This week of school has been a lot better so far than the
first week. I feel like I finally am getting the hang of things here and have
figured out and memorized where all my classes are. I also have got to explore
a little bit off campus and found places for lunch and a cheap grocery store.
Everyday is an adventure here.****I'm loving these four-day school weeks, and three
day weekends. It makes the week go by so fast, its awesome. This week I had a
pretty uneventful Monday and Tuesday. I just went to school and studied/rested
when I got home. However, Wednesday night I went to the Edward Hopper Exhibit
at the Thyssen Art Museum in Madrid. I think its one of the smaller art museums
(behind the Prado, which houses my classic Spanish works and The Reina Sofia,
which has modern art). Here is the description of the exhibit I saw "The exhibition brings together the largest and most
ambitious selection of works by the US artist ever to be shown in Europe, with
loans from major museums and institutions including the MoMA and the
Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Addison
Gallery of American Art, Andover, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
Philadelphia, in addition to various private collections and with a
particularly generous loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
The latter is sending 14 works from the Bequest of Josephine N. Hopper, the
artist’s wife.****Within the context of Europe, Hopper
is one of the best known and most highly appreciated American painters. Despite
this, however, his works have only been seen here in public exhibitions on a
limited number of occasions. With the aim of rectifying this situation and of
bringing his work to the attention of a wider public, two major cultural
institutions of particular importance for the artist and his work have joined
forces. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza houses the most significant collection of
Hopper’s works outside the United States, while in the case of the Réunion des
musées nationaux, Paris and early 20th-century French painting were key
reference points for the start of Hopper’s career.
This exhibition in Madrid includes 73 works and it offers an analysis of the artist's work structured into two principal sections. The first opens with Hopper's time in the studio of Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and covers the years of his training, with works from around 1900 to 1924 that start to reveal his particular and distinctive style. Paintings drawings, prints and watercolours are displayed alongside various works by other artists including Henri, Felix Vallotton, Walter sickert, Albert Marquet and Edgar Degas in a dialogue that recreates the one that existed between Hopper and these artists at the time" (Thyssen, 2012).
So that’s a long description of what we went to see. It was very cool. I only wish that I had an audio book because there were no descriptions of the paintings and I like to read about the art I'm seeing for some background. I think we were supposed to get audio books with our tickets, but they were out of the English version :( It was still a very cool exhibit though and since I am taking an oil painting class now I can appreciate how hard it is to make those painting. He uses amazing colors and a lot of my favorite ones were the ones he painted of water scenes. It looked so blue and refreshing I wanted to jump right in.
When I got home from that, It was already 8:30 p.m. and it was the first time I had been home since I left that morning at 8:30 a.m. I made it in time to eat dinner with my roommate though; we usually eat around 8 pm, so that was good.
That night I was just chilling in my room, doing homework with my other roommate and she invited me to go out and get sangria with her friend, who lives down the street from us and who is also a study abroad student. I wasn't planning on going out that night but since it was casual I was like "why not?" It ended up being a really relaxing and fun night. We went to this really packed bar, full of basically all college and young adults, which was cool. Then after that we just wandered around Madrid, got some more sangria and then sat in Parque de Oeste and chatted. We only stayed out until midnight so it was perfect because all of us were tired. Overall, it ended up being a good roommate bonding night and I met a new friend so it was a good night.
So that was Wednesday. Thursday is my last day of school each week but its a really long day for me. Both my Tuesday and Thursday I basically have class straight thru from 10 am to 5 pm. Luckily, none of my classes are that difficult, my only issue is finding a time to each lunch. In my art class on Thursday I think I basically finished my first painting! I still need to do a little bit of finishing touches but I had no idea what I was doing the whole time during it and I think it turned out pretty good. My teacher also told me he likes my "wild style" of painting, which I have to take as a compliment because he showed us some of his works and he also has a "wild style". So i'm happy with it. I'll hang it up in my room at home or school.
Thursday night I decided to go out just because I don't have class on Friday and with the exception of the museum and the parque I hadn't really gone out all week, which is basically unheard of in Spain. So I went to my first discoteca in Sol, an urban, going-out area of Madrid. It was cool; the clubs here are definitely different than America and more fun. They also cater to college age kids and a lot of them have specials if you get there before 1:30 am. Many have free entry and/or some kind of drink special and there are always people in Sol handing out coupons/fliers for discounts at different clubs so you can try a bunch of different places. We actually got a flier from this one guy and he walked us to the club the flier was for and he let us cut to the front of the line so that was pretty cool.
The clubs there usually have just college age kids so they are safer, not as many creepers. However, last night, there was this one older Spanish man who was being a little bit weird. Usually in America if a guy comes up and tries to dance with you, you can just politely refuse and they walk away or you can walk away and they get the hint. This guy was very persistent. He grabbed my hand to try and dance and I was like "no!" and he wasn't gonna let go so I just grabbed onto one of my guy friends and kind of hide behind him. Then the old guy grabbed my guy friend to dance with him. So that was kind of sketchy and not something I’ve ever experienced before in the states.
After a while we left, around 2 am, and none of us wanted to go home yet so we found a bar to just chill at. The bar was supposed to be an Irish bar but they played American sports on the t.v.’s. That was the first time I’ve watched American t.v. since being here. It was weird. I got to see some of bears/packers game though so that was nice. I think it was in real time because it was 2 am in Madrid so it would have been 7pm game at home, which sounds reasonable.
That bar closed at 3 am so we left there and tried to find another place and ended up in this weird “club” that looked just like someone’s apartment converted into a club. It was tiny and weirdly laid out so we left there pretty quick too. By that time it was already 3:30 am and my foot was kind of hurting so I decided take a cab home. My friend Marshall came with me because he was ready to go home too I think and helping me is a good excuse to leave anything early.
This exhibition in Madrid includes 73 works and it offers an analysis of the artist's work structured into two principal sections. The first opens with Hopper's time in the studio of Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and covers the years of his training, with works from around 1900 to 1924 that start to reveal his particular and distinctive style. Paintings drawings, prints and watercolours are displayed alongside various works by other artists including Henri, Felix Vallotton, Walter sickert, Albert Marquet and Edgar Degas in a dialogue that recreates the one that existed between Hopper and these artists at the time" (Thyssen, 2012).
So that’s a long description of what we went to see. It was very cool. I only wish that I had an audio book because there were no descriptions of the paintings and I like to read about the art I'm seeing for some background. I think we were supposed to get audio books with our tickets, but they were out of the English version :( It was still a very cool exhibit though and since I am taking an oil painting class now I can appreciate how hard it is to make those painting. He uses amazing colors and a lot of my favorite ones were the ones he painted of water scenes. It looked so blue and refreshing I wanted to jump right in.
When I got home from that, It was already 8:30 p.m. and it was the first time I had been home since I left that morning at 8:30 a.m. I made it in time to eat dinner with my roommate though; we usually eat around 8 pm, so that was good.
That night I was just chilling in my room, doing homework with my other roommate and she invited me to go out and get sangria with her friend, who lives down the street from us and who is also a study abroad student. I wasn't planning on going out that night but since it was casual I was like "why not?" It ended up being a really relaxing and fun night. We went to this really packed bar, full of basically all college and young adults, which was cool. Then after that we just wandered around Madrid, got some more sangria and then sat in Parque de Oeste and chatted. We only stayed out until midnight so it was perfect because all of us were tired. Overall, it ended up being a good roommate bonding night and I met a new friend so it was a good night.
So that was Wednesday. Thursday is my last day of school each week but its a really long day for me. Both my Tuesday and Thursday I basically have class straight thru from 10 am to 5 pm. Luckily, none of my classes are that difficult, my only issue is finding a time to each lunch. In my art class on Thursday I think I basically finished my first painting! I still need to do a little bit of finishing touches but I had no idea what I was doing the whole time during it and I think it turned out pretty good. My teacher also told me he likes my "wild style" of painting, which I have to take as a compliment because he showed us some of his works and he also has a "wild style". So i'm happy with it. I'll hang it up in my room at home or school.
Thursday night I decided to go out just because I don't have class on Friday and with the exception of the museum and the parque I hadn't really gone out all week, which is basically unheard of in Spain. So I went to my first discoteca in Sol, an urban, going-out area of Madrid. It was cool; the clubs here are definitely different than America and more fun. They also cater to college age kids and a lot of them have specials if you get there before 1:30 am. Many have free entry and/or some kind of drink special and there are always people in Sol handing out coupons/fliers for discounts at different clubs so you can try a bunch of different places. We actually got a flier from this one guy and he walked us to the club the flier was for and he let us cut to the front of the line so that was pretty cool.
The clubs there usually have just college age kids so they are safer, not as many creepers. However, last night, there was this one older Spanish man who was being a little bit weird. Usually in America if a guy comes up and tries to dance with you, you can just politely refuse and they walk away or you can walk away and they get the hint. This guy was very persistent. He grabbed my hand to try and dance and I was like "no!" and he wasn't gonna let go so I just grabbed onto one of my guy friends and kind of hide behind him. Then the old guy grabbed my guy friend to dance with him. So that was kind of sketchy and not something I’ve ever experienced before in the states.
After a while we left, around 2 am, and none of us wanted to go home yet so we found a bar to just chill at. The bar was supposed to be an Irish bar but they played American sports on the t.v.’s. That was the first time I’ve watched American t.v. since being here. It was weird. I got to see some of bears/packers game though so that was nice. I think it was in real time because it was 2 am in Madrid so it would have been 7pm game at home, which sounds reasonable.
That bar closed at 3 am so we left there and tried to find another place and ended up in this weird “club” that looked just like someone’s apartment converted into a club. It was tiny and weirdly laid out so we left there pretty quick too. By that time it was already 3:30 am and my foot was kind of hurting so I decided take a cab home. My friend Marshall came with me because he was ready to go home too I think and helping me is a good excuse to leave anything early.
Carrying my backpack to the museum because im crippled, what a great friend
3D Edward Hopper Perspective
Some Spanish and English description about this painting by Edward Hopper, which I forgot the name of
All of us at the exhibit
Thyssen Museum
My roomie, Maureen
My basically finished painting, the first time I've ever done an oil painting!
First discoteca experience con mis amigos
Looking classy, as always
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