Nate and Cindy Sullivan are among a small group of Continuing Education artists and enthusiasts on a whirlwind tour through Barcelona, the most vibrant art scene in present-day Spain. Over the next week they'll be blogging their adventure working with artists, visiting some of Barcelona’s monuments of modernism and taking part in a festive and colorful life.

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Mar 27, 2007 : Nate Sullivan

How to Fit Eight Adults into a Peugeot

I feel a bit guilty writing about one of our last group experiences when so much has happened in the past few days. However, it seems appropriate that a car ride to a train station would put in perspective why this group has been so memorable.

We’d spent the day with Gemma Molera at her print shop in Cerdanyola del Valles (a suburb of Barcelona). The workshop gave us our first chance to take the art we’d been absorbing for the past week and express it through mono-type prints. The invigorating experience made the day past too quickly and we were having to leave before we felt ready.

Our group of eight was the second group to be shuttled to the station, and to avoid having to make a third trip, we made it work. Jef squeezed into the trunk between a couple car seats with our bags piled on top. Five puzzled their way into the middle seats that normally fit three. And soon, all eight of us, including Gemma (who as the driver was the smallest of the group), had managed to squeeze into her Peugeot wagon. And for the next ten minutes as we meandered through one-way streets and round-abouts, we all felt a bit more acquainted.

Not that we weren’t already well acquainted. Over the past ten days we’d learned what had brought each of us to art, to Barcelona, and what inspiration was likely to propel our creative spirit through the next months. Many expressed a sense of freedom after spending a day taking in the work of Antonio Tapies, an experience proceeded by the equally liberating Romanesque art displayed at the MNAC.

With the fitting of eight in a car for five, we demonstrated how we’d formed as a group. And I’m certain that if we’d only been able to make one trip instead of two, there’d been a way to fit all twelve in the car.

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Mar 22, 2007 : Nate Sullivan

Street Rubbings to Chopin

A few from our group ventured out to gather our impressions from the streets of Barcelona – literally. Jef Gunn, the PNCA instructor, demonstrated a Chinese brush technique, while the rest of Barcelona street life looked on.

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Mar 22, 2007 : Nate Sullivan

Get up, Get Out, Get Inspired

Waking up at 6:00 am seemed too early. And eight o’clock – still too early. So at ten, after four hours of sleeping with one eye on the watch in my hand, I realized if I slept much longer I might as well keep sleeping.

Wednesday was our first free day, right? And we were in Spain.

As it turns out Barcelona doesn’t operate on the same relaxed schedule as other parts of Spain. That’s one myth debunked. Just like Portland, the streets are busy at 8 am with people rushing to work. They just party later into the night.

As I was saying though, this was a day to relax, a free day, to be packed with self-guided adventure – like laundry. So after hanging our laundry out , Cindy and I headed off to the MACBA and CCCB.

We’d already visited both museums but like a lot of great stuff, you need a second taste to know its true flavor. And we’d had just enough of experience with Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s “The Killing Machine and Other Stories” that we knew we had to see it again.

For anyone familiar with the work of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s work, then you’ll already be aware that they work with sensory experience. And for anyone not familiar with their work, if you ever have a chance to visit one of their installations, it’s a must see.

The titled work, “The Killing Machine” (2007) debuted at this show, and it’s power is indescribable. Influenced by Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”, it’s a solemn commentary on capital punishment. As a spectator you’re a witness to two orchestrating robotic arms as they probe and inject an empty, fur covered dentist chair. Discordant sounds of guitar, violin and drum beat and an intercom voice walk the death recipient through the procedure. Infinitely repeatable, compassionate, and mesmerizing.

It’s an experience that makes me thankful I stopped avoiding the morning, and even more thankful I happened to be here in Barcelona at its premier.

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Mar 21, 2007 : Cindy Sullivan

Streets of Barcelona

Day two and the wind really picked up. At times, during the night, it sounded like a train thundering through the narrow alley of the normally quiet little pedestrian street our apartment is on. But it was only wind and Nate and I bundled up and headed toward the Cafe de la Opera to meet the group. When we arrived, spirits were high even though we were all still in our final throngs of adjusting to the Barcelona time change.

After a quick bite and a bit of discussion, William, our guide, took us on a walking tour through the labyrinth of streets until we reached the Conservatorio Municial de Arles Suntuarias Massana, a former hospital/convent which now houses an art school. This was the hospital where Gaudi was taken when he was hit by a street car. Nobody knew who he was and thought he was a homeless person, so they took him to the convent/hospital where he was attended to. After he was missing for three days, the people who knew Gaudi began to worry and look for him and ended up finding him, deceased, at the hospital.

It was still windy and nippy out so William (who thinks of everything) took us for a quick side stop to a shop where we could pick up scarves and gloves…and that we did. After we were all bundled up and happy, we continued our walking tour and headed for the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) and the Cathedral of Barcelona.

I found the ancient narrow streets very inspiring. As the streets rip through space, they also rip through reality to a world where stone, bricks, crumbling corners, scraped and chipped walls, washed away writing, and peeling paint reveal secret lives and history layered and sealed in the stone.

After our tour of the Barri Gotic the Cathedral we discussed Gothic art and the role of symbolism and how those ideas had evolved into contemporary times, then headed for the Hotel de Espana (where our instructor Jef Gunn is staying) for a delicious lunch (lunch in Barcelona is around 2:oo) and more great conversation.

The rest of the day was spent on the Consell de Cent where we visited art galleries and viewed and discussed the works of modern artists from the 1950’s through today.

For our final destination, Jef took us to the chocolate shop Cacao Sampaka where we ogled, tasted and stocked up on the chocolate delicacies, then the group dispersed into the Barcelona night to discover whatever secrets she had waiting for us.

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Mar 20, 2007 : Nate Sullivan

A Taste of Gaudi Kicks Our Group into Catalan's Art Present

Our group met up at Cafe de l’Opera, where we had cappuccinos and became acquainted. Here we were introduced to William, who would be our guide over the next several days. As passionate about Barcelona as he is about art, he provided great energy for a group still struggling to become adjusted to Barcelona time.

Our first order of business – get as much Gaudi into one day as humanly possible and to start we needed to reach Gaudi’s Parc Guell. After whirly derby taxi ride through the streets of the Eixample, we reached Gaudi’s Parc Guell. Too early for crowds, we enjoyed violin music in the midst of the slanting doric columns that supported the roof.

On the rooftop, tourists tried to find rest on the mosaic bench detailed by the work of Josep Maria Jujol, while young kids tried to sneak a game of football. Some of us just enjoyed the taste of Catalan sand the winds kicked up.

A short taxi ride back down from Parc Guell and we’re standing at the east facing Passion Facade, the tourist entrance to Gaudi’s grandest and most ambitious work, the Sagrada Familia. For Guadi fans, being faced with the sculptures of Josep Subirachs can stir an internal controversy. With their angular shapes entangled with the organic, Art Nouveau with modern, you’re left wondering if this project that consumed the last 15 years of Gaudi’s life, was in fact too ambitious for his highly creative vision.

The jolt from Art Nouveau into the modern was appropriate though as our group found itself at the MACBA where more of our artistic sensibility was stirred by the works of Carlos Pazos, with his post-modern works of arranged kitsch, photography and video.

And to end the evening we enjoyed dinner in the Els Quatre Gats cafe (The Four Cats), where Picasso and his compadre’s discussed the Paris art scene, and schemed on ways to start their own. Of course most of this story confused itself with a mix of great food, great wine and a little too much music.

In all, a perfect way to start a journey of contemporary Catalan art.

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