Universities in the UK are unsurprisingly obsessed with their applicants reading. Reading is great (evidently), but I truly had absolutely NO idea what to read for an architecture application. So, I did what any UK university applicant thinking about embelishing their personal statement would (probably) do; I went onto the Cambridge architecture course website and searched for recommended reads. Amongst the list, 'Body, Memory and Architecture' by Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore. My dear mother purchased a second hand edition in perfect conditions on Amazon (Yale Univesity Press). I had read the first chapter twice, but it was only today chilling at the beach that I actually grasped the essence of the book; the way in which space interacts with not only the person, but the human body, how the home is the extension of man, and every part of a home represents something human. Beautiful, no? Next is the definition of beauty. The chapter seemingly has little to do with aarchitecture, but soon goes into arguing the fact that architecture used to be considered a mere science, not an art, and only later was pragmatic mechanics of a building with a purpose considered beautiful. And only after THIS was the pragmatic mechanics of a building with a purpose combined with basic aesthetics to create an alteration of space which can be considered art in the eyes of everyone who encounters it. It's really well written, no joke, especially for those who think about studying the art of altring space...

Keep reading.

Having seen the Wasteland performed majestically and rather brilliantly by Fiona Shaw, I regret to say that although her expressions, her dynamism through movement and tone and her enthusiasm when relating the 23-minute poem made it infinitely easier, I still found it a poem seemingly impossible to understand. I read over it once out loud to attempt a further understanding of the complex poem and surprisingly, ideas that hadn’t occurred to me the first time I heard the poem began to bloom, for example the extended metaphor within the section ‘The Fire-Sermon’. The ‘female breasted man’, Tiresias, is something out of the ordinary, as his name suggests, a fantastical character extracted from a Greek or Roman myth or legend. He describes himself, comparing himself to a ‘taxi throbbing, waiting’, again suggesting the idea of the mechanical versus the natural, and the real versus the fantastic. His ‘waiting’ shows his desolate nature, torn between two sexes and unsure of his life’s path. In a completely pure and in no way voyeuristic, he contemplates a man ‘rudely forced’ into a woman, whose boredom is clear. One imagines how tragic it is that one who in lost in the world and who mourns his identity, contemplates the regular mortals and comes to realize that even they are unsure of their lives’ paths. This anecdote amongst so many others within ‘The Wasteland’ is a common problem: the assertion of identity and the strife to assert one’s identity by comparing oneself to others.

Perhaps the song that follows this section is part of a random stream of consciousness, which was necessary within the poem, as it is in itself the running of thoughts of the narrative voice. Or perhaps, as it comes directly after a short story about one’s assertion of identity, it is a medium through which the narrative voice asserts his personality, as music is a common way to identify oneself. The use of places shows, again, the importance of identity.

Having understood the section of ‘The Fire Sermon’ best within the poem, I believe that ‘The Wasteland’ is essentially a poem about identity, about finding oneself, through themes such as the latter, sexuality, death, relationships and time. 

Not only does the above painting have IMMENSE sentimental value for me, but it's also probably the best watercolour I've ever done (not to be inmodest or anything...) I think it was when I was three or four, my parents took a random trip to Las Vegas Nevada and they went to see the Cirque du Soleil there, bringing back with them a prospectus thing with photographs of colourful jugglers, clowns, acrobats... I fell in love with the harmonious colours and the extravagance yet elegance of the pictures, and in particular, with the front cover, which I knew that one day I would be able to draw. And I did, when I was nine or ten. I rememebr I was so proud of that drawing, it had taken me hours if not days to finish! I'm so upset I can't find it now...but anyway. My theme for my externally set assignment for my AS Level Art was 'Covert and Obscured'. To begin with, I looked at the way in which external appearance may differ from what's truly under that outfit, that makeup, that facial expression, body language... And thus, I looked at art within the circus (incidentally relating to my previous entry, using paintings from the Thyssen, including one called 'Chico in a Top Hat' and 'The Fire Eater' or 'The Fire Breather'). 'Dralion' came back to me, and I revisited my past masterpiece by painting an ode to it, in watercolour. It was extremely hard to begin, but I think it's a copy which I've most thoroughly enjoyed completing during my brief life as an avid artist (?). 

I also dedicated it to someone very special, the person who saw me within the process and who saw the final result. 'Our Dragon'.

Keep arting, good sirs and ladysirs. 

Pissarro at the Thyssen

My siblings are away, I have extremely little to do, therefore it was relatively straightforward to convince my parents to come with me to the tomporary exhibition at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid. The museum collects paintings by the impressionist Camille Pissarro in a brief but dense exhibition which I highly recommend to anyone who has the chance to see it.
I am a huge fan of impressionism. Since I can remember, there is a print of Van Gogh's 'St Petersburg' hung up in every different living room we've lived in since I was born. Thus my love for impressionism? Perhaps. Well, Pissarro reminded me a lot of Van Gogh anyway, which is odd because they had little to do with each other. Apparently, though, he and Monet were really close, and worked on sister pieces together. I would not have guessed this if it hadn't been for my Dad who rented the audioguide for the tour of the exhibition!
I realized that Pissarro had an extense love for paths and roads, which dominates most of his earlier paintings, when he painted natural landscapes. He also has an extremely modern way of painting certain things from unexpected oints of view-up in a tree, from his balcony when he was sick, from a difficult angle...This reminded me a bit of Dégas' way of capturing a scene in a photographic way, yet the latter combined with Pissarro's impressionist features beholds something extraoirdinary.

So today I got an email from my school informing me on when my A-Level results are published (for those of you doing A-Levels, I bet you're all VERY excited.) These results pretty much decide my future, and restrict me or permit me to apply to those universities which are my top choice for (see picture above) architecture. In all honesty, I wasn't at all sure as to whether architeccture was for me: I struggle with technology, I've looked at student maquets and they seem mundane, bland, and I had never really had a true passion for buildings. Nevertheless, I considered what I was good at at school and architecture pretty much sums it up. So I thought, maybe it will do it for me at uni? That's when I decided to look into the facet of architecture that I like most: design. I spoke to architecture students, I am more or less informed on how architecture courses vary in my Spain and in the UK, and I've even been given optional homework to do over the summer by and architect; looking at styles of the forefathers of architecture: Le Corbusier, Aalto, Van de Rohe, Lloyd Wright...The list goes on to include modern architects such as Gehry, Foster (a personal favorite) and Chipperfield. Before doing all this extense research however, I drew. Drawing relaxes me. I went to TIger one day and purchased a Moleskine imitation for two euros and went out and drew Madrid's Palacio Real, Plaza de Castilla, Palacio de Correos... And I came across a gorgeous picture which balances classic architecture and modern architecture in central London. It took me a long while and someday I will finish the drawing (ode to Foster's Gherkin). But in a nutshell, the drawing above was the starting point of my architecture-bound state of mind. 

This weekend I finally got through Huxley's 'A Brave New World'. It was hard to get through at first, as previously mentioned but it wasn't bad in the end! Not my favorite book but I was really happy to find that I was capable of getting most of the the Shakespeare references, in particular his 'The Tempest', which I had to learn off by heart for a school production last March (standing ovation for my English teacher). I got goosebumps when John gets all excited about going to London, and quotes Miranda's speech: 'O wonder...O brave new world that has such goodly creatures in it...' Or something along those lines, to which I, Prospero, had to respond: '`Tis new to thee'. Then all the witty references of chastity and purity to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and Othello, I'm pretty sure, as well as part of Hamlet's famous monologue, 'To be or not to be, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer...'. John is a pretty awesome character. You feel sorry for him, so good looking, high cheekbones, dirty blonde hair, a bit scrawny but his self confidence draws one's attention away from that (that was how I imagined him at least!) And let's not forget extremely intelligent and keen, an avid Shakespeare reader and a man with morals and principals people should envy and strive to follow. HOWEVER, Huxley's constant reference to Shakespeare is...too constant? Sometimes the guy just seems pedantic, as if he were trying too hard to make a point of showing off his extreme literary knowledge. It reminded me a lot of Fowle's 'The Fremnch Lieutenant's Woman', where Fowle's struggles to shut up and get on with the novel. About forty per cent of the book is the author going on about history and general culture in a tone in which franakly, you feel like closing the book and putting it away in a safe, close the safe, eat the key and never think about the book again. Luckily for him, he is a good writer, and 'The French Lietenant's Woman' has a style which is extremely attractive to the reader, at least, to me. I thought the ending was brilliant (or should I say, endings?).
 Anyway, so that was my experience with Huxley's 'A Brave New World'. It's definitely a necessary book to have read at some point in your life, probably when undergoing religious apathy...it speaks to one, in that sense, if you let it speak to you.
Keep expressing!

A copy of work by Egon Schiele by yours truly. I used gouache for the first time on pastel paper, and I think the effect is pretty accurate. The colours in mine are far richer than in Schiele's original, which kind of changes the essence of the piece. His wor is in Madrid's Thyssen museum and I remember seeing it for the first time, next to a similarly styled drawing by the same artist, how the light flow and uninterested way in which he draws and paints, fearlessly mixing media and painting in such a crude, raw manner is so apparent in Schiele's work. I fell in love with it. Yet, my copy has little to do with what he was striving to convey. Perhaps it's the media, or perhaps it's the fact that no matter how accurate you are in copying someone's art, you have a style that no one can imitate, not even yourself. It'll just appear in your works, whether you like it or not. And I think that this year has helped me come to realize that. And I am so grateful for it, it makes me want to create, create, create...