Much of my artwork is based on my travels, and so in a time when we cannot travel beyond our homes, I am re-reading my journals and, in my mind, revisiting the places where Charlotte and I travelled.
A series of reflections. A journey into the recent past. Remembering the discoveries we made, and places we returned to, sad and wonderful at the same time.
Vejer de la Frontera
Vejer de la Frontera, February 17, 2015
We drove 30 km southwest from Arcos de la Frontera through rolling hills and cork oak forests to Vejer. We had been here before, for just an afternoon years earlier, and had said to ourselves this was a place we had to come back to for a longer stay.
There was only one way up and one way down from the hilltop town. Our hotel, Casa de le Califa, was on one side of the town square. In the center was a beautiful majolica tiled fountain surrounded by tiled benches under huge palm trees. The hotel was built on 6 or 7 levels down the hillside and had a roof top terrace with a patterned balustrade, potted plants and terra cotta tiled floors. From here we had a wonderful view across to the rest of the town beyond, and to the valley below.
The town is a maze of narrow and steep cobbled streets. Behind a church, next to the crenellated town walls, we found the Juderia. Evidence of the past could be seen in the faded Jewish stars painted on some of the buildings.
At the end of each day the sunlight angled across the valley and lit up the town, the facades of the buildings stacked on top of each other up on the hillside created an amazing cubist pattern of light and shadow planes. To finish the day we returned to the hotel, where In the midst of a garden courtyard, in a restored, arched roof stone building dating from 1560, we are served a wonderful Tunisian style Tagine dinner.
Ragusa Rooftops
Ragusa Rooftops, February 15, 2015
It was here that I decided that the theme of my next solo exhibition at the Roberts Gallery would be “Views From Rooftops”. The exhibit is on my website, “Roberts Gallery 2017”
We drove through a beautiful valley with stone fences through fields of olive groves, with fruit and vegetable stands along the roadside. Ragusa is built on two hills, with an old town and a new town. The old town was mostly destroyed in the earthquake of 1693, which destroyed 45 towns and killed 60,000 people in Sicily. The new part of the town was built in its entirety in the 1700s. Our hotel was on a hilltop, with a stone walled terraced garden, orange trees, a pool and a lawn looking across the valley to the town below.
Because of the setting of the hotel the view of the Duomo is from above the level of the main dome. Steps wind down the hill, around behind the duomo, along to a narrow side street, into the piazza below. Looking back, there is a wide set of steps leading up to the front doors of the Duomo now towering above us, surrounded by a huge wrought iron fence. All of the buildings on the square have Baroque facades, palm trees line the streets, and with the Duomo in the background it all feels like a stage set. Ragusa did, in fact, serve as the film set for Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano detective series.
At one end of the piazza a small church is busy out front with nuns entering, and we decide to go in. We listen to the nuns sing in the beautifully decorated baroque interior painted and gilded, the floor set in an intricate pattern of majolica tiles and obsidian stone. Leaving, we walk beyond the piazza, though the gardens for an amazing view over the countryside below as the sun sets.
Seville Rooftops #2
Seville Rooftops, February 10, 2015
This was our fourth visit to Seville, but our first stay at the Hotel Amadeus in the middle of the Santa Cruz district. We had a room on the top floor with easy access to a large roof top terrace, with a bar and tables, but empty at this time of the year. There was a 360 degree view over the city. We could see the many domes and pinnacles of the cathedral and countless other church steeples all around us, tiled in decorative majolica tiles and painted in pastel colours. Nearby other roof top terraces had colourful laundry hanging out to dry.
We visited the Alcazar, Triana, and the bullring, we saw Norma at the opera house, we ate tapas, we visited the cathedral, and climbed La Giralda. We also revisited the home of the Countess Lebrija, the ground floor paved with the mosaic floors she rescued from the countryside in Italica. Showcases feature collections of pottery, and wonderful tiled staircases lead to the upper floors, with rooms that include her library and a spectacular dining room.
The idea of a Rooftops series became fully formed here as I did many sketches in the late afternoon sun over the 4 days we stayed in Seville.