Vancouver – and BC at large’s – beloved intrepid creative reporter Justin McElroy {insta} (*technically* municipal affairs for CBC Vancouver but *really* czar of lists, compiler of ephemera, chronicler of present nostalgia, collector of the critically important but quickly forgotten) is on an extended traveling sabbatical and producing daily updates of his frankly absurd, capturing alleyways, archways, food of the day, the sublime and the mundane while switching between trains and planes, trams and probably a funicular whilst thwarting street schemers and managing a high-level view of cities well-being boots on the ground… Or maybe sandals.
Anyhow, while he was in Barcelona, I recalled some paintings I did sitting on a Juliet porch on an laneway off Las Ramblas – I’d lost my glasses on a train from France, my astigmatism causing headaches and flattening the world… And made these two scenes, one looking right from the porch in the daytime made with watercolors and soft pastels on paper, the other looking to the left at night time on canvas sheet with acrylic paints.
I was intrigued by the very personal views into peoples lives, watching their routines drifting by, lamps turning on and off, meals set out, coffees and teas and wines, hurried footsteps on cobblestones, the cats coming out at night and so on.
I also did view of Gaudi’s Parc Guell while they… Sat down in the park and bashed it out in one white hot session.
The paintings above hung at my late Mother’s house in Utah and then made roundabout journey to Vancouver to brother Dan’s house, and then came back with us last year (pay oversize/extra baggage fees to ANA) and now hang at my in-laws house.
Very few people that “I know” have seen these paintings which to me bring back so much memory both from that time and from the joy my mother found in them.
Most of the other paintings from that Europe trip in 2005 – a distant factory spewing fire outside Sitges, a garden in Fig de Foz Portugal, a Shisha lounge in Granada – I gave away for reasons I won’t get into here.
PS For the curious, this was at the 1-star rated Pension Dani [map]. “Spartan rooms in an unpretentious city center location…”
The reviews – which seem to focus on the smells and roaches – show a photo which matches up almost exactly with one of these views.