Cool weekend

Friday (January 20), it continued “cool” here in Valencia, with a high of about 13C and mostly sunny. In the morning, I blogged, then ran: down to the Turia park on Regne de Valencia, along the park to Gran Via de Marques de Turia and back up to Ruzafa - a little over 4K. Karen worked on her art. I read the excellent book she gave me by Jason Webster about his early life in Spain chasing the dream of becoming a flamenco guitarist.

After our mid-day main meal, we set out for Bomba Gens, the foundation-run art gallery we discovered about three trips ago. It’s a lovely space, in an old industrial building that had been used as an air raid shelter during the Civil War. I think it’s this latter history that gives the present-day gallery its name - Bomba is bomb in Valenciano, but I can’t get a translation of gens that makes sense in the context. They run tours of the bomb shelter and you can see steps down to it in the floor of one of the exhibit rooms.

The outing started off badly. We had intended to bike, but when we got to the first Valenbisi station, the station lost connectivity to the Internet before we could get bikes out, effectively shutting it down. We walked on to the next station and by then my phone had lost connectivity so we still couldn’t get bikes out. I think there must have been some widespread mobile outage. So we walked. It’s a longish walk - the gallery is on the other side of the Turia. It took about 35 or 40 minutes.

There are two exhibits showing right now. One is called Earth: a Retrospective featuring work from a variety of artists in a variety of media and styles, all belonging to the foundation’s private collection. I couldn’t make head or tail of the very fanciful curatorial notes. It featured some strong works - including some floral photography that I think we saw some of on an earlier trip - but it failed to credit the artists. We had no idea who the pictures were by, what the medium was, or what they were about.

The other exhibit is work by a mid-century Japanese artist, Shigeru Onishi, who used photography and laterally traditional Japanese ink painting, creating mostly abstract images. I was particularly interested in the Onishi photography, dating from the early 1950s, because he used a number of experimental techniques that seem to look forward to the kind of contemporary “expressionist” photography that inspires my multiple exposure experiments. (See, for example, Valda Bailey and David Townshend - both Brits.) He not only used multiple exposure but also painted emulsion on the paper to create random effects. Weird.

I liked the idea of the photos more than the actual photos. Some were definitely interesting, but they were a bit…austere. The artist’s and curator’s explanations of what he was doing, as usual, meant little to me. He sounded like an interesting dude, though. He trained in mathematics and claimed to be applying mathematical principles in his art. He specialized in the mathematics of topography. The subtitle of the exhibit is In Search of Meta-Infinite - whatever that means.

The drawings, in the tradition of the “gestural” art of people like Jackson Pollock, who was working about the same time, were definitely easier to look at.

It was dusk when we came out. We walked back over the Saint Joseph pedestrian bridge, stopping to take pictures of children at football practice under floodlights.

I find Carmen particularly attractive in the semi-dark, with the lights on and the wall art glowing in half-natural, half-artificial light. Carmen is a big entertainment district so doesn’t really come alive until hours later. It was only about 6:30 when we were walking through, but almost dark. There were a few people about, though, coming and going and sitting at cafes. 

I was struck, both in Carmen and later as we got out to the wider streets in the centre, by how many children we saw, including very young children obviously just being picked up from daycare or after-school programs. You just wouldn't see kids on the street in the centre of a big Canadian city. It was 7 or so by the time we got back to Ruzafa and at one point, we were walking behind a dad who had two little girls in tow. The younger one, maybe six, whose hand he was holding, was bawling. The older was lagging behind with her too-large backup hanging down her back and her coat half dragged off. “Poor little mites,” I thought. 

*

Saturday, I took a day off running and fast-walking. We hung around reading newspapers most of the morning. Then I went out on my own to Central Park to take some pictures at about 11:30. Karen painted. 

I didn’t get any very exciting pictures. It’s a different park on the weekend, though. It was cool (11C), but sunny, and still after days of stiff, cool breezes. Lots of people were out enjoying it. I watched one fellow throwing a ball for his hound dog to chase across one of the big pools with water jets. The dog loved it, of course, racing through the shallow water, dodging the water spouts.

I also wanted to see if there were any photo ops on the pedestrian overpass over the railway tracks. It’s frequently part of my running/ walking route. It was no more successful photographically than Central Park, but I remembered some spectacular wall art on the other side of the tracks that I’d wanted to photograph. It’s right across from Joaquin Sorolla Station, the modern rail terminal opened 15 years or so ago. So I walked up there and took a bunch of pictures. Then home.

After our mid-day main meal Karen and I headed out together, over to Central Park again. We just wandered, up and down ramps and staircases and along promenades, admiring the plantings, and people watching - being flaneurs. We’re back at the flat now, but I’m going to go out on my own at dusk and ride over to Carmen to take some more after-dark shots.

*

I did go out late yesterday (Saturday) on my own to do some night photography in Carmen. It was an adventure.

I picked up a bike around the corner and rode a new back way to the train station, feeling quite proud of myself for discovering this faster, more direct route. At the train station, however, it was pandemonium. Crowds like we’re used to seeing at Fallas time jammed the plaza in front and stood shoulder to shoulder, five or six deep on either side of Calle de Xativa, crowding the bike lanes. I had to get off and walk. What on earth was it for? 

Several trips back, Karen and I had stumbled one day on a modest Chinese New Years parade on a couple of streets on the other side of Estacion del Norte. Those few streets, lined with Chinese businesses were, we thought, the extent of the city’s Chinatown. The parade appeared to be a small, neighbourhood affair, a bit hokey. Well, that modest early Chinese New Year celebration in Valencia has grown into something much, much bigger. Clearly, the whole city celebrates now. Of course, it would be an easy sell to Valencianos. They already love crowds, fireworks and parades. Chinese New Year has all that, and adds the bonus of exoticness.

I struggled along the bike bath for a while, heading for Torre del Quart, but got to a place where people in the crowd were telling me I couldn’t go any further. I’d come to the street where the parade was going to turn out of Chinatown onto Xativa and the police wouldn’t let people cross it. I had to go back and strike off down the street that runs along beside the train station towards the Bailen Metro stop. I went down a few blocks until I could see off to the right, the direction I needed to go, that it wasn’t quite as crowded anymore. I rode along that street and could see up to my right where the parade was starting to inch along from where it had been marshalling. As I passed one street, I saw a dragon spit sparky fire. 

I should have stopped and tried to get some pictures, I suppose, but I was so intent on getting back to Carmen and taking pictures in the narrow little streets by lamp light that I kept going. I eventually made my way back to the bike lanes along Calle de Guillem de Castro. I dumped the bike at the first Valenbisi station I came to and headed off by foot into the bario. It wasn’t quite where I wanted to be, but I could zig and zag my way over to Carmen, which is what I did.

I was about a half hour into my outing, just starting to get some of the kinds of pictures I wanted, when I began to feel an uncomfortable need... Reader, I had to pee! O, the joys of being in your 70s! 

Public washrooms are thin on the ground in Spanish cities, non-existent in neighbourhoods like Carmen, and bars and restaurants don’t take kindly to non-customers barging in to use their aseos. I kept going, but the need was growing more urgent. Twenty minutes on, it had got to the point where I was thinking I’d have to go into a bar and order something just so I could use their loo. Instead, I broke into a pee-distracting march and regretfully headed out of Carmen back into the centre. I figured if I could make it to the train station, I'd be sure to find a public toilet there.

The centre of the city - Plaza de Virgen, the cathedral and basilica, Plaza de Reina, city hall square - are tourist central and we tend to avoid them, but it was my most direct route. There were crowds everywhere. When I got to City Hall square, they were the thickest. Bands were playing on the square, whether buskers or hired bands, I didn’t stop to investigate. It was possible to get across Xativa now. The parade was clearly over. I’d seen costumed Chinese people walking away from the square.

Plaza de Reina

Plaza de Virgen

One last hurdle. I was pretty sure I remembered where the toilets were in the station, and found them easily enough. But you now have to pay a euro to use them! I had no silver. Luckily, there was a bill-changing machine and I changed a ten. Sweet relief! What a goofy way to end the outing. I grabbed a bike in front of the bull ring and cycled home.

The end.

I did get a few pictures I liked, though.