Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

I arrived in Las Palmas yesterday. I will be here for two weeks working at an artist in residence.

I will post some photos of my work I make here.

When I first arrived, the landscape did not really appeal to me. Then, I start feeling about this town a bit more today. 

It is clouded today

 Canary island is well known for tourism and beaches but it is not white sand beaches we imagine in our heads. Alfonso, the owner of the residency said that it used to be like that. Lately, new factories were built and sand beaches are gone. I look at a map. I am on the north east side of Canary island, which is cooler, temperature wise. I heard that south part of the island is hotter and very dense forest, but here is pretty much desert. 

There was volcano eruption, I don't know when, many years ago. You can see rocks like these everywhere.

     City of Las Palmas far away. The city right in front of the picture is Tinoca.

It is very diverse place. I heard there are a lot of Koreans settled here.

Soon enough, guess what I found.

I will try to take buses and explore the city more later this or early next week.

Bilbao Newspaper features my work!

Local Bilbao paper features my work. 

Basque Feast and Guggenheim

Like Korea, people in Basque welcome other people with amazing foods. There is saying in Basque Country, if your guest leaves hungry, it will be vey a shame of you the  rest of your life. 

When they say that, they were not kidding.

We went to this restaurant that was located on the top of a mountain in Bilbao.

It started with octopus and potatoes. They even had gluten free bread, which was amazing.

The next one came.

I ate this much!

Then the next one came.

I don't know what is called in English but we Koreans eat this too.

The last one was a traditional Basque desert.

After that, I went to see Guggenheim museum and the spider.

If you want to buy souvenir from Bilbao, go to this store cross the river from the museum.

They have t shirts by the designer and some beautiful stuff! 

Let's support local busines!

 

 

Trip to San Juan de Luz

I had a sort trip to San Juan de Luz, South France today.

On the way, we stop at a cafe called Paseo Chocolate.

Amazing hot chocolate made of 100% caco.

The owner of the cafe was super fun too.

There were kids who made art on chocolate.

Royal families of Spain and celebrities such as Madonna spend their summer here in San Juan de Luz and I could see why.

La Taller gallery, Bilbao, Spain

If you are a printmaking artist, this is a gallery you must check out.

I also want this gallery to thrive that more printmaking artists show their work and more people appreciate printmaking. 

Maite runs the gallery, La Taller Gallery in Bilbao, Spain.

The gallery is located in beautiful Bilbao, Spain.

Here is the view from the gallery.

I had a great opportunity to show my work here. While I am visiting, I got some shots of the gallery.

Right next to the gallery, there is a small and beautiful printmaking workshop. They teach printmaking classes and have artists come and print their work.

Here is the workshop images.

And I made an intaglio plate and printed it there.

I am always supportive of non toxic printmaking but it was nice to do conventional style again.

I also never used brass plate. It was actually very nice. I wonder if I can get them in US.

Resin is being set.

The final work.

If you are planning on visiting Bilbao, check this gallery out.

The gallery information:

La Taller Gallery

C/Zumarraga 7,

Longja bajo.

Entrada por Maestro

Iciar S/N. 48006 Bilbao

Bizkaia

Spain

Tell: 0034 94 672 2292 

Http://www.lataller.com

 

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Getting started.

It was a rough start. My flight to san francisco was delayed. Surprisingly, I only had less than 20 minutes, plus I had to pee so bad. I had to decide between missing a flight and pee on my pants. I had two minutes left and there was a long line in front of the restroom. Guess what, all these people let me pee first so that I could catch my flight. So, I got on the flight. Then the captain had to call an emergency landing in Montreal because somebody got really sick. We had to wait for 5 hours on the airplane not knowing when we could continue our journey. Again, surprisingly, I was not late to catch another flight to Bilbao from Frankfurt. They did not even lose my luggage!!! If you know me, you know my story will never be easy and safe. This trip had all the elements to go wrong but everything came out great. 

And this is what I had.

Street view from my apartment in Bilbao.

Bar hopping. A lot of awesome wine and tapas.

This is how I start my traveling!

Getting ready for my trip

My Sabbatical starts from next week. I was done with my school at the end of May but I decided to teach a summer class.  I had one of the best classes, which just finished today. I thought I would feel extremely happy but I feel kind of weird now. It is a mixture of excited and a bit scared at the same time.

I bought a suitcase, backpack, ipad, and small handbag. I am starting with Spain and then go different places. I will try to go as many places as possible, but at the same time, I will try not to over do :)

Please stay in tuned. I will post not only my art, but also cool art I will see, yummy foods, and awesome places to go. I will be in some of artist in residence programs in different countries as well. You might also want to consider applying if any place looks cool.