[M y W e b s i t e]

[t h e T V i n t e r v i e w]

[m y i s s u u]

[l i n e a f r a c t a l] my blog in Spanish



Hello dear friends

This will probably be a short entry, unless I get carried away and forget I have other things to do. As you may have read in my previous journal, I am now taking care of the local Art Gallery and my life has changed quite a bit. For the better, needless to say!

I am at the Gallery every morning and afternoon from Wednesday to Sunday, and I'm free on Mondays and Tuesdays. I haven't been able to work on fractals or anything else, as you can imagine my new tasks keep me quite busy. Not that I have to keep a hectic activity but I do have to learn how everything works, etc. So I didn't log in in days and today I found a backlog of messages I'll probably won't be able to answer. I know you understand and I thank you from the heart for your affection and your support. I read every single message, even though I may not answer you.

My actual work has not started yet. Some time this week there will be a meeting where we will discuss the steps to take in the near future. The Project I presented was crammed with activities but it's a relief to know the administration prefers to take it easy. Some of my proposals may not even begin in 2010. For the time being, there are two things I'm eager to find out: 1. Who will be the first artist to exhibit in the Gallery. 2. How much they will pay me!

I won't be able to log into dA every day as I used to, at least not untill they buy a new computer for the Gallery. The old one is obsolete. We need a fast connection too. When these issues are settled, I'll log in from the Gallery and tell you all about my new experiences there.

On a side note -but not less important: On Saturday 26 September the Lil' One gave birth to three warm, cuddly and absolutely lovely kittens! I was there to see them come to this world. Everything went like clockwork and now a happy, bright new mother is nursing her babies in the entrance hall in front of my appartment. Two of them are black and the third is a grayish tiger-striped beauty. I can't tell if they're male or female yet.

And now I must leave. I need to use my days off to take care of my personal issues, do the shopping and paint a bit too. My thanks again to all of you and stay tuned!

[M y W e b s i t e]

[t h e T V i n t e r v i e w]

[m y i s s u u]

[l i n e a f r a c t a l] my blog in Spanish



Today is a very special day for me and I want to share my joy with you.

This summer was a difficult period. Some of you may remember that I never got paid for my last translating job and, coupled to that, no new work came in. My finances and I got very sad and desperate. A new job opportunity popped up in August and I focused on that. This morning I was informed that the job was mine. And here are the details:

There is an Art Gallery in the village where I live, the "Antigua Fábrica Noguera". You can see a shot of the interior here:

Though the village is small and rather distant from the main artistic circles, the Gallery is important and it used to hold exhibitions of artists from all over Spain and even some South American countries. It really represented a centre of cultural activity in the broader area.
The building is an old paper mill -one of eight in the village- that was beautifully restored under the initiative and loving effort of Gema Noguera, the owner of the venue and a painter herself. She also acted as a gallerist till November 2008.
Then tragedy hit the Gallery and Gema's family. Having always been extremely sensitive, emotionally vulnerable and chronically depressive, Gema took her own life last November. I won't go into the details of that, out of respect for her family and her memory. I knew her, I used to drop by the gallery just to have a chat and see what she was working on (her workshop was in the same building) and she even proposed I held an exhibition of my fractals there. Her death was a painful blow to everyone here.
The Gallery remained closed for months. Then, by the end of Spring, the family started negotiations with the local Municipal authorities and the Provincial Government of Teruel to reopen the Gallery under the direction of a three-party committee. The Antigua Fábrica Noguera was in fact re-inaugurated on 20 August with a collective exhibition of artists that had exhibited there in the past and (I'm proud to say) two of my fractals. This exhibition will run till 12 October.
But a new Gallerist was needed and a Public Employment Bid (is this the right term in English, I wonder?) was issued by mid September. Sixteen candidates presented our CVs, twelve were immediately deemed irrelevant and the remaining four were asked to submit an Artistic and Cultural Project for 2010. In three days!
I guess we all went crazy trying to organise our ideas and put them down in a coherent, convincing way in such a short time. We were interviewed on Tuesday morning and at eleven o'clock today the secretary of the local Town Hall called me to say I had been selected for the job!

Do I need to say I'm thrilled? Not only I get a job in times of financial distress but a job I love and I'm enthusiastic about. I start tomorrow. The Town Hall is taking care of the contract even as I write this, and this evening I'm meeting with the mayor and the counsilwoman on cultural affairs to discuss the details. Right now I only know I will be working from Wednesday through Sunday, 11:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00 hours. Initially it will be a three-month contract but I guess if things go well they will renew it at the end of the year.

Oh my God!

I'll keep you posted on the subject. Thank you for reading this and for your precious support always.

[M y W e b s i t e]

[t h e T V i n t e r v i e w]

[m y i s s u u]

[l i n e a f r a c t a l] my blog in Spanish



Just a quick update to shout to the world that cat number 5 is p r e g n a n t !

She now has a sexy round belly to brag about and I think the big day will arrive soon. Fortunately, a woman in the village told me she may take her in, I'll have to check back again tomorrow and see if she really meant it. Lil' One wouldn't live in her house though but in the orchard shack. I wish I could find a real home for her, with heating, a window sill to sleep on and a nice, warm mat just for her. The winters are very cold here. Nevertheless, there are dozens of cats who are not allowed into the houses and make it through the winter, so I hope Lil' One (and her babies) will make it too. I'm not very happy with this arrangement but it's the only one I've found up till now.

Since the adoption is yet to be confirmed, will you all please cross your fingers so a better solution comes up in the meantime? If it weren't for my Possessive Four, I'd have taken Lil' One in myself weeks ago.

Not much news on other fronts. The publisher hasn't paid me yet, no new translating work on the near horizon and I'm looking for a job. Crisis? What crisis?

The weather has changed quite a bit. That unbearable heat finally went away and autumn moved in. The nights are quite cool and the days are pleasantly warm and golden. The leaves are still green but the light has changed and the sky is bluer. Autumn is really beautiful here.

I will now go outside to give Lil' One a hug and see if she needs more food. Behave yourselves and have a beautiful Sunday, babies!

[M y W e b s i t e]

[t h e T V i n t e r v i e w]

[m y i s s u u]

[l i n e a f r a c t a l] my blog in Spanish



My hotel job ended on Sunday and I -as every single person working in our little tourist industry here- took two days off. What a luxury! I can't even remember what I did yesterday, mainly because I did very little. I practically lounged the day away, reading a bit, browsing dA a bit and watching TV another bit. I tried to read but I was still so tired I couldn't concentrate, so I closed the book and played with my cats.
Remember I had four cats? Well, now I have five!
On Saturday 8 August I suddenly heard a cat woefully crying in the street in front of my appartment. I didn't pay much attention at first, I thought it was a street cat. The crying stopped and started again late in the evening, and then I did pay attention. I looked around and saw a very young and beautiful female patrolling the roof of the house next door. She seemed confused and unable to decide which way to go. So I went down with a bowl of cat-food and called her. Oh my!
She came running and started to purr, meow, brush herself against my legs and gulp the food down all at the same time. Poor thing. She was famished and hugely relieved to see me there. I think someone just abandoned her and drove away. When she finished eating she followed me home. I couldn't take her into my appartment because there would be a huge cat fight. My four are very territorial and had been growling every time they heard her cry outside.
So I improvised a bed for her on the ground floor, under the staircase. I bought her kitten food and tried to spend some time with her every day. She settled there and started patrolling the surroundings. About a week ago we had a storm and the ground floor was almost flooded. When I came home from work I found her perched on a window sill, trying to find a dry spot on the ground. So I picked up the cat and her things and moved her to the second floor, in the small hall that gives access to my (and my nearest neighbour's) appartment.
She now lives there, safe from the wind and the rain. But she won't be safe from the bitter cold when winter comes. I am trying to find her a home but haven't succeeded yet. There are no animal-protection organizations in the area and I really don't know what to do. I can't just abandon her. I also fear that any day she will wonder away and come back pregnant. Then my problem will be multiplied by... five?
I don't have a name for her yet, I just call her Little One. She's half Siamese and very cute. Poor dear!

I really don't have more news to tell you. The hotel job just absorbed the rest of my time in August. Now I want to go back to painting. Starting tomorrow. Today I feel half human again and I need some more hours to relax.

We'll be in touch, the five cats and me

I know I'm somewhere around here, I'm positive! I can't have disappeared just like that! People don't do that, why should I do that?

Ok, I have a couple of extenuating factors: I got a job for August in a local hotel. My! There's no exclamation point big enough to express my impressions. IT'S DEAD TIRING (no exclamation point, since there's none big enough...) When I get home there's only one thing I desire in the whole world. To take a shower. And a nap. (That's two things, isn't it?) Some days I can and some days I can't. Because we're also very busy with the chorus and that means extra rehearsals and performances. Did I mention I'm dead tired?

The watercolour exhibition finished on 15 August and I finally sold 6 out of 18 pieces. I think thirty-three per cent is a nice outcome, don't you? "The Seamstress" was one of the six, so I had to part with it. It's not easy, you know. I felt like telling the buyer: "How about purchasing a signed and numbered print so I can keep the original?" I didn't, of course, and out went the Seamstress. Out of the exhibition hall and out of my life. Oh, dear.



I'm not sure I keep a scanned copy of all the other watercolours I sold. When this exhausting August job is over I'll post as many as I can. I miss painting, working alone at home (though I shouldn't say "alone", my cats will be offended), deciding my own work-hours, etc. But I'll survive it all. Or so they tell me...

So this is the reason I'm barely here lately. Today I answered tens of messages and viewed hundreds of submissions but I'll fall behind again soon. And now I must leave again, I must be at the hotel at 16:30. Take good care of yourselves, enjoy your summer and miss me a bit, will you?