End of the third week and I am proud to announce that we are done building. Next week will be spent adding the finishing touches such as lighting, a moped, and a fruit cart. Now that all the heavy building is done Yolanda and I have been able to get our pieces really rolling. Our studio table has transformed quite a bit over the 3 weeks. Piles of drawings, books, yarn, power tools, clay, and mugs of tea fill our tiny space. Being down here for the month of June has given us a lot of surprises and experiences. Having never been to South America, this whole trip has been filled of moments I thought I never would of seen or experienced. For instance, Claudia Joskowicz has invited Ruth, Richard, Yolanda, and I to help out with the third installment of a film series. The film she will be shooting will be about the legendary death of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Richard will be playing the part of the Sundance Kid and Yolanda and I will be helping out in any means necessary. After the opening we will be traveling to Vallegrande for the weekend to do the shooting. As always stay posted for new and interesting tales of our South American experience.
The job site seems hectic as we approach closer to the opening show deadline. With the arrival of the long awaited hay bags and tomato crates Richard and I were able to get a lot accomplished. The dome is nearly complete. I have to add some small finishing touches to the backside, which I will do tomorrow. Richard got the DJ station built and we started to pile tomato crates upon it. With just two weeks we have transformed the patio into an ARCHolage of Bolivian inspired structures. Yolanda was yet again traveling with Julio through the streets of Santa Cruz. She got a lot accomplished today. I have to say without her we would not have anything to build. The combination of her Spanish and quick thinking makes for a good addition to the team. She was able to find a fruit vendor willing to let us rent his fruit cart along with a giant hat for Richard. I am sorry to announce that there will not be robots, but the plan still seems for me to do a fruit cart performance at the opening. Time seems so short with just a week to go. Santa Cruz and its people have really grown on me and I wish we could have more time down here. Stay tuned for more building, more improvisation, and more blogging.
Lunes. For the first day of the week we accomplished quite a bit. Richard and Yolanda went on yet another material search and purchased 150 tomato crates and 30 more bags of hay. While they were riding in taxis and bargaining for supplies I was at the job site. My morning mission: stack 50 bags of hay on top of the dome structure. It proved to be difficult and exhausting. The first stacking method I tried proved to be too weight bearing and the dome structure semi caved in. I replaced the woven supports and added new beams coming from the floor up the roof of the interior structure. Richard liked the look of it so it worked out for the best. I achieved success after going with a more layered brick stacking method, but was hindered by the amount of hay bags I had. Tomorrow we will get the 30 we purchased delivered and I will be able to finish stacking. Richard and Yolanda returned with a chain saw and an avocado the size of a melon. We took a lunch break and I got to hear all about their adventure to a local sculptor’s studio. On Saturday Yolanda and I will be going out there to pay a studio visit and learn more about his work. After lunch Richard gave me a chain saw demo and we cut large logs, assembling them into a roofed area that will contain a fruit stand. The day ended with Richard taken good advantage of my climbing skills and had my scale up the tree to cut down some dead limbs. The day was successful. I got to build all day, which I love, and am now completely exhausted.
Andrea took me on a material search to the "7 Calles" market. This is a taste of the multitude of fabrics available.
I have become very fond of these electrical boxes that sit outside just about every building and residency. This set of boxes especially caught my attention because of the rigged wire trying to hold the larger case closed.
Well it’s the second weekend already here in lovely Santa Cruz. We have reached the halfway point of our trip with quite the memorable weekend. Richard and I spent Saturday morning working on the installation while Yolanda went on a search for yarn. We met back up in the afternoon and paid a visit to the America Home Center, Bolivia’s home depot. Our purchase: an automatic staple gun, matching green hard hats, multi colored bamboo sticks. Sunday was a day of rest and studio time for Yolanda and I. Julio showed me a hidden kiln in the back of the residency house and gave me a generous amount of clay. This is a nice treat for me. I was worried about what to do for the show and thought that my ideas were too close to Richard’s work. Right now I feel stronger as an artist working with clay. Day by day working with Richard is helping me to learn how to use other materials and tools that I am not familiar with. In the future I want to adopt more of these methods into my work and branch into a mix of sculpture and ceramics. That is all for the weekend report.
Hola! I want to shout out a THANK YOU to all of you that have been reading our blog. This is a grand experience and we are so happy to share some of our stories with you.
Today we worked slightly in reverse. With the new arrival of Ruth (another artist in residence for Kiosko) we got a bit of a late start. Flying in from London, Ruth was brave and bold enough to venture out with use in the late morning for some salteñas. She is a fun person and our time together should be good. We let Ruth catch up on sleep and went over to the job site to get working. Working hard till dark we got a lot done. We have been experiencing a little bit of problems but nothing to really hold us back. The day might not of been possible without some help. The interne for Vamos magazine, Andrea (Dru) and her friend, Andrea (Andy) was nice enough to spend their day off lending us a helping hand. It’s nearly two weeks now. Yolanda and I have a pretty good grasp on what we will construct for our show at the end of the month so now it’s only a matter of building. The days seem long and the nights short with much work still to be done.
Power tools are a blessing. Today was the second day on the job site. We accomplished a lot. The first anchor piece to Richard’s installation is showing much progress. The weather here is turning cold and the rain comes and goes. Personally I found the day to be delightful. Within a day of working together the three of us have found a successful system. Minus the slapstick moment of Yolanda hitting Richard with a plank of wood we are working well with each other. We’re cooking with gas.
Our workdays start with a team meeting covering the day’s plans and goals. Richard assigned me the task of maintaining the job site. I leave slightly earlier than the two and work on preparing everything for the day. Working in Bolivia is interesting. Power tools never seem to fit into the right plugs. The wood we are working with is extremely hard to deal with at times. I am constantly dealing with breaking drill bits and stubborn screws. Although these create problems they also make for a great learning experience. As Richard’s assistant I am learning more then I would from a class setting. Apprenticeship is a very traditional form of art teaching, it offers the unique chance to learn from a professional. No assignments, no grades, just raw experience.
The first weekend in Santa Cruz proved to be excellent. Richard has been using the time to plan for Monday and in the meantime Yolanda and I have done some drawings/brainstorming for our show. Still taking lots of photos and I apologize for the lack of a flickr site. We will have it up and running as soon as possible to give all you bloggers the full Bolivian experience.
Saturday was nice and relaxing and in the evening we joined Raquel, Roberto and company for diner. The night finished with Roberto taking us to a local bar. Those of you from Boulder it was the Bolivian version of the Downer. Which means I was I loved it. Live music, cheap beer, and gross bathrooms. Mi favorito.
Sunday was quite the day. Yuda took us out to see a friend of her’s, Nico. He lives on a large farm about 30 minutes outside the city. We ate more oranges then Florida can shake a stick at. His family grows more types of oranges then I knew existed. Nico gave us the tour showing off his 5,000 pollos, a handful of pigs, cows, and orange trees as far as the eye could see. We witnessed a chicken being bleed out. I thought that was cool.
Nico’s familia was an amazing example of the Bolivian people. They always have to tease me about my lack of Spanish speaking abilities, but are wonderful people nonetheless. We drank coffee and stuffed ourselves with fresh baked goods (pan de arroz y charque). God I love Bolivia.
I went to a book fair this weekend where I found a restored Spanish book from the 1500's. The man holding the book was showing me how Castilian Spanish has changed since then. For example, Astrología used to be Aftrología.
This image at the entrance of the chicken warehouse is covered in old grain bags that have been sewn together- so beautiful!
We ended this week with quite the productive day. We started the morning off early at seven with tea and pan (bread) with Estevana (our host father), then we ventured out on the autobús to the gallery. Accompanied by Julio (a saint and the handy man of Kiosko) we set out on a search for materials. First stop, the lumberyard…an OSHA nightmare. Yolanda worked on translating with Julio while I shot some videos of the workers. They use a nail to guide the wood through the table saw and it’s a wonder that they have all their fingers. Packed in a taxi we set out towards another lumberyard to purchase large tree limbs. Along the way Richard was hit with inspiration and we ended up purchasing 50 bags of straw. After unloading the supplies at Kiosko we jammed ourselves back into the taxi and went to the hardware market. A fiesta of tools, hardware, lights, etc. the place was hustling and bustling with the sounds of business. I cannot stress how important Julio was today. Without him I was left drawing out tools in the air in a total state of confusion. Returning to the gallery in the evening, tired and stressed, we unwound with some beers. The people of Kiosko are a talented and hard working bunch and it is joy being along side them. This weekend we will do some laundry and prep for a build day on lunes (Monday).
A photo of our shower. It is heated by electricity and has a number 2 pencil jammed in it. I always get a little shock when I turn the water on. A good wake up call.
So its day 3 now and it is already feeling like a month has gone by. Raquel sought fit to give us a driving tour, which was fast and bumpy...even for my taste. I would put Bolivian traffic in the category of "ordered chaos". On our tour, we saw polar opposite locations of Santa Cruz- the rich and poor districts. We continue collecting visual information by observing informal architectural forms, structures, designs, and patterns. This research will lead to ideas for sculptures, drawings and what Richard calls Archolage (applying the method of bricollage to sculptural and architectural forms). Personally I have been attracted to the way buildings are constructed here. There is a lot of quick rigging and fast attachments to build loose looking scaffolding and supports. Since our time here is short, fast building methods are important to consider. There is a beautiful contrast between the poor districts with tin roofing and tree limb siding from the wealthy areas with modern architecture styles. In the evening Yolanda and I joined Yuda (the daughter of our host family) and her friends to their final architecture critique. I had the pleasure of listening in on the class and took away a quote from the professor: "Si tienes más que dar y no lo das- eso es un pecado"-if you have the ability to give more and you do not offer, that it is a sin.
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