Argentine Sculpture and Drawing Exhibition, and Parties!

I missed the National Exibition of current Argentine painters, but made it to the Palace de Glace for the sculpture and drawing competition... this ceramic lady won second place (I would have given her first).

I go with the choice of the first place drawing... this, and most of the other drawings were HUGE....5 feet high..

This big drawing was done on stretched blue flowered fabric, painted with a white ground.

One night, we stumbled into a birthday party at a sidewalk pizza joint.  The one year old poodle got a pink chiffon cape, lots of toys, and a slice of pizza...

On another night at an outdoor cafe, a seemingly spontaneous parade happened, lead by musicians going home from work at the sunday outdoor San Telmo fair. The guy with his back to the camera was a fire eater, and seemed to be the leader. 

This week's food shots are, of course, a Thanksgiving feast!   Betty and Mike from New York invited 21 very cool folks from all over....

The man in the center is Umberto, one of our new landlords!  He was born in Nicaragua, has traveled all over, and will soon be returning to Costa Rica with Tony to their house there.  Tony and Umberto rented their just renovated 100 year old apartment to US!  The woman with glasses to the right is a fireball Argentinean that had me in stitches, and the woman in the teal dress (Bonnie) has her joyous and irreverent finger on the pulse of all sorts of groups of expats down here.   I am SO thankful to be here!

Wow!!!

I can't believe that this courtyard was half a block from my apartment and I just now noticed it....

November is the time the Jacaranda trees put out their amazing periwinkle flowers... they are native only to Argentina, and Portenos are very proud of them....

November is also time for the National Polo Championship...This is my 4th November in BA, and I still can't figure out how no one gets clobbered when the ref throws out that tiny pine ball...

The dome and two towers behind the grandstand are part of the lavish Islamic Cultural Center.

Cultural Center Recolta has an exhibit honoring the landscape architect Carlos Thays who designed most of the amazing  parks in BA.  For the opening of the exhibit, hundreds of butterflies popped out of their cocoons, and they are still fluttering around inside the screened in central courtyard...

 

Here's a view of the outer terrace of Central Cultural Recoleta... if you kept walking past the distant figure, you would run into Dave and Gabriel chipping stone, and if you turned to your right you would get to the butterflies...

We went to an Expat party at Art Factory Hostel two streets away from our apartment in San Telmo...Great art by artists from all over on every wall... I recognized some from their street graffiti... the top floor bar walls were all done by a local stencil artist...

i loved this wall...

The food shot for this week comes from a private dinner house.   The chef serves 5 courses and 5 wines to  12 guests two nights a week , with a different menu each night.  Our night was Brazilian night, and my favorite course was the fish course...A small Atlantic sole fillet covered with a maracusha sauce and topped with lightly poached zucchini shreds.

Drawing and Dancing...

I found my dream place this week for figure drawing. Association Estimuto de Belles Artes, on the corner of Cordoba and Maipu, has lots of classes with models every day of the week, from 10 minute poses, to poses over a 4 week period of 2 1/2 hours each, and you can pay per class ( 20 pesos). I loved this woman's feet.
Central Cultural Borges had a great show this week of Belgium artists' fantasies about Patagonia...some very funny stuff.. Lots of jokes about the wind in Patagonia... you probably can't read the script by Adam's head, but it says "tirame del dedo," (pull my finger)...

I loved this one... it's a three D sculpture of a building...when you push the button below, the building slowly raises up and folds back to reveal...

a small 3D man facing a long road into Patagonia.

It's hard to believe, but this is me in a beauty parlor of all places....getting my hair done for the British Ambassador's Ball!

First the receiving line, then
champagne and tidbits brought to you as you mingled....

Then tidy up before going out to the gardens and the big tents for dinner and dancing....

It was a much more fun night than I expected.... two good bands that played everything from fox trouts to the Beetles, great conversations with folks from all over, and a very grand meal (no dry convention chicken breast served here)! The desert was a fruit compote topped with meringue bits, mint and a passion fruit sorbet.

A week of extremes...

We have had 85 degree (F) days, days of 45 mile an hour winds, torrential downpours...one must lug around all sorts of extra clothing, and expect to be surprised.

This first pic was taken in Plaza Dorego around midnight on a weeknight. I think this was a drug deal going down, with some other guys sorting through the garbage? shooting dice? It was still 75 degrees, jazz had just ended in Del Arbol and we were strolling home.

We have now lived in San Telmo long enough that we recognize and are recognized by some of the locals... I have watched this old guy several times now in the evenings..he is always dressed to kill, and very slowly hobbles out into the center of busy Defensa and waits for a cab ... i am tempted to follow him some night.

One evening we were walking downtown on Reconquista and spied these two contrasting buildings.... I wasn't using trick photography... the modern one really is curved...

On one of the torrential rain days, I managed to make it to painting workshop at Central Cultural Recoletta. The workshop is held in a great room in the top floor, and this is a view out the window. Central Cultural Recoletta was originally a catholic monastery, and this great cemetery (Evita is buried here among other famous folk) was originally the orchard of the monastery.

its a truly amazing place...
full of cobwebs and parts of skeltons, amazing sculpture...

and to top off a week of extremes, comfort food of lemon cake with candied lemon peel and savayon.

Cheers!

trips to the US Embassy and suburbia

I had gathered up documents, filled out forms, and had a new photo taken in preparation for my passport renewal appointment at the embassy....i waited in line in the pouring rain, finally got inside and up to the window to find there was now a NEW form... so i filled that out and got back to the window, only to be told that my photo was the wrong size... now they wanted a BIGGER photo. I was working up to a nice ugly American tizzy fit mood...then was told to go to the guard at the front entrance who would direct me to a photographer. Back out in the pouring rain, the guard pointed up the street and said i would see a black car with black windows, and to ask there for the photographer ("what is this??? is there a CIA guy looking for terrorists that will take time out and take my picture??"). Sure enough, I found the black car and knocked on the window. A smiling old Argentine man was eating a sandwich, listening to tango music. He hoped out of the car and got a bag out of the trunk and gestured for me to follow him into the park...He walked up to a big tree and hung a pull down screen from a handy nail in the tree, reached behind the tree and pulled out a stool, wiped it off with the towel he had in the bag, handed me an umbrella and told me to sit (all the while laughing and joking). Five minutes later, he handed me my photos, and I gave him the 20 pesos he requested plus a 2 peso tip. As I walked back to the Embassy, I contemplated my abrupt mood change, and vowed to remember the very patient old Porteno waiting in his black car when i felt frustration looming.... and then I heard a shout, and turned to see the old man running through the puddles after me, waving my 2 peso note, saying I had given him too much!

Dave wrangled two tickets to a fancy ball at the British Embassy! What to wear, what to wear? So we went down to the Retiro train station ...

and got two tickets for suburbia...past the fenced luxurious President's house in Olivos, to Acassuso...

... to the home of one of the few good second hand clothing stores I have found....its run by some great British ladies, and full of fancy clothes...

Instead of a food pic to end this week, you get a movie of a singing taxi driver ( who also tried to fondle my ankle, ...but that's another story).