Workspace blog hop

one of possible worlds

Aquileana from http://aquileana.wordpress.com/ invited me to the Challenge Workspace Blog Hop. First time I read about events in WordPress and I wouldn’t say no to a gentle invitation. Actually it’s a pleasure to invite you to her blog. She is a sweet example of the Argentine cultural force that has an influence in the countries of the continent in arts and sciences. The most of books in the familiar library are Argentinian or were translated and published in Argentina, our only center of Nuclear technology was designed and built with Argentinian nuclear technology by Argentinians. But… this post is supposed to be about our place to posts in our blogs.

I am a nomad, a mercenary architect. I work and live in locations where my customers around the Peruvian south live. So my office is a laptop, a backpack and my tools. I have no house but several homes. And I try to get little gadgets to get portability. I’m not attached to objects. The first photo is what I usually use as first steps to get my ideas to the real world. I just need a pen and paper, and a measurement tape. My goal is to design spaces where people can be happy. Not minimal spaces, not basic spaces, but ones where they can help to their occupants to be healthily happy. Function follows dreams.

The most important part of my nomad workspace blog

I am always travelling. I am always walking. The most important part then are my shoes. I use Merrell mocs, they are to me the best in the world, without them there wouldn’t be neither travels nor blog. To the left are the old ones, they have more than ten years perhaps and still working, I take them to very tough places so the extreme wear; in the right are the new ones, are the same model.

old and new

The second most important part of my nomad workspace blog

A hat, it’s a traditional hat we the men use in parts of Bolivia and Peru. I’m not white but aymara, although in centuries ago we mixed a bit with Italians and Africans (by the way sorry but these days I’m quite tired for a bit of hard work so it looks in the photograph) I have several more hats :P

 

Inspiration from travels

I’m quite plain. I don’t have clocks, jewels or intricate souvenirs. Barely I have little stones or shells that I find curious and pick up in the beaches, mountains or hills; enough little to have in my workspace.

Inspiration from others

My lectures are important, I have books about literature, painting, history, architecture, philosophy, archeology, etcetera. Time ago I had in my personal library hundreds of more books but I wasn’t going to read them anymore, I needed some money and besides they are just objects. The important is if someone can use them to grow, not to brag about their number or mere possession. What I didn’t sell were my hundreds of comics, mostly from Argentina, because they are hard to get. I have also mangas and from US. To read a comic is different to a book, it needs also some amount of culture. But everything is in boxes…

That’s my brother’s cat.

the important is in your mind

Actually if I had to save something that would be Borges’ Works and Dante’s Divine Comedy. If I couldn’t there would be no problem because they are in me.

intruders in the anthology

Creation

I use mostly digital these days to finish sooner, buy my mind works better with a pen in the beginning.

dreams to catch the Road Runner

The real workspace

Is a laptop, a dumb cellphone and a ragged backpack to pass discretely in my travels.

And that’s all. I don’t want to have much. Actually I feel I’ve too much.

***

I would love to invite to Georgette Ann from  http://georgetteann.wordpress.com/ I don’t know if she can (it’s not obligatory) but I invite you to know her poetry. If you can read her words I’ll be happy to have guided you to her art. I don’t read her poetry; I can feel it. It’s clear that poetry to her is not an esthetic exercise but is an expression of her soul.

After the rage against the machine

 

Travelling I noticed how native I am, how different from other cultures in Peru and much more from foreigners. Sometimes it’s interesting the difference, sometimes it’s unfortunate because the language can be different even with the same words.

In aymara and quechua culture our civilizations have one characteristic and it is the principle of correspondence. If someone do something for you then you should do something equivalent, not by obligation but because is a way to say without words that we appreciate what is done to us. It has a negative side, we tend to be violent because we also reciprocate when somebody makes us something bad. It’s a simplistic way to write it because it affects the shape of celebrations (always have to been two sides) and two is not a final number, is just part of a bigger system of symmetries like an organism.

In this case I’m posting a simple black and white image just because I need to balance the images in color I have published previously. Tomorrow to compensate I’ll post a complex tree, and after that I’ll focus in words more than images. Everything to don’t break a personal need of balance…

The title is meant to be humorous by the way, it is just a broken lock ;-)

Dziki żółty kwiat dla Wanda

 

A wild yellow flower with a natural beauty; a mystery that happened suddenly a day. A touch of color in a white world like she could have inside her core the happiness of spring and the serene peace of an autumn afternoon.

Arequipa A – Volcanic rock upon the Valley

white architecture for a colorful world

Arequipa is a city in the Peruvian southwest in a valley in the north of Atacama’s desert. It was relatively a new city founded during the Inca Empire. After that Spaniards came and change the name misspelling it to its actual shape. Probably meant originally their location related to Misti volcano. I believe it could be a signal that it was a city planned to the future so its name could mean more something like place of tomorrow.

Mountains

There are three important mountains that are seen from the city: Chachani, Misti and Pichu Pichu. I climbed the last of them… but that’s a post for another day.

speaking to u (Chachani)

snow covering Misti

wake up, Pichu Pichu

 

Volcanic rock

This is the most western city upon Peru, as native that means that I feel a bit foreigner in that city. I don’t understand the raison d’être about certain foods and traditions, but if you are from Europe I think you could feel this city closer to you. Mostly my friends there, just a few, are from the old families, mostly the population now has a great percentage of sons and daughters of newcomers and to prove their new identity can be a bit harsh with people from other cities. I went there because studies, if I would know about that characteristic I think I would chosen another city.

The city is built with white volcanic rock. In colonial times it was painted with a lot of happy colors but in twentieth century a mayor decided to let the city with white walls; what could be a terrible mistake because the Sun is strong. It’s the city with the second world strongest solar radiation after Cairo.

let me protect you, madame

doubts

hacedor de sombras

business meeting

blue night

But there is a revival to recover colors:

shades of vermillion

two brothers

Red Paint under Blue Midday

absence

Among the merits Arequipa could shine in two: it’s probably the cleanest city in Peru, that because the people take care of the city; the second one is the cultural activity is powerful and there are artists and thinkers in several fields.

Upon the valley

Arequipa is a city whose economics are strongly linked to the agribusiness so the countryside is in the center of the city, omnipresent.

infinite green for two friends

spots

bow my branches to the sound of the water

Chachani (ghost in the sunset)

And that would be all for today, hope you find something interesting ;-)

Tuturutu

Genkidama

 

Monday, Montag, Lunedi, Lundi, Lunes: Moon’s day. I thought today could be a good day to post something about our mysterious satellite…

Genki dama is a technic from the anime Dragon Ball Z (when teen it was the most popular anime for us). The protagonist raises his arms to gather energy in shape of a growing sphere from people or life that is agree to share their force.

That afternoon the moon had a ghostly appearance like it was summoned by those clouds with its arms raised up, although with a bit ominous promise… Or does that mean that my imagination flies to far XD? Doesn’t help that policy statistics show that in full moon time violence get maximum peaks.

Reflections about posting

This is not a blog. It’s a personal diary.

It’s a diary hidden in public from friends of relatives that anyway see my work as the frenetic work of madness at best, and something not much valuable at worst. But I always have been a rebel and I like what I do, and I need to do a lot of things and don’t care if it’s not of the taste of somebody else. Writing and publishing memories is a way to let them in the past. To forget to go to the future. Microsoft erased my space account and migrated it to wordpress, and in the end I choose to post here, it seems enough discrete.

• Essays are my written thoughts. My way to view the illusion about what we call the world.
• Gestalt is related to my thoughts about architectural design or drawings.
• Nayra is the aymara word for the space-time concept of Past and the space In Front of our eyes. Qhepha is the aymara word for the space-time concept of Future and the space Behind Us, because we cannot see the future. In aymara there is just one word for space and time.

I’ve more essays and tales in drafts stage; sketches of drawings and plots of comics. But my lack of will make me publish just a bit of those and use instead my diverse photographs. Photographs that I’m posting for a selfish reason. With that I don’t want to say that I don’t care the followers and likes. Far from that. A big thanks to everybody generous to give me their time and patience with my words and photographs, (actually I find extraordinary to get four likes; more than four seems surreal) and I try to post content valuable to me but also valuable to you, dear reader. I care a lot the readers, even if there is no one reader I hope that what I think or see can help somebody in the future. The ones that I don’t review usually are the bloggers whose objective is to sell content to be a rich blogger XD; and also a few ones that seems to me that actually didn’t look my content but just tried to get attention to get more followers… and a few cases when I know that my ideas are so different that it could lead to an unnecessary confrontation. Aside of those cases I take my time to read and see with calm the production of so talented artists. More than write I enjoy to read. Said that I was thinking in the feedback of my postings. I have more viewers about my photographs, some time in the future it could change. Photography is an activity secondary to the main that is just to walk, to discover and to explore. My favorites photographs in these months publishing (although my opinion tomorrow could be different) are the next ones:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to statistics and feedback the favorites of readers are the next ones:

 

This photograph perhaps get attention because its title is “phototropism”

 

 

 

 

 

Curiously my selfie got a lot of views o_O, so it’s here in this list:

 

And that’s all. I think it just proves that everybody has personal tastes. I put in the beginning another image to feel that I didn’t just post a Frankenstein made of old posts. It’s more a reflection of these indeterminate number of days posting almost daily (remember, it’s a diary) except the day I went to Bolivia and I couldn’t find for lack of time a speedy internet connection.

Assuming you are not sleeping in this part or turned off your computer/laptop/tablet/cell pone thanks to all of you :-), hope you find more interesting posts in the future, in my case I am getting my goal to have an space where let to flow my ideas.

Two for three

 

Walking in a valley from the countryside some months ago I saw several trees with berries. It’s a pity don’t be versed in the different varieties to know if one kind is comestible or are red tickets to the hypothetic afterlife :P

Temptations…

Goldie

Friendship

There is a bond between friendship and clouds; both have the beauty of things that cannot last and for that they are precious.

I know, good friends are forever but one has to travel, to work, to grow and the time change us that the friend of yesterday is not the same today. I’ve forgotten the most of names of my mates, at school and university, but I remember the names and details of my friends, they know I’ll be there for them to hear them, just hear and don’t judge.

When kid I had a certain apprehension about the ephemeral beauty of clouds, some with extraordinary shapes, another ones changing and blending into so many grades of colors at dusk. After a time I considered that as I couldn’t do anything about that  the best I could do was to remember them. The same I do with my friends I think.

In the end remember is a way to forget because we abstract and select what we want. And a person or even a simple cloud always is far more complex than that our memories allow us to represent: barely a Chinese shadow play.

Time traveller

 

It’s strange, I took this photograph some months ago.The building is an old colonial residence for an aristocratic family since XVI century and remodeled to this shape in the XVIII century. But the lady walking is dressed like a person from the XVIII century, too; without public artificial lights and without cars, as if I would travelled across the time a bit, not completely but enough to feel like a rare peculiarity.

Ilo B – Pozo de Lizas beach

happy ending

Ilo city is in the south coast of the Peruvian deserts. Usually covered with the Kamanchaca (sea fog) in summer it’s an amazing place to go to the beaches. In the south of Peru Ilo beaches are in my opinion the most beautiful and always are hidden ones to discover. They are not the glamorous tropical beaches in the north of Peru, with palms and its armies of surfers, but are quite beautiful in its own right.

I went for a work, so I had just one afternoon to enjoy the beach, with a broken camera… The humidity damaged the mechanism and I just could to shoot it in manual; I liked so much that since then I’ve never used full automatic modes.

The yellow building is a bar with restaurants, bathrooms, and services. I think they have good taste because don’t impact negatively the beach and even from the sea they looks discret in the topography.

sea and desert

So I took off my clothes and went to the beach. As I was just alone I let my camera, after having taken a few vistas, and backpack with a kind lady working in the building. I was in the water for hours…

crystalline

perfect sky for a perfect day

my shadow in blue clue

waves coming

jump!

I’ll endure in my quietness

impact

The sunset came so I went for my stuff, but not without take another vistas of the sea dying in fire tones…

mar in crescendo

walking in the black side of life

silver and gold

lo! symbols in the water

And that was all, the next day my back was red and sensible, lol, I mean, auch!