Otavalo Street Lamps

More than a few years ago, I became intrigued with lampposts. Something made me aware of the artistic value that has to be engaged in order to create these public pieces of art. Yet the artist is an unsung hero when the work excels.

Here in Otavalo, on only a couple of streets, they have really surpassed using lampposts as an art form. I photographed these two years ago and never forgot them. This time, I photographed them again, hopefully 'in a better light'. Only two designs have been added over the last two years; they are the mask and a large red flame with gold cross on top.

Strangely, these two designs are on one street, a different street from the rest. I did not photograph the flame, because I did not appreciate its simplistic design.Regrettably, all of the mask lampposts were in areas obstructed by telephone wires, making it difficult to get a clear shot.

Regardless, the artist(s) should be celebrated if only here.

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Back in the Saddle

Gosh, I have not posted for six days and started getting withdrawal symptoms; my fingers started to itch, words were making my head swell looking for an escape route, a more creative enriched expression than verbal communication would allow. As you know if you are a reader, I had my new computer installed, my Windows Home Server, and a heavy duty router. A portion of my time, I have been trying tweak the WHS, which did not come with a printed manual, but one online, making it difficult to flip through. Little by little, I am finding the tips and tricks. There is also a learning curve with Windows 7. I like the release candidate, so will anxiously wait for the real thing to arrive on shelves. A great deal of my time has been spent eating out, going to hotels, checking admission prices of museums and other things for the book. By the time I get home, I have to write and rewrite with great enthusiasm before the copious notes I have taken become muddled in my own mind. We have also had fabulous guests who have shared their time with us, making it more than a pleasure having them here. We were graced to have author Anna Balint here with her low key, but exceptionally fun husband Willie. Anna's site is http://www.curbstone.org/authdetail.cfm?AuthID=148 . Getting to listen to Anna's processing for her writing was intriguing as well as insightful. She gifted us with a copy of her book The Horse Thief, a book of short stories. Ron is reading it now and keeps whetting my appetite to dive into it. Four other great people followed on their heels, not giving us a chance to lose artistic momentum. Tom and Beth Besson arrived from Texas. Tom is an artist and you can view his work here www.tombesson.com. Beth is a director of adult education, so we had much in common. At the same time, we had a young couple from Kingston, NY who were here for Formula One. Jennifer and Paul were just as delightful with youthful energy, excitement and they were celebrating their anniversary as well as Paul's graduation with a Masters in Education. Jennifer is an art teacher in middle school. Talk about a melding of people; it just does not get better than this with all of the talented people who cross our threshold. The new editions of Frommer's guides will have different formats for the first three chapters, so things need shuffling around even for sections that will not change, like the Jewish history. I thrive on change most of the time, so this is exciting. I also found some perks through the TourInform office here in Budapest. They have a Budapest Study program to help travel journalist learn more about the city. I applied and was accepted. They have a number of partner hotels, restaurants, and attractions, but by the time they responded, my choices were limited. I had covered many of the things already. Nevertheless, we were treated to dinner for two at a restaurant I wanted to return to anyway. Since it is a bit expensive, it was even more enjoyable knowing we did not have to pay the bill. Yesterday, we went to Momento Park, formerly Statue Park as guests. Normally, I would not refer people there. It is a distance from the city. Haowever, with a tour guide, I witnessed it in an entirely different light. The concept worked as I will now give it a much more favorable review. There is a better understanding of how and why it is presented as it is. Tomorrow, I will be squeaky clean. They booked me at the Gellert Thermals at 10am and then at the Széchenyi at 3:00 pm. I will be mellowed out for the weekend for sure.

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Hungarian Jails

If you read this blog regularly, then you are aware that the muralist who painted the mural in our kitchen was arrested back in November. He was just released last night. We listened to his stories for hours, using slivers of wood to keep our eyes open. The next morning, I went to school with an extra spring in my step, knowing I had a reprieve for a few hours, leaving Ron to play social worker. He was in jail here in Budapest and then transferred to Veszprem. As a word of warning, the US Embassy does not supply a great deal of assistance to Americans in trouble. They are limited to the laws of the country, which he did not seem to comprehend. The main purpose of an embassy is diplomatic relations with the host country, not to play nice nice with wayward Americans. My dramas continue...

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Election Day

What should have been a simple process, turned into Star Wars. I opened an account with E-Fax.com for their 30 day trial period, but my credit card was on the line for another month's service if we went beyond that. I had multiple reminders in my Google calendar to end the service. From the 15th, I have been receiving faxes with ballots. After opening each one, I had to print them. One person faxed his same ballot twice in the same fax. Others faxed two ballots in one fax, but since I did not catch it right away, I had to go back and check all seventeen faxes to make sure nothing was missed. When a fax only contained a note stating they would fax the ballot later in the day, I wanted to strangle them for wasting my time. The shut off time was 3:00 pm today. At 3:05, the Democrats Abroad International computer support person released the e-mails from the voting e-mail address. I had to open all of those, even if they did not contain a ballot just to verify the contents. There were twenty-two of them. The International has a ruling that all ballots have to be signed. Not having a secret ballot, caused quite an uproar, but it was clearly stated on the ballot that an unsigned ballot would be discarded and not counted. We received one in an e-mail where the person e-mailed the ballot in the body of the e-mail, contrary to instructions that it had to be printed out, filled in, signed, and scanned as an attachment. Armed with the ballots received, we went to the meeting. One of my committee was there signing everyone in, where we had to show a passport or picture ID. This is the first time I had met anyone on my committee; after three attempts at arranging a meeting, I threw in the towel. Ron was running for Member-At-Large along with three others for two positions. After the opening of the meeting, each nominee had three minutes to give a short ditty about why they should be elected. The rules were announced. After I passed out the ballots and collected them, the Nom Committee would split into two groups with one additional non-partisan person in each group. First, broken into two groups with me in the middle, each group checked off names from the membership list as I read them off of the ballots. Only one ballot was from a non-member and had to be discarded. This was also to prevent anyone from voting via fax or e-mail and again in person. All ballots were checked for signatures. One group would count the fax and e-mail votes while the other group counted the in-person votes. We marked each vote as it was counted with a different color pen to make sure each group had counted it. When each group was done, they would switch piles and continue counting. At the end, we compared numbers for agreement. Our 'friend' Michael who had promised to come to the meeting, never showed up. He had grave concerns about having to sign the ballot since his university thesis advisor was running for Chair. Ron lost by one vote, raising my ire with Michael's inability to be a man and not a rat. When the results were read out, there were glad tidings and major disappointments all around. The woman who ran unopposed for secretary and received 50 votes, called for a recount since the Chair position was won by only a three point lead. I sprayed her with my most potent laser beam killing force stare while asking "Are you for real?" No one seconded her motion, so it was dropped. It had already been two hours of agony; everyone wanted to make like Casper the ghost and disappear. We arrived home, opened the front door and found our jailbird mural artist standing in the hallway waiting for us.

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Scott the Artist

Scott, our artist in residence left us today. After he finished the mural in the kitchen, he continued on to do a portion of the ceiling in the entry hallway. Yesterday, he tweaked the mural a bit more.

He was with us for the ten days we agreed upon for the mural, then two of the additional ten for the ceiling. He is returning to Istanbul, so we will give him an I.O.U. for the balance of the time.

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Artist in Residence

We had a call from one of our booking agencies a couple of days ago. They had a man who needed a place to stay starting that night. We had the large room free and the man came over a couple of hours later. He initially booked for four nights. He is an American (US) who has been livingin Istanbul for the last one and 1/2 years. He is a painter and showed us hisportfolio. He had some excellent pieces and we ohhed and ahhed over his work. Over the course of his four days, he mentioned that the kitchen felt 'set apart' from the rest of the flat due to the change of colors on the wall from the hallway. He continued to say that though it was a common space for guests, it did not feel inviting. His suggestion was to do a large mural on one wall. We liked his idea, but his US rates are $650. a day and the wall would take two and 1/2 days to complete. He offered to do it in exchange for 10 more nights of living. We took him up on the offer. Since he has 10 days, he has been a bit slower to finish than expected, but the basic mural was completed in one and a 1/2 days. The rest of the time, he spent studying it and adding final touches here and there. It is amazing and makes the room look so different. He is putting the absolute finishing touches on it today.

His goal is to trade his work for stays in as many countries in Europe as possible. There is a commission waiting for him in Croatia and he was offered a commission here for a new Turkish towel shop that is opening up in a couple of weeks. Once he is finished and has the time to sit down with me, I will be adding a page to our website of his work and a link to his e-mail. We would like to assist him in fulfilling his goal.

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A Woman from Delft

We went to an art exhibit "A Woman From Delft" at the museum off of Green Market Square. The artist was from Delft, The Netherlands, but immigrated to South Africa and married a local. Her art was varied, but all of it was excellent.

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More Christmas

We are wrapping up the semester at school. Things are getting hectic trying to prepare for a month’s vacation at the same time. Yet, we took some time away for more Christmas fun. The Applied Arts Museum hosts a special Christmas Fair with juried artists. They charge 400 Huf to get it, but it is usually worth it to look around.

After spending forty-five minutes at the tourist office trying to find out what weekend it was to be held, I came home to find an e-mail from one of my students telling me about it. There was a particular artist I was trying to find and she was going to be at this fair. That is why my student alerted me and asked to join us there.

Imola, my student, met Ron and I at noon. Our friend Dawn was staying with us and she tagged along. Dawn is a contractor for one section of the Soros Foundation. Imola is an enterprising young woman who is working as an agent for a large number of artists, which I happened to mention to Dawn. As it turns out, the different groups that Dawn is working with are looking for illustrators for children’s projects. The two of them hooked up for possible work together. Imola joined Ron and I as we browsed the different artists’ work. One particular artist made clothes out of cork. It was amazingly beautiful. If I ever wore a vest or tie, I would have bought one, but I don't. They were washable too, which was really different. Even the umbrella she had was 10 years old and looked brand new.

After a hour or more Imola and Dawn went back to our place to discuss business. Ron and I went with Mark and Chris, another couple to get some lunch. Chris had heard about another possible fair, so we checked that out too, but it was a bust. All in all, though, a good day.

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