Archive
Serious Springtime
I can’t resist posting this photograph Mike made the other day from the Gallinero’s little sun-moon and stars terrace. It’s been a wonderful springtime thus far with the mourning doves romancing high in the cypress trees and the bumble bees buzzing round the wysteria bush sucking nectar. The garden is surging and the summer terraces of the bars and restaurants are beginning to thrive. Everyone agrees. It’s a great time to be alive in Granada.
Morning after Rain, Everything Glistens
Granada, February 6, 2014–Even the eucalyptus trees on the opposite side of our valley. This photo is taken from the terrace.
Autumn in Granada–Make Prints, Pick Your Breakfast from the Vine
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Autumn is a wonderful time to work in Granada. The summer heat has passed, the nights are cooler, the occasional rain has refreshed the atmosphere, and the days are delicious.
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I took the summer off this year, except for doing a bit of my own work, a few new liquid metal prints of the Alhambra and some editioning. I love the liquid metal technique for a dealing with a subject that has been done to death. The epoxy medium dries quite quickly so you have to work fast and working in gunk on a plate is necessarily loose, so the results always look fresh and original.
I’ve got another Australian artist coming to work one on one for a month–the last half of September and the first half of October–but after that I’m free to work with other artists. And my Gallinero residence is available from October 15. We’ve just painted the interior (with old-fashioned Spanish-style live whitewash, which not only gleams white but also sanitizes and imparts a squeaky-clean aroma to the place.)
The grapes on the arbor over the Gallinero terrace are ripening, so guests staying there can just reach out through the louvered doors and pick their breakfast. It’s a delightful experience, especially if you don’t have grapevines over your breakfast table at home.
Looking forward to seeing you and making some prints together!
“That’s Inked Up” Features El Gallinero
We just ran across this little feature on El Gallinero published last year on That’s Inked Up, a wide-ranging, thoughtful and attractive blog for printmakers published by Chicago-based Artist,Curator,Educator,Writer, Teresa J. Parker. This is her website: http://www.teresajparker.com/
And this is the Gallinero article on That’s Inked Up. Thanks so much, Teresa.
Fancy a Guitar Making Course in Granada?
Fancy a guitar making course in Granada? Here’s your opportunity: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Granadas-luthery-School/200572580064211. Henner Hagenlocher is an old friend and a consummate guitar craftsman. Longtime Granada resident, he builds some of this city’s finest guitars. Henner speaks everything. Satisfaction guaranteed! 
Bea Chang Takes a Work Break in Granada
Here’s Bea, hard at work.
Bea Chang,a writer whose formative years have taken her around the world, leaves today after spending a week in the Gallinero working. Though Bea is on a joyous two month Morocco-Spain-and-Ireland tour, she’s aware that her classmates in the creative-writing masters program at the University of Washington are spending the summer working on their critically important end-of-term projects. So she Googled “writers refuge Spain” and up popped the Gallinero.
Bea has been our most discreet, least demanding guest. She said she wanted to work and we left her to it. Her project is to write a series of short stories based on her travels this summer. “It’s like travel writing,” says Bea, “but in fiction, not non fiction. I loved the Gallinero because it was secluded and quiet, so conducive to writing.”
Bea, we wish you all the best in getting an A+ on your project, in getting it published and becoming famous. And we hope to see you again soon in the Gallinero.
Regime Change in the Cypresses
What’s a Gallinero? And why would you want to stay there?
Spring Again, Already?
Granada’s inspiring springtime is here again. It always takes us by surprise, first with the almond blossoms then in quick succession the Chinese quince and loquat flowers and then the songbirds returning from Africa to nest in our fruit and cypress trees.
Politics in the Cypresses
There’s been a regime change in the cypresses this year. After years of grudging coexistence between the plump wild pigeons and the predatory magpies, the former got tired of defending their eggs and their chicks from the latter and have nested somewhere else. The nests of the pigeons have been taken over by pairs of smaller, apparently more docile birds. We always think of doves as pacifists but that turns out to be a myth. They defend their nests tenaciously and are keeping the larger, more truculent magpies nicely at bay.
Other birds are appearing, as well: blackbirds, European robins, big streamlined black-and-gold orioles, friendly songful finches, wrens and the magnificent (though very plain Jane in appearance) nightingales that nest in the willows down along the river. It only takes two rival nightingale males to form a glorious all-night singing contest which is directed at The Gallinero, and in stereo.
Mel Strawn’s Theoretical Observations on Solarplate Printmaking
Mel Strawn and his lovely and talented wife, Bernice (“B”), spent three weeks working with Maureen in her studio during last February. Mel and Maureen worked mainly on solar-plate techniques using Dan Welden plates. While Maureen is eminently intuitive, Mel, a lifelong art professor who started making digital prints in 1981, likes some theoretical grounding. So when he got back home to Salida, Colorado, he started thinking about what exactly the two of them had been doing with the solar plates. Here are his preliminary conclusions. Read more…
The Gallinero Rocks!
Thanks to Spanish Musician, David Little
“I can’t do serious work at home,” says 27-year-old Spanish musician, David Little, founder, songwriter, vocalist and lead guitarist of the Málaga-based Spanish rock group, V de Vodka. “At home I’m surrounded by friends, family, bars and all sorts of other distractions. But I’ve got work to do. I’ve got to get a record out! It was clear to me I had to find a secluded and inspiring place where I could hole up for three weeks and do all the arrangements for the 10 songs destined for our new record.” Read more…
Take a Look at This One-Minute Video from the Granada Tourist Bureau
Curious about what Granada and its province has to offer visitors? Here’s a quick roundup:
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"El Gallinero"--An Artists' & Writers' Refuge in Granada 