduardo. I am very lucky to have a partner that has felt like “home” as soon as our second date - he pretended to not be interested in me on our first date but here we are. Ed dedicates so much time and intentional care and action to make our home more and more us. It is an incredible, incredible healing thing I am so grateful for.
I may have missed a few things but Spain was delicious, visually stunning, and such a great shared experience with my favorite person. Shout out to Sam And Sofia for taking care of our fur-babies and home.
Hasta la proxima!