Trip milestone: our first birthday! We now have two teenagers in the family, with Yve celebrating her 13th birthday in Barcelona! The day began with a luscious crepe breakfast at our apartment, kicking off the festivities for an action-packed day. Yve opened her artfully wrapped presents, swaddled in dish towels, doilies, princess drawings and bandanas, from all of us early, with Jones announcing the contents of every package as Yve picked them up to open them. Since it was our last day in Barcelona, we had to box up a few things to be sent back to the States, including, of course, some more stray rocks that we had spirited away in our luggage from Santorini.
Birthday breakfast at our super cool apartment!
Our big birthday event came next. As you may be aware from previous posts, Barcelona’s love affair with graffiti runs deep. There are more than a few noted vandals cum artists featured in galleries. You can take tours of the public urban art displays, learning about the artists and their works. Or just wander through alleys and streets early in the morning, before shops are open and their metal security door is closed, to see the broad range of both commissioned and “gifted” works of art. The best place in the city to view a myriad of current urban artists is a gallery called Base Elements in the Gotic Quarter. Robert serves as proprietor, urban art historian and one of the resident artists, welcoming visitors in an engaging, inviting atmosphere. Oh, he’s also from California, so language barriers crashed making for a fast connection. After meeting Robert and learning more about this sometimes under-appreciated, sometimes abhorred, art form, a plan hatched to make Yve’s special day a little more special.
Base Elements Gallery
Planning out the graffiti masterpiece with Robert
Robert organized and taught all of us a class in making our own graffiti art in his 14th century basement studio at the gallery. Soooo cool! With a giant canvas laid out, the kids learned how to use many layers, textures, paint types, application techniques, stenciling and collage treatments to produce an urban tribute to Yve for her to have forever and ever! We all got in on the action, and had a total blast!
Everyone got to participate in the urban art tribute to Yve!
Otto adding his personal touch
Yve adding a stencil made by one of the artists in the gallery
Wescott fine-tuning the canvas
Tuck and Jones had their own canvas… for the better 🙂
The final creation!
Of course, since we embraced graffiti so passionately, we had clearly found the place to acquire our Spanish painting. After careful consideration, we all agreed that the artist whose street name is Pez captured the spirit on the city for us. Since 1999, Pez (which means fish in spanish) has been spreading what he calls “good vibes” throughout Barcelona and cities around the world with the infectious smile of his fish. Indeed in our own alley by our front door, Pez had adorned one of the metal rolling doors with his smiling fish. His work has become quite famous, exhibiting his art in galleries around the world and creating urban street art around Europe, South America and Japan. Barcelona is his spiritual home, however, and he had just been in Barcelona for a few weeks, adding more urban art to the nooks and crannies of the city and surrounding area, and hanging out with Robert. We missed him by a day, but we love the whimsical, positive “good vibes” attitude exuding from his works.
Signature Pez fish that can be found all over Barcelona
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Our masterpiece from Pez
Pez tag right across from our front door
Yve’s birthday ended at our new favorite restaurant, El Salon, where a poetry slam was being held by a band of about 15 poets. While we didn’t understand the poems in French, Spanish and Catalonian, we nevertheless fit right in, as each of us had written a haiku in honor of our beloved Yve, to be read at dinner! It was a perfect end to a wonderful day, and altogether too short of a stay in Barcelona.
Our little girl is a teenager!!
Here are the haikus that serve tribute to our Nades:
Little girl of mine
Tenacious, graceful and wise
Dragons, you and I
– Dad
Yev, what can I say?
She is so fun, brave and smart,
In a big, big, way!
– Wescott
You do like candy,
You push in insanity,
You are my best bud.
– Otto
Cutest baby girl,
Today a beautiful teen,
Too bad you won’t grow 😉
–Â Â Â Mom
Â
Jones wrote a song for the occasion: we’ll upload a video soon 🙂
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