Cortijada Los Gazquez - Vida en 1000m. Parque Natural Sierra Maria Los Velez. Andalucia.

Live from the beautiful Iglesia del Carmen in Vélez Rubio, El Conservatorio Leopoldo Torrecillas Iglesias presented the Concierto Final Curso 2010/2011 last night, and as you can see the audience, despite the early evening heat, were gripped with anticipation…

and there, at the back of the clarinet ensemble (playing a popular mix from Moonlight Serenade, The Jungle Book, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean) was Sesamé! (very proud). And they were all fantastic largely down to the inspiration of their tutor José Antonio Millán García.

And the finale was with the orchestra and choir of the conservatory singing (and playing) ‘Los Chicos del Coro’, Supercalifragilístico’ and ‘Gaudeamus Igitur’ (which sounded just like a Coldplay song).

What an evening…

It was about this time last year that in a search for something to read in English, I rummaged through our old collection of paperback Penguins. And up popped this, “The Kontiki Expedition’ by Thor Heyerdahl. I remembered the story from those now lost days when BBC2 used to programme this kind of thing. It’s a great read (even if some of their accounts about encounters with the natural world are a little old fashioned). I remember last summer sharing the enthusiasm for this story with a friend from Argentina who was also equally fascinated with the tale.

And then coincidentally I spotted on the internet something called Plastiki, a similar voyage taken last summer in a boat made from 12000 plastic bottles. I blogged the story back then here. Pretty obviously Plastiki was / is intended to highlight the disastrous plight of our oceans particularly from plastics, most notably plastic bottles..

Then imagine my surprise  the other week when guests arrived at Cortijada Los Gázquez who have a creative / campaigning association with Plastiki. Jay Little is an environmental artist, over here from California with his wife and kids. The subject came up after I noticed him avidly reading my book on Jacques Coustau (obviously). Jay is responsible for The Message Bottle Project. For the last 17 years Jay has been launching a series of glass message bottles from every conceivable vessel and spanning all five major oceans to underscore the importance of preserving the world’s oceans and draw attention to marine pollution (particularly plastic debris). He has released 235 bottles with 22 confirmed discoveries.

One of Jay’s bottles has been launched from The Plastiki whilst on route across the Pacific (left). This bottle is special as it has been tagged with satellite technology and what is more you can follow it’s progress around the globe by following this link. For more information you can go to our Joya: arte + ecología page on Facebook and look under our list of likes. There you will see Message Bottle Project and from there you can read more.

Needless to say we are delighted that people are coming to us because we share so many of the same values. And we will be tracking Jay Little’s Plastiki bottle.

The programme sandwiched Solomon between Óscar Guevara Botía and Ana María Martinez Expósito (don’t you just love these Spanish names?) at the end of term concert at the music school ‘Leopoldo Torecillas Iglesias’ in Vélez Rubio and it was fantastic. Sol played ‘Brante Inglés’ (wonder why?) by Adriansen and like all the other Dads I know, obviously I think he ‘has a gift’!

She probably won’t see this but I would like to thank his teacher Lola Rodríguez Paredes for being so inspirational. (and a wonderful musician too).

and the view of the Conviento La Conception and La Muela on the Sierra Gigante

Robert Reiter is a German landscape painter who spends a great deal of his time here in ‘Los Vélez‘. Last night we were at the private view for his new exhibition ‘Ventanas, puertas, muros…Una excurción a la arquitectura tradicional del parque natural de Sierra María-Los Vélez‘ at our friend Pepe’s gallery ‘La Concepción’

Robert Reiter was born in 1932 and studied  at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He and his wife now divide their time between Bavaria and the Comarca de Los Vélez.

And here at Los Gázquez we are huge fans of his work. He paints rapidly with a vibrant energy pushing the paint around his canvases. His colour is sublime but most of all I am  in awe at  his ability to capture the light here. And it’s a special bright light charged with photons, bouncing from the sun baked white clay earth. It’s lime light illuminating forms from beneath as  well as from above and it is this special quality that Reiter captures so well as he pushes his medium in and out of expressionist abstraction and figuration.

We should also add that it was a wonderful evening and so stimulating that such a small community in such a remote but beautiful place as this can produce  cultural gems like this.

Come and support cultural, sustainable and ethical tourism at Cortijada Los Gázquez.

… for we have a new road across this alpine desert from Vélez Blanco to Cortijada Los Gázquez. (Not all the way mind, we don’t want to be too close to civilization)