We’re wondering if you really care about the jam or if you’re humouring us. We think its probably the latter but I’ll tell you anyway. We’re still eating the strawberry and its still pretty wonderful. We have four days left at Uvaia and then we’re moving to Valeria’s!We’re also trying to get away this weekend, preferably to Igacu Falls! We were debating how we would ever wake up without the Uvaia breakfast to look forward to but we bought some pineapple jam this afternoon that will definitely get us up next week!
We were working on the bronze sculpture again this morning. Issy was frustrated that she forgot her MP3 player (all she wanted was a cheesy pop soundtrack to brighten up her morning of polishing!) and we were both a little disappointed that the sculpture was not as shiney as we thought we had left it.
We were introduced to three men from “Fundicao Artistica No Brasil”, an organisation set up by the SESI-SP and SENAI-SP in order to save skills such as lost wax casting, which are becoming archaic. They were setting up equipment to conduct a 3D scan on a sculpture as a preliminary step to making a mould of it. They will be around for the next two weeks and we’re looking forward to learning more about their project.
Lunch fun. Chatted with Valeria, Yvi from the exhibition dept and Daphine from the educational dept.
Issy was dismayed to find a fresh batch of mould had appeared over the weekend. This new mould was different to before: there was less and this time it was green! Look forward to some photos of that tomorrow! Not one to be beaten by mould, Issy removed it with more synthetic saliva and hopefully it won’t return now. She spent the rest of the afternoon retouching the areas of loss on her sculpture.
This afternoon I continued to create more texture on my fills so that they will blend in with the paint strokes of my painting more. I then applied a separation layer of the adhesive Paraloid B72 dissolved in the solvent Xylene (1:5) over the fills and left it in the fume cupboard, ready for retouching tomorrow!
Me applying Paraloid B72 in Xylene 1:5 onto my fills as a seperation layer.
Tonight we gave up on the big healthy meals and ate two bags of crisps between us. I ate a lot of our new favourite peanut snack “Pacoquinhas” and Issy ate a load of biscuits.
We bought an orange to salvage our health and well beings but its still sitting lonely and uneaten on the table.
Lots of love to the UK! We have bought raisins and will soon make scones to unite you with Brazil!
Yes, it took us three weeks but we finally had a Saturday where are plans didn’t go wrong! After last Saturday of trudging around SP in 30 degree heat with all of our dirty washing, we were determined not to let this day slip through our fingers!
We had a quiet couple of Capirinhas in our favourite bar round the corner on Friday night and then woke up early with lots to do!
We went to Liberdade to get a few special people some nice treats. First bit of present shopping over!
After Liberdade we walked towards the Martinelli building on the same route that Rafa had taken us on the Walking Tour. It was interesting going back with more time and we stopped in at a couple of sites he had said to visit.
The first of these was the Cathedral.
The space outside the Cathedral is always very busy- an odd mix of people who have created rough houses, policeman, preachers, food venders and buskers. One busker was performing to a group of people who looked like they were either drunk or on drugs. They all looked quite dazed but were dancing and having a good time. The amount of homeless people here is difficult to comprehend. Its a horrible thing to say but, like I said before, the point of this is to be honest, you can forget that they’re all people. It can happen in England but I’ve never felt the same isolation from people because you can see how things could go wrong and they could end up in that state. You also know that there are things you can do to improve their situation and that each town might get better as people try and help. The scale of the homeless problem here is so enormous that its easier to get caught up in doing nice things because you feel so helpless and far from them. The language barrier and the drug problems here make it more difficult and to be honest, make me more reluctant to talk to anyone on the street, like I wouldn’t have a problem doing in England. In all of their different ways, for all of their different causes my family and friends have always shown me that if you feel like something is unjust then you should try and do what you can to change it and this is one of the first times that something has felt too big to fix. I suppose Brazil is just a much bigger place with larger problems.
Sorry if that brought the tone down. Issy’s words when I told her that I was writing that were “Oh God. I might skip that bit” so no worries if you did too.
The second was the Caixa Cultural. An old bank converted into a contemporary art gallery and museum. We saw a really interesting exhibition of Dali’s watercolour sketches that were influenced by Dante’s writings. It was a little difficult to follow without a translation and we would have liked to learn more about the works but we were still really impressed at the sheer amount of work he created and his technical skill. He was much more than a fine-moustached eccentric who painted clocks.
We were also pretty impressed by “Desmanches”, an exhibition by Lucas Simones that combined photography and sculpture in really innovative ways.
We wandered the upstairs of the Caixa Cultural to see the museum of banking in Sao Paulo. A lot of the rooms had been restored to how they were in the early 1900s when they were offices for the financial directors. We considered whether or not we would change careers to banking if we could be guaranteed the same big offices filled with Art Deco furniture and beautiful views looking out onto Sao Paulo.
After all of our little detours we made it to the Martinelli building!
Crazy old Martinelli! Building a big pink mansion on top of a skyscraper!No episode of Cribs could beat this house.Don’t look down!The view from the Martinelli building.One of many to come because I got snap-happy and used up the memory on my camera.There are so many skyscrapers that you can’t see beyond the city.
We wondered what view Martinelli originally had before all of the skyscrapers and how incredible the view would have been in the early 1900s when people were not as used to seeing huge panoramic and photo realistic views from the cinema and artworks and 3D films. It was a pretty overwhelming sight for us so it must have been even more incredible for them.
A helicopter landing pad. Sao Paulo has the highest amount of helicopter air traffic in the world due to its congestion.Another beautiful view.Me and Issy on the Martinelli building! We visited at one o clock so I am squinting like a little mole on every photo.The glamourous entrance of the Martinelli building.
We were pretty hungry after our fill of history and culture so we decided to make the pilgrimage to a vegetarian restaurant called “Alternativa Casa do Natural” in Vila Madalena. Lots of people at the hostel had recommended us to visit this place and we weren’t disappointed. The area was very colourful and arty, full of people eating and drinking at tables in the sun, playing music and lots of plants and flowers.
An abandonded car/work of art in Vila Madelena
It was a buffet restaurant so we had several portions of veggie goodness, including lots of beans and fried cabbage, which are two of our favourite dishes here, and papaya and watermelon for dessert!
Afterwards we wandered through Vila Madelena and saw all of the graffiti in the streets for which it is very famous.
Graffiti in Vila Madelena
At this point in our day we had a couple of hours left before we were going to meet our friend, Diego from the museum who was going to take us out samba. We scrutinized our map and realised that we’ve seen nearly everything we wanted to see in Sao Paulo that we could visit in under two hours. We remembered Rafa suggesting a visit to the Araca Cemetery next to Clinicas station so decided to go. The cemetery is famous for its ostentatious tombs, mainly created in the early 1900s. The tombs were enormous, covered in life size sculptures of Christ and the Virgin or with doors leading to flowers and photos on the inside. Many displayed photos of family members from the earliest to latest deceased, some of whom passed away this year. The tombs were also tightly packed into the cemetery, giving the place a strange overcrowded feeling. The layout of the cemetery was so strange to us that we did not feel the usual feelings of sadness or unease that one normally has in a graveyard.
We weren’t allowed to take photos but the images on this link should give you an idea of the vastness and extravagance of the tombs: http://totalspguide.com/post/1979/Araca-Cemetery-%28Cemit%C3%A9rio-do-Ara%C3%A7%C3%A1%29/
After the cemetery we left to meet Diego, only to discover he had left us five texts saying that the samba had been cancelled for rain. We returned to the hostel for a cup of tea and a rest then headed out for a drink and a dance with our French friend, Emmanuel. He took us to a very famous area of Sao Paulo called Rua Augusta, where people fill the streets all night, drinking and chatting.
Today has been quite, walking, antiques shopping/browsing, kilo restaurant and a modern art gallery.
We woke early to have breakfast and then went off to explore some more. Under the MASP (Museum of art in Sao Paulo) there is a Brazilian antiques market every Sunday, this is where we may have purchased some gifts for some family members. We then walked down Avenue Paulista and had another amazing lunch at a different kilo restaurant, this maybe our favourite one. Lots of choice and very tasty. It is within a shopping centre in the food court and it is massive, so much choice as to which food chain you could eat at, even Subway!
We then hopped on the metro back to Ana Rosa, our normal stop and walked to Ibirapuera park where we wander for a while, saw a battle re-enactment and then went to a modern art gallery showing the 30th Biennial de São Paulo exhibition at the Ciccillo Matarazzo pavilion. The Sao Paulo’s art Biennial is the second oldest art Biennial in the world, founded in 1952, the oldest being the Venice Biennial founded in 1895.
“The Biennial’s initial aims are to make contemporary art known in Brazil, push the country’s access to the art scene in other metropolises and further establish São Paulo as an international art centre. The biennial serves to bring Brazilian art closer to an international audience, and vice-versa.”
The exhibition was very large spread out over three open floors, everything is laid out well and nothing is too cramped. The majority of the sculptures were exhibited free standing so that you could walk around and view them from many angles, nothing had cases or was locked away behind glass. The building really added to the exhibition, people are free to roam where ever over the three floors and you are able to see each level when walking around as nothing is closed in. I felt and Grace did too, that this exhibition was really accessible at all levels, something for everyone.
Oh and also on display were some of The Pinacoteca’s collection, we always get excited to see some of their collection out side of the museum.
The exhibition was held in the Ciccillo Matarazzo pavilion, the Biennials founder the Italian-Brazilian industrialist, Ciccillo Matarazzo .
We walked home, finally using the bridge to cross the super busy main roads. When we got home we both collapsed and slept for two hours, when I woke up I thought we had slept all night and it was Monday morning!
I didn’t take many photos from today but I did take this one…a battle re-enactment going on at the park!
And another view of Sao Paulo
I am sending everyone across the ocean a big HELLO, I hope everyone has a happy Monday and a good week as we Start October, this year has flown by quicker than ever!
Time is flying by, we can not believe how quickly our time here is going. Only three more weeks left on placement, then one further week when we travel a little bit, then back to England!
Our time at the museum is going to be split between cleaning the large bronze and rubber tube sculpture in the mornings and then working on our main projects in the afternoons.
This morning we carried on polishing up the heavily tarnish surface of the bronze strips. We are using metal polish on non-abrasive wipes then using a soft cloth to wipe away any residue. The results are great, very clean and shiny, but due to the size and shape it also quite hard to clean!
I think this is going to take quite a while to polish up completely, currently we are operating a random system of clean anywhere and then we will rotate the whole sculpture and repeat.
I had a bad moment when I first looked at the layer of agar agar I applied yesterday, as it had dried against the sculpture! I tried to peel it off and it started to remove some of the surface, I obviously stopped at once, but worked out that agar agar is made originally using water, so I wetted the agar, it softened it up and I was able to peel if off with out any more major problems. Phew!
The dried agar agar is shiny on the surface, you have to look really closely to see it.
I believe this has happened, not because of the mix or thickness I applied it. But because I put it in the fume cupboard, with extraction that sucked out all of the water from the agar, therefore drying it out! Even though the agar dried out so quickly it did remove some of the black mould that I was planning to remove originally, so it was a success!
I have also colour matched the areas where the agar removed the original surface
Colour matching and re-touching with watercolours
Grace has added texture to her fills using Modostuc, with a scalpel and a paint brush.
Teodora helped Grace with this, using a torch as raking light to show the texture of the original surface, a very clever simple trick!
Teodora and Grace
And in other museum news, Grace went and got the coffee from the coffee ladies trolley…
COFFEE
…this a big deal because we can not speak Portuguese properly, so welcoming people when they buzz the door is quite tricky and the Brazilians love their coffee!
Tonight the hostel is busy, as always on a Friday, and currently outside our room there are two French men listening to the most random mix of music ever, from Led Zeppelin to Kanye West and also to make the French more stereotyped they are drinking red wine!
We have also made traditional Brazilian white beans tonight, they look good. I will make them for all my family and friends when I get home, I promise!
I’m only going to do a little review of our work as Issy is writing up today’s blog at the same time and not too much has changed!
We started on a massive rubber and bronze sculpture by””Tenor, Sentimental, Album, Gala e Fatal” Frida Baranek. We have to clean it before it goes on display in Rio!
“Tenor, Sentimental, Album, Gala e Fatal” by Frida Baranek
Issy vacuuming the sculpture with a Luz Gonzaga smileMe air compressing the sculpture to shift the dust out.
I carried out the larger fills on my painting using Modostuc. I will write more about the fills on Monday but leave you with a little picture of my painting at the end of the day!
My painting at the end of the day. My fills are nearly finished but need more texture adding. I also need to remove the excess filling material from the painting.
Issy stuck her hand on using Araldite. She also applied a new layer of Agar to try and remove the remaining stains of the mould. I have no pictures of these incidents so you will have to wait until her post in about five minutes! I do however have photos of her with her first Brazilian Sim card!
Issy and Ana with Issy’s first Brazilian phone call!
After work Priscila and Ana very kindly treated us to a night out at Veloso’s! A very popular bar famous for its Coxinhas (like fried chicken croquettes) and Capirinhas (Brazilian fruity cocktails that are usually made with the Brazilian spirit, Cachaca). Issy loved the Coxinhas and shared two plates with Ana and Priscila! Ana order me some Mandioca Fritas instead, which are chips made from a Brazilian root vegetable! They were lovely and dead filling!
We had some crazy cocktail combinations! Starfruit and Basil, Tangerine and Pimento, Caju, Three Citruses, Pomegranate and Lime, Jabuticaba and Mixed Berries…. Mmmm! England needs to up its cocktail game!
We had a nice Pinacoteca gossip! Everybody at work has been so lovely and welcoming! Priscila and Ana took us out for drinks, Teodora has invited us to the beach, Valeria has invited us to stay at her house, Manuel has invited us out for dinner and Diego is taking us dancing on Saturday! The none conservation staff have all started talking to us more! Its great meeting people here!
