Barcelona Day One

I arrive in Barcelona Sunday night, more wired than exhausted. David Skolkin and I meet in the lobby bar for a "Welcome" glass of champagne. Just as I am trying to figure out if the best idea after traveling for 20 hours would be to go to sleep, Bernardo and Jose from Grafos show up and whisk us off to a wonderful dinner of:

Pork - which, in Barcelona, is "good for you because the animals are happy living in the mountains eating acorns"
Artichokes - "they are in season!"
Monkfish with borage sauce - "a typical dish of Barcelona"
And cheese! - "have some dessert Christina!"
Followed by another espresso - "I don't think this will keep me up, do you?"


The next day - today - we are at the plant by nine for the first press sheet.

It is a really nice switch to actually be working on a project, to be on press, rather than just arriving for a bunch of meetings. And this is a BIG project: a 540 page catalogue raisonnee of the work of John Baldessari.

So far so good. We're printing on the big KBA presses - 20 to view - and the work looks fantastic. I love these big presses, what a change from the days of 8-to-view on the little Heidelbergs! With a little luck we will get through over 200 pages today, something that could have taken 3-4 days in the old days of printing.

There's David hard at work with Export Director Jose and Press Supervisor Pedro

A quick (well, not that quick) break for lunch, at a great no-frills restaurant overlooking the vegetable market. First course: broiled roasted red peppers and eggplant topped with goat cheese.

Then, back to work.



Check out all these wild mushrooms at the market!