The Other Art

I’ve lived in Madrid for almost one year. I’ve never lived in a city before moving to Madrid. I can’t always identify if new experiences are unique to Madrid or are common to metropolitan areas of this size. It doesn’t matter.

Living in a place, any place, where resources of money and time on this scale are dedicated to aesthetics purely for human enjoyment, has changed how I move through the world. The fashion is the function. Architectural fashion of the last seven centuries is what I see on my regular commute.  

Palacio de Cibeles, Antonio Palacios, 1909
Fuente de Cibeles, Venture Rodriguez, 1782

Madrid, a center of European art, is known for the big three museums. A traveler with 
limited time would not want to miss these collections. I’ve been to the Prado, Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen Bornemisza many times. For 37 Euros I bought an abono, an annual pass, to these museums, which includes free admission to many other national museums in Madrid and throughout Spain. I’ve seen collections come and go. It will never seem normal that I can spend so much time with this art.

El Greco, Woman in a Fur Wrap 1577-1580/
Paul Cezanne, Lady in a Fur Wrap after El Greco, 1885-1886

By living in Spain I have the luxury of experiencing the other art. The work that was created by people who wanted to surprise me.

The work that was meant for one single viewer at a time.

Philip Vigarny, 1535 - The Primate Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo



Art created by non-artists. 

Reflection of Iglesia Notra Sra de la Concepcion in modern building, Calle de Serrano

Preparations

We have made the move, and I am thankful to have arrived in Madrid safely and in good spirits. I’m also abundantly happy to have all the packing and moving behind us. Amy and I processed a mountain of work over the last few months, all with the intent of wrapping up our previous lives and getting on with the new. By the time we left, we were dog-tired and ready to get out of town.

Take, for example, the job of preparing our home in the Helena, Montana for rent. I've lived in the Miller Street house for 22 years now, and it's been 20 since I performed the gut remodel that created the architectural feel that now defines the place. The big re-hab project included ripping off the original roof structure and adding a second story that includes three bedrooms, a big bathroom, and an open and bright room at the head of the stairs that I've always thought of as a lobby. In designing the remodel, I paid homage to family egalitarianism by carving out bedrooms for Sam and Max that were nearly identical in size at about 135 square feet each. But I claimed a big piece of the real estate when laying out the master bedroom, filling almost a third of the floor area, and framing in a bay window that admits beautiful top-of-the-hill views of the neighborhood. But the biggest adult benefit of that glorious room is the adjoining porch. Unfortunately, it took me twenty years to finish the thing.

Tom uses a grinder to cut the four galvanized 
steel panels to shape. We left one-inch stubs of 
wire at the edges to be inserted into holes 
drilled in the steel top- and bottom-rails.

The original single-story house, built sometime around 1900, included a modest front porch: eight by sixteen feet, sheltered by a flimsy shed roof, and raised two feet above the adjoining flower beds by a solid concrete slab that must weigh several tons. I designed what seemed to me to be the obvious upgrade: strip the entire structure down to the immovable slab, throw the wood-frame debris into the job-site dumpster, and build anew upon that glorious hunk of concrete. 

I decided to construct the porch as a two-story structure in concert with the new two-story house. But I allowed the project to stall as vision-only for a long time. I framed an exterior doorway in the second-floor master suite to allow passage to the yet-to-be-completed porch, but the magnitude of the big remodel project -- six months of hard work and a big chunk of my savings -- kept me from building the porch right away. In fact, for almost ten years you could open that second-story "porch" door and look down upon the sloped roof of the original porch below. I kept the deadbolt latched for safety.

I spot-welded the panels to rails 
that we fabricated from 
inch-and-a-half steel conduit. We
drilled weep holes in the bottom of
the bottom-rail.

Finally, after my kids were grown, I got around to demolishing the old single-story porch, and I assembled the beautiful two-story structure I had envisioned for so long. I raised it up into a sheltering box elder tree and I capped the second-floor deck with a high bat-wing of a roof. I wrapped the wood framing in masonry stucco to match the house and minimize maintenance. I left the ground-floor slab as bare concrete, just to honor the gray honesty of the thing. I laid a fancy textured rubber walking surface at the second-floor deck, and I built a little set of two steps that lead down from the master bedroom and provided a comfortable place to sit and watch the view. But I again ran out of steam when it came to the designing and building the guardrail, and my porch remained dangerously rail-less for six more years while I was distracted by work, divorce, and life in general. I spent a lot of time up there during this interim, at least during the warm months, drinking gin and tonic and watching the world go by. But I rarely invited friends up for fear of them stumbling into the twelve-foot fall onto the sidewalk below.

I cut a water-shedding chamfer on the top 
of each composite end-panel. We drilled two
inch-and-a-half holes in each panel to 
house the ends of the rails.

I also struggled with the guardrail design. I set the bar high for myself, hoping to use this high display to showcase a fancy piece of architectural steel work. I sketched out some ideas, photographed inspiring examples around the world, and even built a few steel mock-ups. My son Max drew up plans for a design that incorporated an incised-steel map of the Prickly Pear Valley. But none of those far-reaching plans ever came to fruition, and in the end I bowed to an immediate need: I was leaving for Madrid, we had a tenant in hand to rent the house, and it was unthinkable that anyone else would be willing to live as recklessly as I had for all those years. I needed to build the guardrail.

The design you see here was born at four o'clock in the morning in March of 2014. I mind-sketched the thing during one of those nocturnal periods when the checklists of life stack themselves up against the night. I assigned myself the task that day, over coffee and in the pre-dawn darkness as I laid the design on paper: design a guardrail that I could build in two days using less than $500 worth of materials. And so I did, though I cheated on the time a little by enlisting the help of my friend Tom Beneventi.

Tom aligns one of the four rail assemblies 
while I ease it into place with a rubber hammer.
We stuck the panels to the stucco posts with
silicone, and fastened it all down with big
electro-galvanized screws.

It was a fun project, working for those days among the shop, a work-station out on the lawn, and the second floor of the porch. We used common materials, though we morphed them into unconventional configurations. The upper and lower rails are inch-and-a-half electrical conduit. The mesh was cut from galvanized steel panels made for the livestock industry. We fastened those two metal components to one another with spot welds.The end caps, where the rail assemblies are attached to the posts, were milled from the plastic-and-wood composite that’s widely used as decking material. But despite this eclectic mix of materials, we used operations that are common and reliable. And this simplicity of method worked to our benefit: we fabricated and installed the entire experimental design without a hitch.

It’s a great space now. I finished the project two weeks before leaving for Madrid. We drank exactly one glass of wine up there, in our down coats, before we left town. It seemed odd to be surrounded by a guardrail in what I will always remember as a big, open, and somewhat precarious perch. But I am abundantly happy to have that project off my list, and I suspect that the next occupants of the house won’t even pay that guardrail a second thought as they relax in their secure little space up in the tree and watch the days go by.

Finally -- deck-goers can safely relax and appreciate the quiet ambiance of the neighborhood.

Our home in Madrid

We now have an address: Calle Rosario 27, Madrid, Spain, 28005. After spending a dozen days on the search, we've found a place with a view to call home. Rosary Street: my Catholic grandmothers would be proud.

Our personal checklist of requirements and desires evolved during our search for apartments. We decided to find a flat of at least 65 square meters -- this seemed like a requirement. We decided that ample natural light was a necessity -- and this took several decent but dark flats out of the running. We hoped for a view of the city, but decided early-on that having a vista would have to stay on the list of desires but not needs. We knew that we needed to sleep well, and so the location of windows with relation to the city streets would be critical --  we toured many lovely neighborhoods where we were told that party-goers spill out of bars and onto the streets during the summer months. And we hoped for a place with two bedrooms -- thinking that we'd need a separate bedroom as an office and for our expected flood of visitors. But we eventually shifted that requirement to the list of niceties, realizing that there are some spectacular one-bedroom places in Madrid that we did not want to count out. So we check-listed our way through dozens of flats, adapting our standards all the way.

One of our primary tools for the search was the online marketplace known as Idealista. We learned that the pictures on the website were fairly true to life, and so we spent hours peering through the galleries and comparing them to the real-life places we had visited each day. On one sunny Sunday afternoon we made the hike across town to view a flat based solely upon the spectacular views that were shown on the website. It's located in the barrio known as La Latina, and the building is perched on the edge of a rim that runs for several kilometers along the Rio Manzanares. It's a quiet and traditional old neighborhood. It all looked too good to be true.

The Basilica of San Francisco el Grande 

and the distant Sierra de Guadarrama.

The flat is in a building is known as the Mirador de San Francisco, and it does indeed face the Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande, an 18th century Neoclassical Roman Catholic church. The story goes that St. Francis of Assisi came to Spain in 1214 on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostelo. He stopped long enough to build a modest home for his companions and himself where the church now stands. I can understand why he chose this scenic spot.

In 1760 the building was demolished to build a bigger church under the direction of Francisco Sabatini, the architect of the Royal Palace next door. The main dome of the church, the largest in Spain, is covered in frescoes, and the place is filled with large paintings, Renaissance carved marble pulpits, statues of the apostles, a French organ, and beautifully-carved choir chairs. The most famous of the paintings is the "St. Bernardine of Siena", by Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes. Goya included the church itself in several of his other works, including in the Prado's "La Pradera de San Isidro", showing the dome and bell towers rising above the city's skyline. The Franciscans still say mass everyday in the church.

The famous painting La pradera de San Isidro, painted by 
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes in 1788. 
It shows the Basilica across the Manzanares.

Back at the flat, we met Lucia, the leasing agent on the street, and were surprised to see that the building was nearly new. Newness was never on our list of requirements, and many of the flats we viewed during our search were in centuries-old buildings. We made our way up to the fourth floor with high hopes, and entered what was to become our new home. During that first viewing, we adapted our list of needs and wants one more time, swapping square footage for the view, and accepting that fact that we'd live in a succinct little one-bedroom place. It's scarcely 50 square meters, but it's a perfect apportioning of space.

Red tile roofs blanket the city.

The view includes the rooftops of tall buildings down on the riverbed below. It's decked out with sound-deadening double-pane glass doors with sturdy sealed shutters. We can see half the town and some of our favorite places from up there. But our decision was really made on the roof terrace, two floors up. It's a communal space, and it's outfitted with all-weather couches, tables, and chairs. There's a cold water shower for cooling down on warm summer days. We have visions of hanging out with the neighbors during the long summer nights. And the option of expanding into this grand outdoor space will make up for the coziness of our perfect little apartment.

That's our building on left, and our piso is up 
on the corner of the 4th floor. We've arrived!

As we scanned the horizon, we picked out even more landmarks: the Casa de Campo, Spain's largest urban park; the Sierra de Guadarrama, reaching almost 8000 feet and snow-covered on that February day; the Vicente Calderon Stadium, home of the La Liga football team Atlético Madrid; the Teleferico; the Cuatro Torres skyscrapers. And of course the Basilica, right there across the street.

Our new flat is smaller than some campsites I've found in my life. But the surrounding city is amongst the largest landscapes I've called home. Exploring that place will be our next project.

- Amy

Brokeback Mountain

I love the polarity of travel: you gain perspective on what you left behind when you find something new out there for comparison. And sometimes the juxtaposition itself lends a new twist to your perception of the individual parts.

Consider, for example, the nexus of sheep-herding, hopeless relationships, accidental sex, and the banal reality of rural life in America. Conduct your inquiry among an astute, well-dressed, and somewhat gay crowd in one the world's great centers of arts and entertainment. And narrate the whole scene for opera (I shit you not) in what I can only call the American vernacular, with lines like, "He got hit in the head by a tire!", "Two beers and a shot!", and "Goddamit!" sung in tremulous exchanges between the bass and baritone leads.

The world premiere of Brokeback Mountain, the opera, opened last month at the Teatro Real in Madrid. It's the latest iteration of Annie Proulx's book, which was later adapted to the screen. She also wrote the libretto for this latest performance, and consulted on the production. Amy Jo and I were there in the balconies during the first run, as were critics from just about everywhere. The folks at NPR gave it a measured review, applauding the audacity of the thing without actually saying that it was, well, good. And so have gone most of the reviews, with no one going on a limb, but everyone acknowledging the hard work involved and the boldness of the effort. 

For me, it was hard to get past the crazy juxtaposition of all the components, there in the ornate and gilded opera house. I tried to empathize with the alto disappointment of the cuckolded wife as she made plans to go shopping in Billings over the weekend (yes, the opera is set in Wyoming, as is Proulx's book and the movie). I imagined keeping a doomed relationship alive way beyond its natural course. I squinted and squirmed and imagined that this whole drama could play out in the cow towns of Wyoming. But in the end I found it hard to do all that imagining through the lens of opera. 

There is certainly a plausible story there, as anyone who has read Proulx's book will tell you. The haphazard circumstances of the relationship, the soul-wrecking secrecy of the thing, the longing and wondering of "What if?" -- all provide plenty of opportunity to identify with and gain compassion for the characters. I just found it impossible to sink in and feel the story given the silliness of the whole presentation.

Parts of the production are very, very good. The pace and timing of the single act is impeccable, and I was disappointed to see the final curtain drop. The sets are simple, clever, and stunning, with the photo backdrops shot in Wyoming providing a calming context for the scenes up in the sheep pasture, and the rolling stage employed to a surprisingly emotional effect. But the musical score? Well, maybe I don't know much about these things, but I couldn't tell how it related to the scenes onstage at all. Perhaps that would difficult given the non-lofty discussions that make up the script. I was plenty honored to be there in the house that night with a hundred professional musicians playing their hearts out down there in the pit, and I watch mesmerized as they created the whole complex soundscape. But in the end, I could not connect the music to the script, nor could I connect any of the disparate parts to one another in this crazy love story. I saw the thing and am glad I did, but I cannot say that I understood it or can share a cohesive mental picture. I saw just a representation of a slice of the lives of two hapless guys from small-town America as they got themselves into a whole heap of trouble.

The audience offered the troupe a long round of seated applause. Amy Jo and I stayed put for a long time, way up in the steep balconies, admiring the stunning architecture and the colorful social scene around us. Down in the lobby, men in suits and scarves escorted their elegant fur-clad women, young folks in casual garb grouped up to make plans to go out, and stylish gay men traveled hand-in-hand out the door and across the great plaza that fronts the Teatro Real. We bundled up against the weather and made our way across town with the thinning throng, losing a few of our fellow opera-goers at each tavern and restaurant along the way. I peered into the foggy windows of each place, and saw a few couples I recognized from the lobby. I felt a little envious when I caught one pair nuzzling in what seemed, at my brief glance, to be a familial and friendly way. I turned the scene over in my mind as we made our way down the paseo, and realized that I hadn't seen for sure whether the lovers were a hetero couple or two men. And then the thought filtered in, before I had any conscious awareness of it.

"It doesn't matter." And maybe that awareness is what I got out of this goofy opera.

  -- Chris

Saturday in Segovia

O my good. That sums up the day-trip we took this last Saturday with our new friend Nicolas Garcia. As often happens in foreign places in new situations, we had no idea what to expect.

Nicolas advised Chris to wear "sport clothes" for this outing to Segovia. We predicted, correctly, that Spanish sport clothes don't include fleece garments, and that our guide would arrive in a suit coat with no tie. We weren't too far off the mark. 

I knew that one purpose of this trip was relationship building between colleagues Chris and Nicolás. These off-work friendships holds great importance in the Spanish business community. But as we settled in for the one-hour drive North to Segovia, I realized that Nicolás would also become a good friend who would have a huge and happy impact on our new life.

Segovia is best known for an intact and stunningly intact aqueduct, a roman construction built about 2000 years ago. We spent a good amount of time standing underneath the structure, looking up, and wondering "how"? How do 25,000 granite blocks, spanning almost 3000 feet, including 170 arches, hold together without mortar?

We spent almost two hours wandering with Nicolas through narrow alleyways, climbing up and down staircases, and marveling over each vista and architectural wonder. There is a gothic cathedral and a royal palace in Segovia that both deserve a posting of their own. But, what impressed me the most on Saturday was .... lunch. 

Nicolas drove us out of the city centre to his favorite restaurant. Chris and I were surely the only non-Spaniards in the building. This will forever be one of my favorite meals in Spain at a place we would never have found on our own. We ordered the standard starter: small beers to go with our plate of chorizo and bread. The waiter described our lunch options, since there were no menus in evidence. Nicolas scribbled notes on the paper tablecloth to help explain what we were about to eat. By the end, we had scribbled words in Spanish and English, drawn sketches of ungulates, and made schematic drawings of the distilling process that produced our post-lunch liqueur. The website URLs and names of kings showed how far we wandered in our far-reaching discourse.

We devoured big bowls of sopa de castellana, carved up entire carcasses of canejos con ajo, and worked our way through baskets of papas and pan. We enjoyed a torta with whiskey, cafes cortadas, and a sweet, coffee-flavored brandy. We've eaten several lunches which were concluded when a bottle, or several bottles, of liquore appear on the table. Perfect small glasses are included. Nicolas described how this is a gift from the restaurant owner, as is the plate of chorizo and olives that usually show up when you arrive. He suggested that if we order the chorizo or olives that we'll be charged for them, that if they arrive on their own they are a gift, but that we should never really never expect them. 

We'll see.

 -- Amy

House-Hunting International

We need a place to live. We'd like to find a flat by the time we leave next week, because we'd find it ideal to move into our permanent home when we return in April with all our stuff. But this international house-hunting project is going to take some time.

I've been in a half dozen flats (pisos in local parlance, literally "floors") in the last few days. Amy has been in twice that many, since she's the advance guard of our house-hunting project. We've seen just about every combination of features in these places, but to date no one place has it all. The second-floor flat in the neighborhood known as La Latina has the perfect kitchen and great artwork, for example, but our charming agent Nadia neglected to tell us that the bedroom opens onto a plaza that's home to the local tavern's sleep-killing rowdy summer beer-garden. The fourth-floor flat with killer views and a rooftop terraza  is vastly short of storage space for big stuff like bicycles, and it's a half-hour walk or forty-minute bus ride from my office. So we're choosing to stay picky for a while, reserving judgment on the lot until we see more a few more places.

By the end of the week we'll choose from among the best. We're engaged in nesting behavior, really, searching for a comfortable and secure place from which to launch this next amazing stage of our lives. I'm confident that we'll do well, if only because we're so open to the possibilities of life in this great city.

-- Chris 

P.S. February 18th. We found it and negotiated an agreement. Stay tuned!

The Send-Off

We've arrived in Spain. We're on a two-week scouting trip, during which we'll learn the lay of the land and make plans for our permanent return in early Spring.

This will be Amy's first trip to Madrid, and my third over the last year. We're staying in a little flat on Paseo Pintor de Rosales with a fellow we met through Air BNB, and we'll spend some very full days seeing the sights, meeting with business associates, researching health insurance, applying for foreigner registration cards, and searching for an flat where we'll live for the next several years. We're on a huge adventure, and we know it every day. We're having a great time.

The region we're traversing is small right now, with our forays extending only as far as the neighborhoods where we hope to find a flat. But we got a real eyeful of the rolling Iberian plateau -- and imagined some rambling walks across the countryside -- on the approach into Madrid Barajas Airport. We'll reach out into the provinces soon enough, but first we have to find a place to live.

-- Chris