My Fine-Art-Print Muse

Maureen’s Gallinero Artists’ Cabin Gets Freshened Up

Autumn Upgrade for a Special Guest You never notice how badly a place needs painting until you paint it. Though in our case it isn’t paint, it’s whitewash. That was the traditional way of painting houses inside and out in the Spanish pueblos. That’s changed now, of course. All homes are painted with plastic paint. In truth, I can’t imagine living inside a plastic bag, and Mike agrees with me. So…

Our Village Featured on Andalusian TV as a Model Good-Life Pueblo

A team from Canal Sur, the Andalusian regional television channel, dropped by my studio on a tip from my neighbors to include me in a program they’re producing on the best, healthiest places to live in Andalusia (that’s Spain’s eight most southernmost provinces, including Granada). Our pueblo, Pinos Genil definitely fills the bill. It has improved physically a lot over five decades, but its…

June Everybody agrees that the Alhambra in Granada is a worldwide wonder. And it’s ours. It lies in the same Sierra Nevada foothills  as our village, Pinos Genil, which is just 15-minute drive away from the monument. Nevertheless, we seldom visit the Alhambra. We take it for granted. We can go some other day. So it was a nice incentive when Elisa, the culture delegate from our town hall, organized a tour for the people of our village a couple of Saturdays ago. .

Such is our complacency here in Pinos that we only managed to fill 28 places of a 55 seat bus. The other 27 missed out on a smashing excursion. It’s a shame because the “new” Alhambra is an authentic marvel that shines as never before (at least in the past 500 years). Apparently this has to do with the fact that all the money earned from the millions of people who visit the Alhambra each year is re-invested in the monument.  And our guide was a polite, cultured a patient young man, a bonus. .

The Alhambra appears to have grown since I last saw it a couple of decades ago. Every visibile aspect of the monument has been lovingly renovated and areas once closed to visitors have been revamped and opened up. Everything shines, including the extensive gardens (El Generalife) which are impeccably kept. There are even some new excavations.  Both the Palace of Charles V (Palacio Carlos Quinto) and the church of Santa María de La Alhambra (two massive buildings that were constructed by the Christians when they culminated the Reconquest and expelled the Moors in 1492.

Note to travellers. Everything about the Alhambra is so large and so labyrinthine that you can get lost in there. (N.B. If you get lost inside the palace don’t try to trace your way back to the entrance. If you do manage to find it they won’t let you out. You have to turn around and go back through the maze till you find the proper exit. Which you won’t find unless you manage to find a compassionate employee to guide you out. Definitively, getting separated from the group converts a visit to the Alhambra in adventure tourism. .

Here are the photographs:

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I can’t resist posting this photograph Mike made the other day from the Gallinero’s little sun-moon and stars terrace. It’s been a wonderful springtime thus far with the mourning doves romancing high in the cypress trees and the bumble bees buzzing round the wysteria bush sucking nectar. The garden is surging and the summer terraces of the bars and restaurants are beginning to thrive.  Everyone…

Danish Artist Sif Nielsen Parks Her Longboat by the Gallinero for Three Weeks

What to do while your partner is doing a month-long professional navegation course in Gibraltar? . . “I didn’t feel at home on the Costa del Sol so after a week I googled ‘printmaking courses in Spain,'” says Sif, “and up popped Maureen.” (Why “Sif?” Because in Norse mythology Sif was the wife of Thor.) Sif, studied architecture but never practiced. “I just wanted to be an artist,” she says…

We usually walk in the morning. It’s cooler and the air is clearer. The pictures Mike published here a couple of weeks ago were made on this same walk, but in the morning. In the evening it’s different, but equally delightful. The color of the evening light is warmer and the later it gets the rays of the sun slant through the trees and across the hills at a low angle. We were surprised that, though it’s only half an hour’s drive up the hill from our house, and we walked for less than an hour and a half, when we came back to the bar at the bottom we felt we’d had a holiday.

Here are the pictures. (P.S. The last photo is of our house, my studio and the Gallinero from across the valley of the River Genil. The scene looked so serene as we were driving home that Mike stopped and shot the picture.)

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So, the other morning Mike and I jumped in the car at 8:00 a.m. and drove 20 minutes up the Sierra Nevada road to a place called “El Desvío” (“The Detour,” as it’s where the old road divides from the new one) at 1,800 meters of altitude. In one of the bars congregated there  we had breakfast–leche manchada con media tostada de aceite y tomate, milky coffee with half a toasted Vienna roll, virgin olive oil and grated tomato, and set off on foot along a gravel trail that leads to a remote convent five kilometers up the road. We didn’t make it to the convent but we enjoyed a delicious hour and a half hiking along the road. We took our dog, Cuca, with us. She also needs a workout.

During the whole time we only saw one car and a handful of hikers, a real luxury. We enjoyed immensely the gently rising and falling trail, the stunning mountain views and watching Cuca hunting little skink lizards. She never catches one. Best of all was the temperature, never going beyond23 or 24º. Here is a selection of the pictures Mike made on the walk.

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Maureen Booth, August 2016

The last photograph in this brief album shows some of Mila’s results. I like very much what she achieved.

Come back and see us when you can, Mila.

They planned their Spanish holiday months in advance. California printmakers Susan Lyon and Maryanne Nucci wanted to include a visit to Maureen’s studio in Granada, and stay for a few days in her Gallinero artists’ cabin, though they wouldn’t have time to do any printmaking. What little time they had available to spend in Andalusia would be in Seville and Granada and “visiting the olive-oil regions” (Maryanne’s business at home is an Italian restaurant, so she is an olive oil connoisseur.)

That was the plan. But when they arrived and saw Maureen’s studio and the work she was turning out there–after the usual How-did-you-do-that?! moment–they changed their plans and decided to get their fingers inky. Luckily they had both already seen the Alhambra on previous visits to Granada, because they spent the full four days they were here hard at work creating and printing solar plates.

They left delighted with the results they had achieved, anxious to get back to California and enjoy some “How-did-you-do-that?! moments of their own.

Susan Lyon and Maryanne Nucci–California girls from the Monterey area–spend four “stolen” days in the Gallinero and working with Maureen in her studio.

Morning after Rain, Everything Glistens

Granada, February 6, 2014–Even the eucalyptus trees on the opposite side of our valley. This photo…

Welcome to my new micro gallery.

Cold Rain, Driving Wind, Possible Snow

Take Refuge with Friends in a Tapas Bar!

Here’s a few from which to choose in Granada. Remember, you’re not limited to one. The more the merrier!

A Drugstore Like You Never Dreamed--In Granada, of Course

All pharmacies should have cherubs and angels hovering overhead! This one on Granada’s Calle Reyes…

Happy Winter Solstice!

The NASA Features Granada as APOD

Photo by Granada photographer, Guido Montañés

The Granada newspapers are all aflutter this morning…