My trip to Spain this time around was quite different. So many dreams came true and my inner landscape ripened a bit under that blazing Andalucian sun. We discovered that their word for ‘hot & humid’, ‘bochorno’ also means embarrassing, which totally makes sense when one ‘glows like a sow!’ 
I didn’t paint at all. My brushes went with, but never got touched. My Rotring worked. From time to time. I took to sketching in my favourite coffee shop called ‘Ortiz’ and then painting with my thick milky cafe con leche – more times than most people would
painting with 'cafe nube'...or 'cloud coffee'
probably consider healthy, but who cares. 
I sketched with chocolate in Venice, painted with cherry juice in Sirmione, with champagne on lake Garda and so the list goes on.
We spent two weeks in the North of Italy, which was beyond wonderful. The whole thing was a surprise from start to finish. Absolutely mind blowing. I even spent time staring at David’s very gorgeous behind for about an hour or so. No wonder they made a statue of the man!
The bits in between Italy & my departure were filled with my beloved, Calahonda beach, litres of tinto de verano, Spanish school and mountains of seafood. I was lucky enough to have my better half at home for three months too! I met the drunken mice of Jerez and saw the mosque at Cordoba AT LAST! The dancing horses of the Royal Riding School were another highlight.
I made loads of new friends
Duende in action
I discovered a ‘concept’ that changed my whole experience and my approach to my art, as well. The Spaniards call it ‘duende’. That mysterious, invisible life force that propels the magic in what we do. That fleeting moment when you know: This is ‘it’, that cannot be described. It is the difference between a senorita dancing to entertain a crowd and a signorita dancing with such passion that you get goose bumps. The night that I took this photograph, I experienced it for the first time, but didn’t know that it had a name. Flamenco has become a mystery that I need to know more about now, rather than the form of entertainment that it used to be.
It has started a new inner journey for me, this search for ‘duende’.
Thanks to my friend Minnie, who found this very accurate take on what exactly it is – according to wiki and a few others – I can share the following with you…here’s a more ‘intellectual’, strange & certainly off-beat take on this amazing ‘thing’ called ‘duende’…it is not to be taken too seriously, of course, as whatever it is cannot be confined to our words or rational understanding even… According to Christopher Maurer, editor of “In Search of Duende,” at least four elements can be isolated in Lorca’s vision of duende: irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death, and a dash of the diabolical. The duende is an earthy energy which helps the artist see the limitations of intelligence, reminding him that ‘ants could eat him or that a great arsenic lobster could fall suddenly on his head’; who brings the artist face-to-face with death, and who helps him create and communicate memorable, spine-chilling art. The duende is seen, in Lorca’s lecture, as an alternative to style, to mere virtuosity, to God-given grace and charm (what Spaniards call ‘angel’), and to the classical, artistic norms dictated by the muse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duende_(art)
Local Fishermen
About a week before I left, Richard and I got engaged on another surprise trip – in Barcelona on one of the towers of Gaudi’s magnificent Segrada Familia. We went to most of his buildings in Barcelona and all that I can say is that I shall never be the same again. What a mind!
So all in all I am still the luckiest girl in the world, my urns have been filled with inspiration and I can feel the ‘gathering’ happening. Can’t wait for next year’s exhibition and to feel the ‘duende’!
Hasta pronto!
