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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…
Six Things that Surprise Artists When They Stay in the Gallinero – I/II
Maureen Booth, Granada, July 18, 2011–I’ve had artists coming to stay in my “Gallinero” artists’ residence and work with me in my printmaking studio for a year and a half now. I’ve welcomed all sorts of people: working artists, advanced beginners, people between the ages of 15 and 82, a Canadian return-to-art person, a couple of delightful veteran artists and art educators from Colorado, a Hungarian sculptor, an Australian painter… All of them have taught me something, and I’d like to think the experience was mutual. And there’s one thing they all agree upon: Printmaking here in Granada and staying in the Gallinero is a unique creative experience. That compels me to try to figure out what makes it so. I’ve made a list of possible factors: Read more…
See Two New Videos in My Printmaking Master Classes Collection
I’ve just added two new videos to my Printmaking Master Classes collection of printmaking tutorials for download.
Recorded in my studio in Granada, they are:
- Traditional Printmaking 2–This is the follow up to Traditional Printmaking 1, and discusses aquatint, sugar lift and marbling techniques.
- Printmaking Tips–This is a collection of shortcuts, safety measures, ways of economizing and working more efficiently. Taken together they should make your studio experience more pleasant and productive.
You can find previews and order links for these new videos here on the Printmaking Master Classes site.
Six Things that Surprise Artists When They Stay in the Gallinero – II/II
4. The Focus—When is the last time you’ve had two or three weeks with nothing to think about, nothing to spend your time on but art? It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? But that’s what happens to people when they arrive in Granada for one of my printmaking workshops. This is especially true of the artists who come to do one-on-one collaborative work with me. Their existence here is almost monastic.
They divide their time between the creative cloister of the Gallinero and my studio. We usually work together for five hours each morning. Then, after lunch, they make their own hours, either working in the studio or sketching glimpses of the village and the surroundings. Some of them stay in the studio past midnight. Read more…
Maureen Booth Talks About Her New Printmaking Tutorial Videos
Maureen Booth is the master printmaker who has published what some fine-art-printmaking insiders consider to be the finest printmaking tutorials on the Web. She affirms, “Making videos is like making prints. The process is essentially the same. You just try to do it better every time.”
Anglo-Spanish master printmaker, Maureen Booth
Maureen in her Granada printmaking studio.Q/ How did you happen to embark on this printmaking-learning-videos project, Maureen? Did you have sponsorship or institutional backing of some sort?
A/ Something of that sort would have been nice, but instead of growing old waiting for it to happen, video producer, Juan Carlos Romera, and I planned and executed the whole thing ourselves, and my husband, Mike, is doing the Internet promotion. The Printmaking Master Classes project was actually Juan Carlos’s idea. He’s been fascinated with etching ever since we shot some scenes of his short film, “Bive,” in my studio seven or eight years ago. That was my first experience in front of a camera. I played an English printmaker who falls in love with a Spanish fisherman.
What prompted you both to devote the time and effort—all summer on the first five videos—to this project? What were your objectives? And what made you think it would work as a business? Read more…
Chicago Girlz Set New Production Benchmarks for Work in Maureen’s Studio
The Chicago Girlz (our affectionate nickname), an extraordinary trio of printmakers made up of Deborah Lader, founder and director of The Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, her mother Carol Lader and Carol’s sister (Deborah’s aunt) Janet Imerman, have set new benchmarks for printmaking zeal in my studio. These remarkable young people stepped off the Chicago-Granada flight (Janet was actually coming straight through from Los Angeles) at midday last Monday, put down their bags in the Gallinero, rested for a whole hour and then proceeded to my studio to begin making prints. And that was the pace they maintained for the rest of the week, till we put them on the bus to Madrid this morning. I never saw such printmaking joy and fervor. Most nights they were in the studio until past midnight. It was a challenge to keep up with them.
They had never done solar-plate prints before, and were anxious to immerse themselves in the techniques and get a grip on them once and for all. This was particularly true for Deborah, who wanted to determine whether solar plate was something she should be offering in her Chicago Printmakers Collaborative open studio at home. She concluded that it was. Read more…
Small World, Milanese Connection, First Writer
Our old friend, Barbara Mason (from the Atelier Meridian in Portland, Oregon), was kind enough last summer to recommend my etching workshop to a friend called Mary Marjerrison. Mary showed up a couple of weeks ago with her friend, the author, Nancy Tomasetti, the Gallinero’s first writer. Did they come from Oregon? No, they came from Milan, Italy, where they both live. It’s a small world. Hence the silly title of this post.
Mary, who works in administration at an international school in Milan was able to rob a week for printmaking thanks to the very civilized Italian tradition of the “Settimana bianca,” a week off school in March. Perhaps it’s because she was previously an art teacher, or because of her high energy level (How many grandmothers do you know who run marathons?), but Mary got straight down to work, preparing her solar-print acetates in the Gallinero in the evenings and showing up each morning prepared to burn the images onto plates.
Perhaps her efficiency in the studio also had to do with the fact that she didn’t have a lot of experience with solar plates and was eager to learn. It’s often more difficult to work with people who already know a lot about the subject. Maybe that’s why the Chinese say, “Before you can fill a glass it must be empty.” I think she made more successful prints in one week with me than most artists make in two. Even so, Mary insists that she didn’t have enough time and that she needs to come back and do some more work as soon as possible. That’s excellent news.
While Mary and Maureen were in the studio all morning every
morning, Nancy stayed ensconced in the Gallinero with 
her feet up by the fire and her laptop on–you guessed it–her lap. The first thing they did when they arrived was to reorganize the furniture in the kitchen, relegating the little Spanish-style kitchen table with the brasero (brazier) under it to a rear corner, dragging the old coffee table out of the pantry and swiveling the sofa around so it faced the wood stove. (It worked well; we left it that way.)
Nancy is from New York but studied in Wisconsin. She still has a house on the shores of Lake Michigan, and goes back there ever summer to spend time with old friends and family.
Besides working on her latest short story, Nancy, who had never visited the Alhambra, took a morning off work to see Granada’s–and one of Europe’s–prime tourist attractions, and one of the few which actually lives up to its advanced billing.
In all, I couldn’t have hoped for a more rewarding visit from these two Milanese-American artists. I hope they do make it back sometime.
El Gallinero Receives First Artists, Makes for Busy Springtime 2010
El Gallinero Receives Its First Artists, Makes for a Busy Springtime in 2010
It’s been a busy month and a half in my studio, working with artists from both sides of the Atlantic. All of them stayed in our new Gallinero (“Chicken House”) artists’ residence and have confirmed our highest hopes for that
studio/cabin as a place which genuinely inspires creative work.
Isabel Fallow
The first one to visit was Isabel Fallow, accompanied by her husband, Jack, a professional communicator and mediator (in the peacemaking sense of the word) who dedicated his time to reading and relaxing and sorting out the world with my husband Mike while Isabel and I worked together in the studio.
Isabel, like all the others in this post, found my studio on Internet (I’m not sure where as Mike has put me all over the place…) She’s a professional painter and printmaker from Buckinghamshire in the U.K. Her work is bold with a distinctive personal touch, and her drawings lent themselves nicely to the creation of solar-plate prints. She was delighted with the results and is already talking about coming back for more, perhaps with a few artist friends.
Beatriz Taillefer & Eduardo
Beatriz and Eduardo are, respectively, an established painter and a professional photographer from Málaga on the southern Mediterranean coast of Spain. Both were fascinated with the solar-plate techniques, and anxious to apply them to their work, each in their own way. Beatriz, who is doing a lot of portrait commissions lately, was anxious to change techniques for a while, so she spent some time working on her favorite subject, flowers, which she does beautifully.
Eduardo’s prints, based on his photographs expertly manipulated in PhotoShop, surprised me with their artful qualities. Who said you can’t make real art with a computer? Artistic creation aside, Beatriz and Eduardo discovered that the bar next door served free tapas with the drinks and became loyal regulars there evenings.
Janet Stahle-Fraser
Janet arrived in early June, along with her husband, Dave, from their cabin “in the bush” somewhere north of Toronto. In the two weeks she spent in my studio Janet touched some of the most interesting techniques: solar plate, carborundum, liquid metal, chine collé and experimental printing. She was delighted to go home with a big bundle of plates and prints under her arm, which she will be showing this summer in her Tapawingo Studio in Baysville, Ontario.
Dave, whom Mike refers to as his “Canadian expert,” got stuck into what was supposed to be a minor building project with Mike but wound up as two days of hard-rock mining, as the walls of our house are of stone almost two feet thick!
The final result was the hanging of this antique plant hanger which they found in a second-hand lot for 10 euros, thinking it was “a bargain.”
Note: There are still some available spaces in my calendar of summer workshops, both for the courses and the Gallinero. But you need to write me soon, or phone (+34 658 953399) before they are spoken for.
Links to my other sites on the web:
- Maureen Booth, my main site
- World Printmakers
- Pomegranate Editions on Print Workshop Central
- Printmaking Courses in Spain
- Granada Studio Visits
What’s a Gallinero? Why Should You Want to Stay There?
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A “Gallinero” in Spanish is a Chicken Coop
We called our new artists’ and writers’ residence “El Gallinero” because it’s located where our chicken house used to be. Sometime after the chickens had an unfortunate encounter with a weazel, we built my first painting studio there in the mid-70’s. When I got my new etching and painting studio 10 years later, the old one was relegated to storeroom status, and deteriorated over the years.
For a long time I’ve needed a place to accommodate the artists who come for my summer etching workshops and those who come to do collaborative work during the rest of the year. Then last fall we decided to get started on it. The plans were a bit vague: re-roof and restore the original studio, add a kitchen/living area in the available space behind it, and a little terrace with a view off the kitchen.
“Why Does This Casita Have to be Limited to Artists?”
Luckily our village builders are tolerant and creative, and they signed on for the project. Little by little the new artists’ residence began to take shape. We were delighted with the results, achieved in spite of five straight weeks of record monsoon winds and rains during the building work. At one point someone said, “Why does this casita have to be limited to artists? Wouldn’t writers appreciate it’s spaciousness, tastefulness and tranquil setting, too?” That’s how the Gallinero became an “artists’ and writers’ refuge.”
We’re Open for Business
We have now begun to accept reservations. Please take a look at the information and photographs in the pages of this site and see if you don’t think a shorter or longer stay in the Gallinero might not get your creative juices flowing. Of course, the appeal of this residence is not limited just to its own spaces and installations. It’s located in Spain, at the edge of a village nine kilometers (an easy 15-minutes) from the historical Andalusian city of Granada with both the Sierra Nevada ski resort and the Mediterranean shore within a 45-minute drive. If you haven’t been to Granada yet, it’s about time. If you’ve been here already, you know why you’ve been yearning to come back.
The Spanish say, “Todo es ponerse.” A rough English translation: “Just go for it!”
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"El Gallinero"--An Artists' & Writers' Refuge in Granada 
