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07/23/2007: "YO REGRESO A CORDOBA" by Walter King
I´ve been here in Cordoba Argentina since July 2nd. It will be the 23rd by the time this is published. By the time you read this Brazil will have beaten Argentina in the Copa America finals. Cordoba and Buenos Aires will have had a record snowfall. And the exhibition of our work (my brother´s and mine) will be nearly over. My friend Crist loaned me his laptop so I cold write this blog in the hotel at my leasure. Uno problema poco… It has a mind of its own and insists on correcting my Spanish even though I´m writing in English. Lo siento. But its not so bad. I´m taking it as a lesson en español. Also the keyboard has a different configuración so from time to time I get the wrong key. Disculpe me por favor. I´m usually much more prepared for my travels than I have been this time. I often pack a week or more in advance, repack more efficiently, lighten my load and repack again. Much of my stuff was packed a year ago and left in the suitcase. I went through it all the night before I left for Chicago and made sure I had what I thought I couldn´t get in Cordoba. I´d been busy all week with other issues. I got a call the week before my flight to do an illustration for Oprah Magazine. As it turns out the fee is about equal to the price of my hotel in Cordoba for one month. But struggling to make the art for Oprah didn´t leave much time to plan for my intentions while in Argentina. While I was able to email friends in Cordoba to let them know my arrival time all attempts to arrange a short 4 day tour to the Andes in the northwest of Argentina were put on a back burner. The article was interesting and challenging. It was about the attitudes in the west concerning the current tragedies in Darfur. It is one thing to simply illustrate a story. Another thing altogether to illustrate an idea. And yet another thing again to do so in ones own voice or style using the images and lexicon established over the last 10 years or so. Luckily the art director was very gracious and easy to work with and by the end of the week I was able to send him the agreed upon image from my brothers house in Chicago. If it finally is published it should appear in the September issue of Oprah Magazine in the Health/Mind section.
My flight was out of O´Hare and since Tim also has drawings in the Cordoba show it seemed aprópiate that I spend a couple days with him before leaving the States.
The flight was long with a change of planes in Miami and another in Santiago Chile. Met a group of hunters from Georgia and Louisiana in Santiago on their way to shoot dove in the Sierra Chicas. Although I grew up around hunters of all kinds I don´t mix much with them today...fishermen yes, hunters no. Although many hunters also fish and we talked alittle about the Dorado, the famous sportsfish of Argentina. One of them told me about helping out in New Orleans after the hurricane. He was, it seemed, deeply disturbed by what he saw there including the tragic lack of response afterwards. He reminded me that many were still living in those FEMA trailers. I reminded him that many of those FEMA trailers were never used. I wished them a good hunt and we boarded the plane for Cordoba.
I got some nice video of the Andes on the way from Santiago towards Mendoza and finally to Cordoba! Simply spectacular. But I accidentálly erased it just the other day along with everything else on the chip. Most of what I lost I´d already downloaded to my computer...shots of Detroit and Windsor Canada from a trip with my sons two weeks before. Hopefully I can re-shoot the mountains from the air on the way home. And of course I still hope to get to Salta in the Northwest before my trip is complete.
My first week in Cordoba was full of projects to be accomplished. My schedule for travel and my stay at the hotel were off by one day. We added one last day to my hotel accomadations so I wouldn´t bécame one of the local bridge people (the indigent live beneath the bridges here in Cordoba.)
The first goal was to negóciate framing. It is simply cheaper to frame the work here in Cordoba than to frame it in Columbus and ship it. I probably saved $500 U.S. Much more if I´d had to pay customs on shipping. One broker wanted $5000 to ship everything both ways including duty. Argentine customs charges 50% on total value. Getting your money back on unsold items is, I´m told nearly impossible. Since I don´t expect to sell much if anything it would be ludicris. Since all the Works are on paper it was easy to just put them in flat portafolios in the bottom of my luggage. Maria Elena, the gallerist, sent me to see Alejandro Taleisnik, the frámer and also quite a good painter in his own right, to work out the details. Now my españole es muy malo (as Sr. Computedor keeps telling me) and Alejandro´s English was only a bit better. So it was a long discussion. After about 2 hours we had a plan. We spent another hour working out the price. Alejandro assured me the frames World be ready by Sabbado (Saturday) so Maria could hang the show by Wednesday. I Left to find something to eat. I began figuríng the exchange in my head as I walked down the street. 27 Works under glass came to 2400 pesos. At about 3 pesos to a dollar the price would come to nearly $800 U.S. give or take-- about $30 U.S. per frame including mounts, glass, hardware and assembly. Add the $500 it would have cost to ship the work and I saved aproximately $19 per frame. Actually much more with customs fees. The only problem was that Alejandro needed cash to buy materials. I wanted to pay with a crédit card as I had a limited amount of cash to draw Upon. We negotiated a down payment of $1000 AR since I can only withdraw so much per day from my account. We agreed that I would the remainder on delivery. Alejandro could tell I was in financial pain and explained that the price could go down depending on how efficiently he could use the materials once he saw how things fit together.
I only had $400 US in cash and maybe $1200 in my account, although I was no longer sure how much was really there. I went to Western Union to change my dollars to pesos and was pleasantly surprized to find I got 3.7 pesos to the dollar. My $400 became $1400 pesos plus. That gave me a few hundred pesos to live on for a few days.
The next mission was to contact Ana Louisa Bondone director of the art program at the University. Ana Louisa was previously the director of the Figueroa Alcorta Provincial Art College which has recently been absorbed by the University. We emailed back and forth. I finálly got her on the phone and we decided to talk during my opening about plans for student exchanges and a summer painting program I want to establish . Tambien.
My next project was to plan a 4 day tour of the Salta and Jujuy (hoo hoy) provences. Salta is my real goal. It is an old town at the base of the Andes. Salta was established long before Buenos Aires and Cordoba when the Spanish CAME down from Bolivia. Salta is know for its color. It´s color comes from both its culture as well as its mineral deposits. Part of my trip is to explore the possibility of bringing students for an internacional Studio abroad program. I want to take them on painting trips to the Sierra Chicas (the foothills West of Cordoba) as well as to the Andes themselves. Salta is a 12-14 hour bus ride from Cordoba. The trip is best taken at night so you catch some sleep before arriving in the mountain town. I had hoped there might be a cheap flight from Cordoba. But Fabian at the travel agency informed me that to get to Salta from Cordoba ONE must first fly to Buenos Aires. This doubles the price to over $400 US. The Cordoba to Salta bus ride is only about $50 RT. Fabian showed me several tour possibilities from which I chose the simplest…just 4 night in Salta. I would make my own arrangements in Salta to take day trips to paint. I specifically want to visit the Quebrada de Humahueca, a strikingly colorful and surrealista canyon on the way from Salta to Cafayate. Also there is la Tren a las Nubes, or the breathtaking ¨train to the clouds¨ that travels up into the Andes nearly to the border of Chile. I saw a PBS special on classic train tours in which this trip was highlighted. The cost is about $75 RT. go up and back in the same day leaving in the morning and returning by about 10 pm. Fabian said OK and I shoul call him in two days alter he has made my arrangements. Fabian was very helpful in arranging my airfares and subsequent problems a year ago.
Crist called once I got to town to ask me to have dinner with him and his wife beautiful wife Titi (Maria Theresa). Crist is the famous cartonista whose work I´ve discussed before in my first of blogs for absolutearts. He is now working only for Clarin, the largest paper in Argentina. Sabat, Quinno and Crist are perhaps the most well know humorists in Argentina and maybe all of South America. He has a new book coming out soon called ¨The Passion of Crist! ¨ Our dinner was lovely. Beef of course. I finally felt like I was in Cordoba. I recorded an interview with Crist by the end of the evening that I hope to edit for the web when I get home.
I awoke on Monday, at the end of my first week and grabbed an elevador to the lobby to get some coffee before heading to the internet café to let friends know how things were going. Outside the hotel on Avenida General Paz the Cordobeses were laughing in cotas y chalinas (coats and scarves) taking photos of each other playing in the snow. Little kids cried ¨nieve!¨, ¨snow!¨ The palm tree across from the hotel was ¨nevada¨, ¨snowcovered¨. Cordoba has not seen a snowfall like this since the 90´s I am told and Buenos Aires hasn{t had such a snow since the late 1800´s ór so I´m told. Usually winters are fairly dry here. Later that day I was watching CNN and saw the freak snowfall that blew up like an Alberta clipper but from the Anarctica instead of the North pole. Both Cordoba and Buenos Aires were featured.
On the weekend I found I couldn´t access my bank account via the bank machines in Cordoba. It was a long weekend, a holiday… 9 de Julio is ONE of two Dias de la Independencia. Since I missed the 4th of July festivities in the States I had hoped I cold catch the parade here in Cordoba. But because of my running around like un polla con mi cabezza cut off looking for bank machines I missed it all. I had made some mistakes pressing buttons earlier when I accessed the down payment for Alejandro. I thought maybe that my bank in Columbus had put a hold on my account fearing someone else was using my card here in Cordoba. I had a somewhat worrisome weekend ending up with less than about $5 US in my pocket by Tuesday when I finally called the bank. ¨Nothing wrong with your account Mr. King¨ said Nate the service guy at the end of the line. ¨Try another atm¨ he said. I told him I´d already tried 4 or 5 but did what he said and of course the money spit out as it should. Ultimately it turned out to be a problema because of the long holiday weekend. Several people standing in line at the ATM asked if I´d been able to access my account. At least I think that´s what they asked. When I showed them money they all seemed relieved. Apparently the bank machines simply couldn´t handle the load.
Between the daily troubles and nights watching tv in the hotel I managed to make a few watercolors. This of course is a large part of my reason for coming to Argentina since I want to explore the possibility of a summer study abroad program. So making samples of the motifs offered in Cordoba and the surrounding enviren as well as my trip to the Andes is an important endeavor. The Moon Over Cordoba that open
s this blog was done from my hotel window two nights before the big snow. I sketched a couple guys talking busines over esspresos in Nueve Cordoba while waiting for Alejandro to arrive at his frameshop.
Finally, on Wednesday the 11th, my show opened along with a mini gasolina shortage (no taxi´s on the streets), an unusally cold evening and Argentina playing Mexico in the second to the last game of the America´s Cup. Only about 15 people showed up. Mostly other artists. It was quite a let down alter all the trouble I´d had and the money I´d spent the week previous. At least I know a few faces. Of course Maria Elena was there as was Mathias who helps her with her openings. I remembered Mathias from 3 years ago when I did my last show in Cordoba. Ana Louisa CAME as she said she Would and we discussed a date alter my trip to Salta when we cold meet to discuss our business. And Alejandro was there as well. We ended at nearly 10 pm and I went out to Paradilla Raul near the hotel to EAT asado by myself. It was certainly a bit of a let down. What are you gonna do? Vino es barato (cheap). Tambien Yo tiene barracho (so I got drunk)!
