*******¡HIGHLIGHTS!*********

******MADRID: *Seeing my beloved friend, Gustavo after four years of seperation. We figured out that this visit was exactly the 4 year aniversary of when we last parted ways-he for his native Venezuela, me for a semester in Central America. *The Reina Sofia! The Prado! I am becoming well acquainted with the feeling of " Holy Guacamole! I studied this exact piece of art in school! I have seen prints of this a million times! I have written essays about this! It really exists!" I was so inspired. So awestruck.I would have been happy to grow roots in front of The Garden of Earthly Delights. *Hanging out in Chueca, Gustavo´s neighborhood. They pay an arm and a leg to live in a tiny one room studio apartment in the thriving, swarming, headturning, eyepopping, never sleeping gay district. *Going out in queer Madrid. This activity only begins at midnight. It is like a multi-course feast...start small and build up to a main course at about 5 am. Our main course was a 3 floor club named COOL. I was very underdressed style wise, and overdressed in the amount of clothing I wore. I was truly mesmerized(I forgot to dance, to look like I was hip, and just stared, open mouthed for a LONG time) by their dancers. Men on platforms that had angel faces, bodies like Syvester Stalone, then these little tiny thongs on (made of 2 pieces of string and a piece of cloth a fraction of the size of a banana peel. Really, a fascinating article of clothing. Especailly when the man wearing this is on a platform, kicking and swivelling. Better than TV!)and red high heels. I loved it!
******I hate to admit this, but SHOPPING!!!! I have had major restraint, except for this morning when I bought sequinned, Morrocan house slippers.uhh... I think this South Spain sunlight has boiled my brains. Here is my fashion update of the hippest of the hip:The mullet.The rat tail. The faux-hawk. Piercings and tatoos.Cowboy boots. Heroin skinny. Clothes that fall off and show uniquely constructed undergarmets. The hybrid look between the forest elf, bag lady, new mexican ranchero, and punk rocker. Shoes with curly toes. Loafers. And two things that I hope get out of style before they reach the USA: overalls and cameltoes.
*****THE NIGHT TRAIN TO PORTUGAL:A highlight in itself. Even though it was boiling hot and smelled like soggy tuna fish sandwiches, those little bitty beds are the coolest!
*****SINTRA, PORTUGAL: I stepped off the bus in this village, and shed a tear straight from my heart. It was too beautiful, too perfect, too romantic to be experienced alone. But, I bit the bullet and dove in. Perched on the mountain above town are an assortment of castles, in an assortment of styles, ages, and states of decay. I so wanted to run around the turrets and dungeons and tiny catwalks of the old Moorish castle and pretend to be a damsel in distress, to slay dragons, and kiss my knight in shining armour. Alas, one can not do these things alone very well. Upon my descent into the village, I walked through canyon-like streets, breathing the sent of honeysuckles and far-travelled sea breezes, and showers of rose petals blew off thousands of bushes into my path. It was pretty darn magical!
*****THE CHAPEL OF BONES,Faro, Portugal. Yep. Just what it sounds like. A whole chapel built of exhumed monks. The height of gothic architecture, yet all made of bones. 13,000 skulls!
*****REAL ALCAZAR, Sevilla, Spain: My first acquaintance with islamic architecture. Mind blowing. Acres of intricately carved plaster, fountains, pools, gardens, tiled mosaics. These tiles boggled my mind. The geometry, the exquisite combinations of shapes, the ways in which a flat plane and the crossing of straight lines can emulate all the depth of the universe, the mystery of life, the expanses of nature. I really dug it. I tried to draw some of these patterns in my sketchbook....I will just say my highschool geometry teacher would be very dissappointed.
****LA MEZQUITA, Cordoba, spain: I always imagined that when I saw acres of candy cane striped arches, I would have the urge to take off running through them, galloping and guffawing. Instead I just wandered slowly, absorbing what 850 black marble columns, holding up double red and white striped arches looks like. Also in this single building is a Rennaissance Cathedral and an insanely delicate Islamic chapel, covered in gold and mosaics. All three sections are masterworks of pattern and rythm, but on such different scales, with such different modes of expression. It is like comparing the sparkle of the ocean with the sparkle of a diamond. Yet it all there in the same space. Spectalar, to say the least!
*****AND....the best things has nothing to do with Europe. I have heard, not seen, that my paintings are in the June issue of Art in America!!!!! Page 57! OH my goodness! The make it or break it people somehow discovered little old me! I feel like running to the top of the Alhambra, here in Grenada, and composing a spontaneous opera in gratitude to the generosity of life and the surprises that it holds! I could do a backflip with the joy I feel!I have been content to put my heart and soul into my work and someone noticed!I thought I would be thirty or forty or dead before anyone not related to me took notice of my work. It is like what they say "Things happen when you least expect it." I take a break from working, come to Europe, and am bursting at the seams with inspiration and need to paint. And, behind my back, one of my dreams has come true! OK, enough of my explosions of jubilance.
*******LOVE! That is the best of all highlights in life. Love to you all,my faithful fan club.