Say Cheese
Obviously i have been pretty bad at writing down my experiences and posting them, but I blame this place. I always end up either exhausted from walking the city, or exhausted from going out at night and eating and drinking into the early hours of the morning. All this to say that the people of buenos aires are machines. This city is vast and most of the sidewalks are tiled which makes them very slippery when it rains but they don’t let that stop them. They work and walk all day then they go out at night but not like normal people THEIR NIGHT STARTS AT 1:30AM When you in your fancy outfit on the other half of the world are already two drinks too many and are stumble calling an uber, these guys are just starting. so thats why I haven’t been posting, I am trying to live like an Argentinian (its not working)
Im not going to go into much detail about the city itself because you can read all about it on some wiki page. Instead I’m going to tell you my experience. I came here to find art and artists living and working on this side of the world. I came in search for some inspiration to help me get out of a creative rut I was feeling. Finding the artists I thought would be easy, so I let myself meet some people and get sucked into the culture and night life at first. When I finally attempted to reach out I got deafening silence in return. Maybe I had worded the messages wrong, maybe they saw or heard something they didn’t like, I really don’t know. Nearing my last day in Buenos Aires I started to get very discouraged and to be honest I was feeling let down, disappointed and a bit of a failure. Here i was in one of the most beautiful cities in South America, famed for its art and culture and i couldn’t get ONE artist to talk to me and share their experience. The city lost its luster. The cold weather had been barely noticed, but when I realized this city was not going to let me in, I felt the cold, in more ways than one.
On the last day, I spoke to Bryan, a local whom i had become friends with, I told him how little response I had gotten and how discouraged I felt, he told me he might know someone. He said he was going to tell him about the project and what i was doing, then get back to me. I had gotten a few leads like that before so i knew not to get my hopes up until…. i got a message from the Ivàn Aurelio. He is a painter and mixed medium artist and is interested in meeting me. FINALLY!! A breakthrough! I did have to extend my stay in Buenos Aires for an extra day but I didn’t care. After 8 days of calling, searching, and finding nothing but dead ends, I got my first chapter.