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We Take a Morning Walk in the Evening
We Put a New Twist on a Familiar Sierra Nevada Hiking Path
We usually walk in the morning. It’s cooler and the air is clearer. The pictures Mike published here a couple of weeks ago were made on this same walk, but in the morning. In the evening it’s different, but equally delightful. The color of the evening light is warmer and the later it gets the rays of the sun slant through the trees and across the hills at a low angle. We were surprised that, though it’s only half an hour’s drive up the hill from our house, and we walked for less than an hour and a half, when we came back to the bar at the bottom we felt we’d had a holiday.
Here are the pictures. (P.S. The last photo is of our house, my studio and the Gallinero from across the valley of the River Genil. The scene looked so serene as we were driving home that Mike stopped and shot the picture.).
Is My Husband Clever or a Lunatic?
What’s a Gallinero? And why would you want to stay there?
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Or Both? Which is Most Likely the Case
Mike has made me another blog. It’s called Maureen’s Printmaking Videos and you can see it here: http://maureensprintmakingvideos.com. “But I already have a blog for my videos,” I protest. “No matter,” he says, “you can never have too many.” He always says that. To him websites, blogs and social networking sites are like store fronts; the more you have the more doors are open where clients can walk in. “Besides,” he says, “I discovered a new WordPress theme (Sundance) which is specially designed for displaying videos and it has some cute little buttons.”
The Cute Little Buttons in question: 
So, your guess is as good as mine. Why has he created me yet another blog? Is he an Internet-strategy genius? Or was it the cute little buttons?
Have You Discovered Pinterest.com?
What’s a Gallinero? And why would you want to stay there?
We´ve recently discovered Pinterest.com and we’re excited about it as it seems to be an ideal showcase for the work of visual artists, a constant concern at our house. Essentially Pinterest is an online scrapbook application. Instead of pasting magazine illustrations, family photographs, etc. into a scrapbook, you “pin” them onto a virtual board which Pinterest provides you. Besides images you can also pin videos, which adds a lot of interest (and possibilities for artists) I think.
It seems that Pinterest is the fastest-growing Internet startup ever, going from zero to 12 million visits monthly in just a year. That’s 12 million possibilities for visitors to see your work displayed there every month. And it will soon be 20 million, and then 50. And then who knows?!
Have a look at the Pinterest site that Mike recently created and is still building and see if it doesn’t give you some ideas of your own.
The Story of This Print: “El Patio del Harem”
What’s a Gallinero? And why would you want to stay there?
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Back at the Alhambra
I’ve started on a series of medium-sized liquid-metal prints on Alhambra themes. Granada’s medieval fortress and palace has been for centuries a source of inspiration for artists, writers and photographers, so much so that today it’s difficult to get an original take on it. This time I’m relying on the inherent looseness of the liquid-metal technique to try to achieve Alhambra images with some originality.
I had one of those wonderful printmaking experiences at the beginning of this project. The first proofs I pulled from the first plate, El Patio del Harem, looked frankly great and I thought, “This is it, I’ll print up an edition.” But before I could start, I took a close look at one of the plates from which I had just pulled a proof. In the ink residue left on the plate I could still see beautiful detail. So I rubbed a light layer of yellow ink into it, rolled some fresh silver ink on top and put it back through the press, making a “ghost print.” I was shocked to see how superior the ghost was to the live one. I have placed the original print at the top of this post, the ghost below. See if you don’t agree with me.
This print was done with liquid metal on an old, previously-etched copper plate, a still life with fruit. I put the cold solder on with a palette knife and when it was still quite sticky I drew into it with a stylus. I didn’t press any texture elements into it until about an hour and a half later. I left it overnight to harden and printed it on 600 gr. handmade paper. The ghost print was printed on 375 gr. Paperki handmade paper. I like this one better.
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…
Have a Look at Our Village, Pinos Genil (Granada)
What’s a Gallinero? And why would you want to stay there?
An Album of Snapshots
These snapshots from the past few years should give you an idea of what our village and its environs are like.
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…
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…
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"El Gallinero"--An Artists' & Writers' Refuge in Granada 