Onwards and Upwards — Two South of Granada

Nov 6

Nov 6 Onwards and Upwards

Challenges, Culture, Fiesta, Granada Cultural Holidays, Art, Summer, Spanish Culture, Places to visit, Local interest

The day on which this post was written was one of those days. I know that much of northern Europe was being ravaged by Storm Ciaran as I wrote and we merely had grey skies and a bit of a wind, but I do appreciate the occasional day like those. We have no particular reason to venture outside, apart from taking Alfie for a walk in the clouds, and there is something comforting about lighting the fire at midday and settling down at the computer to catch up on overdue projects. We can eat comfort food without feeling too guilty, and watch something unchallenging on TV and just give ourselves a little bit of time to relax.

That said, we had a fairly full day on Wednesday of last week with a 7 hour round-trip to Torrevieja over near Alicante. Why, we hear you ask? Since ‘Moclín Arte’ came to an end, we have spent some time getting works of art back to their respective owners, and we had a collection of lovely paintings from a Belgian Artist, Linda Coppens, who happens to live and work in Torrevieja. We thought we’d use the excuse of returning paintings to go and visit a part of Spain we have not yet seen. Fortunately, the day was clear and bright and the Autumn sun managed to see the journey out.

After the rigours of the past few months, there was something liberating about just getting in the car together and driving. One of the joys of living in Spain is that you can set out on a journey by car and very, very rarely do you encounter traffic. I remember the ghastly days of travelling in the UK, and forever finding myself stuck in some long queue on the M20, M25, M1 or M6 and the sheer frustrations that resulted. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hit some hold up or delay. Here, the joys of road travel still remain and travelling through vast swathes of Andalucia, into Murcia and beyond bring excitement and wonder as landscapes whizz past and change and flow into each other.

We delivered the paintings and set out to find somewhere for lunch, to the south of Torrevieja; we didn’t fancy delving too deeply into the town itself and longed for a bit of sun and beach. It was a national holiday on 1st November, the Día de Todos los Santos, so we felt we ought to embrace the holiday vibe and head for a chiringuito and stare out at the Mediterranean. We managed to find a suitable place, right beside the beach at El Mojón just to the north of Mar Menor. This is an area that feels very different from Andalucia, and the Costa Cálida certainly lived up to its name - it was like summer there! We were dressed for chilly Granada, and on the Costa Cálida everyone was still in shorts and T-shirts, cycling merrily along the coast on e-bikes or taking a stroll before lunch. The golden sandy beaches were punctuated by sunbathers and the area had that languid, post-high-season air that Andrew and I now feel after our own very busy summer.

Lunch was fresh fish and a spot of salad before we returned to the car for a scenic return home. As we headed south past Cartagena, we noticed that the coastline was not too dissimilar in parts to the Cabo de Gata in Almería, an area that we love. Developments appeared to be scarce, and rocky folds in the landscape disappeared down into the sea. There also appeared to be many little beaches and coves, and subsequently looking at the maps this does seem to be a place worth exploring. We also noticed that there were several little marinas along the coast and anyone who knows me will know that I love a marina! We immediately decided that we’d return and Andrew spent part of yesterday evening researching possible accommodation options whilst downing a G&T.

While we are on the subject of paintings, we feel we ought to talk a little more about Moclín Arte, given that it took up so much of this year.

We started planning the festival way back in March, as soon as we were asked if we would organise it.

Originally, it began as an art competition to find artists who would work on producing lasting works of art to be installed in one of 4 different sites in the municipality. On its own, this is a fairly sizeable task, promoting the competition, assessing each entry, liaising with the artists, getting a panel of judges together and then deciding who should win. However, we were already organising our own art courses in September, a Mosaics course and an Acrylic Painting course, so it made sense to incorporate these activities into the festival. The event started to take shape.

Over the months from March, we began to include music. It has always been my aim to introduce a Classical Music festival into the village cultural calendar, and that still remains a goal. The art festival gave us the opportunity to incorporate some of these other elements to create a 3 week long programme of all sorts of creative and cultural activities. We have connections with the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Granada, so finding musicians wasn’t too much of a challenge, but nothing really prepared me for the quality of the performances during the festival itself.

I exhibit some of my artwork on the Saatchi Art online platform, so managed to use the website to source international artists living in Spain, and we brought together an impressive collection of art from all corners of the country from a very diverse group of artists. We had two photography exhibitions and two large venues filled with paintings and sculpture.

The scale of the festival grew and we added conferences, workshops and craft markets to the mix. We are unbelievably lucky to have the support of the friends with whom we work on our own creative course programmes, and one of these friends, Vanessa, has experience of putting together conferences and talks and took over this part of the programme - we could not have done it without her. Another friend, Jelena, a very talented Botanical artists in her own right, first proposed the craft markets so we asked if she’d help run them. Raquel, the sister of one of my town hall colleagues, managed the craft markets and was invaluable. So, as the scale of the project increased so did the network of incredible colleagues and helpers.

June came and the competition winners were announced. Summer arrived and we began to ascend the steep hill of promotion for a new festival. Andrew worked full time on producing branding, promotional material, banners, posters and social media content. It is easy to see, now, how we found absolutely no time for a break as this juggernaut of an event gathered momentum. We had over 120 artworks selected for exhibition and that all needed curating and hanging; we had 6 concerts to organise in 6 different locations; we held craft markets in 6 villages. Guest speakers gave talks on topics such as Herbology and Witchcraft and Photography of the Albaicín in Granada. We had workshops on the art of Puppetry and Geometric design, watercolour painting and calligraphy.

I love organising events like this. Yes, it is a lot of hard work but being able to produce a festival that incorporates our combined passions of art, design, music and performance is something of a luxury. We did have the constraints of a minimal budget, but when it comes to cultural activities the fees of many participants are still shamefully low. My heart aches slightly when I consider the fees charged by classical musicians compared to those fees commanded by rock and pop performers. I can’t describe the debt I owe Andrew for his unswerving support. It was a joint project, but my goodness he never complained when I asked for another poster, or for a change to the content of the programme, or for some graphic for Instagram. His branding for the event was spot on and the visual impact of what was produced was enormous. The design brought every disparate strand of the three weeks together and gave the project a joyful cohesion. In 48 hours, he managed to produce a video that summarised every event of the festival for use as a closing statement, and the pride I felt when we watched this on a big screen (thank you Eddie and Sarah!) in the village square made so much of the hard work worth it.

How do we feel now, a few weeks after the event?

When you are in the middle of a festival like Moclín Arte it is difficult to assess whether or not it is successful. There are no measures against which you can gauge success, and there were no precedents against which to compare. Days were spent driving between exhibitions, finding volunteers to sit in venues, deliver keys, make sure tables were where they were supposed to be for craft markets, get chairs set out for an evening concert. We hoped that people would turn up for events, and they did. We hoped that residents of villages would accept and appreciate art that was being created on walls and in squares that they pass every day. Most importantly, we hoped that news of the festival would filter out beyond the borders of the municipality to people from other areas of Spain and beyond, and they would see that Moclín is a place to visit and an area that puts cultural, sustainable tourism at the centre of a rural development plan.

Life is quiet now that the swell of activity has abated. Andrew and I have our own personal highlights. The concerts gave us both time to relax and reflect before we tackled the next day of activities. All the musical performances were exceptional and I wanted the entire population of Andalucia to see these in the magical locations in which they were held. I’d have been delighted if we had been able to sell every one of the works of art that we managed to exhibit, but this is all beyond reasonable expectation. As we are often told, this was the first festival and it takes a couple of years for such festivals to become embedded and to generate the sort of attention that they deserve.

Will we do it again? I think there’s no doubt that we would love this to be an annual event. There are elements we’d change, but not many and only to make our lives a little easier during the festival itself! We already have plans for next year…

I suppose when it comes to assessing the value these events have on an area is to ask the local people, many of whom have already left their feedback:

“Sin duda el festival en su conjunto me ha parecido espectacular y atrae a un público muy diverso a nuestro Municipio, lo cual, es de agradecer.
Ya ofrecí mi enhorabuena en particular a la organización y ahora lo hago públicamente.
En cuanto a la actividad con la que más he disfrutado de las que he podido disfrutar, sin duda la visita guiada al Castillo y no puedo dejar sin nombrar el concierto de Zaida González en el patio de Limones que nos emocionó a todos y todas los asistentes.
Gracias. Ojalá se celebren muchos más festivales como este en los Pueblos de Moclín.”
Without a doubt, the festival as a whole was spectacular and attracted a very diverse audience to our Municipality, which is appreciated.
I have already offered my congratulations privately to the organisers and now I do so publicly.
As for the event that I enjoyed the most, without doubt this was the guided tour of the Castle. I also have to mention the concert by Zaida González in the patio in Limones, a concert that moved all of us who attended.
Thank you. I hope many more festivals like this are celebrated in the Towns of Moclín.
“Hemos podido disfrutar de varios de los eventos de Moclin Arte! Y me quedo con la visita guiada al Castillo, en la que aprendimos un montón de su historia que desconocíamos!
La exposición del Gran Peter Manschot que siempre nos sorprende con sus fotazas y la voz de Zaida en un rinconcito encantador de Limones!!
Espero que este festival se repita muchos años más y se celebre la cultura en los pueblos de Moclin!!!”
We have been able to enjoy several of the Moclin Arte events! I loved the guided tour of the Castle, during which we learned a lot about its history that we didn't know!
The exhibition of the Great Peter Manschot who always surprises us with his great photos and Zaida's voice in a charming little corner of Limones!!
I hope that this festival is repeated for many more years and the culture in the towns of Moclin is celebrated!!!
“Eres (Caroline Howitt) una artista impresionante. Gracias por dar tu arte a nuestros pueblos. I LOVE you”
You are a fabulous artist! Thank you for giving your art to our villages. I LOVE you
“Todo perfecto!!! El sitio y las propuestas culturales han estado genial.”
Everything was perfect!!! The location and the cultural activities have been great.
“Estuvo muy bonita la tarde, Conferencia,música y mercadillo. La gente participó y salió todo muy bien. Nuestros pueblos necesitan de todo esto para que esten vivos. Ian gracias por tu gran implicación y el cariño que le pones a todo"
The afternoon was beautiful, Conference, music and market. People participated and everything went very well. Our people need all this to be alive. Ian, thank you for your great involvement and the love you put into everything.

So, in essence, I think we can feel pleased that we created something that had an impact and that contributed to the cultural make-up of the community in which we live. This has always been important to us, as we love living here and we want to feel that we give something back to our neighbours and friends, as we have been made to feel so welcome and loved here.

Now though, I think we’d both like to plan a trip to the coast where we can discover wild and hidden coves, and where there are few people - just nature, a few clouds, some blue sky and a touch of warm sun.