Small town girls enter the big city.
This is the subtext of the Madrid leg of our adventures in Spain. Not so much culture shock (more on those issues later) as size shock. Our Pipe Creek life is quiet and rural; even San Antonio reads as small ciy with its familiarity of 40 plus years. Madrid is major, we remind ourselves as we walk past amazing monuments,more museums than I ever remember seeing in a city, more plazas and churches and cafes and people....When faced with such abundance of sights and sounds and input, I have learned to go for deep rather than wide. I don't feel compelled to see or sense or experience as much as I can in three days, an approach that makes me crazy. Rather I find the one or two do-not-miss experiences for focus.
We saw two exhibits yesterday, went to the bullfights and ate at the San Anton Mercado. The art exhibits were both incredible, and the photos on this post show my attempts and learning as I use the iPad for art and journaling.
First, a Chagall exhibit at the ThySsen-Bornemisza Museum. I rediscovered my love and affection for Chagall, and also acknowledged how much his work influences my own narrative work, with flying figures, rich colors, textures and interlocking stories and images.
Next we went to see Guernica at the Reina Sofia. I had seen this monumental and powerful painting in New York several times, before it returned to Spain. Although the gallery was crowded with school groups and the San Isidro visitors to Madrid, the painting holds its presence. Of most interest to me we're the sketches and related paintings in the adjoining gallery and I spent about an hour making iPad sketches, to much interest of bystanders, I admit. We had to talk our tablets into the musueum as photos are not allowed, and the guards were suspicious until I explained that this WAS my sketchbook.
PS
I also have art news:
+Susie Monday is the featured artist on the d@8 artists blog http://dinnerateightartists.blogspot.com/
PPS Linda has more to say about the bullfight here: http://cuellarsblog.blogspot.com.es/