A play in three acts: An Artist, a Coworking, and Three Weeks in Barcelona

Notes on belonging, bad flights, and the best 15-minute naps

Prologue

That morning I woke up feeling Kali’s energy flowing through me. Creator and destroyer of worlds. I finally had an idea that would solve the Carnival of Fate map. It came up while talking with caro and rubber-ducking my blockers out loud. This is what I had been missing in Málaga: tribe members.

Act I: The Decision

It all began on a Tuesday morning with an Instagram post: coworking for artists in Barcelona, summer edition. Intriguing. My gut whispered: yes. By the following Thursday I had secured my spot for the first two weeks of August, found a place to stay in La Barceloneta, and had my flight tickets. Like a mini domino effect, it all just flowed.

The actual trip there was more of a bowling experience. I was supposed to get to Barcelona at noon and ended up landing at 4am the following day. Yep, more than a 12-hour delay. It did get me a compensation that I reinvested in an extra week. A weird win-win.

Act II: The Cast

Caroline, my roomie

When I speak to her I say Caro, but when I think of her I say Carito. Weird brain. She is a gothic and dreadlock artist, a bookworm, a fast walker, and the neighbor of pigeons. My stay in Barcelona wouldn’t have been the same without her. We clicked and shared wonderful conversations. Witnessed and eclipse. Prepared summer rolls. Shared a space like we’ve known each other for years. She is the kind of friend with whom I can sit quietly without feeling awkward but still be able to be my weird self. Better together.

Please check out her exquisite skills and skulls @talisman.bcn

Carito and I sharing banana bread and books at La Central. And the night we made spring tacos rolls

Artystico Studio and Coline, its heart

The space is just what visual artists have in mind. The first thing you see from outside is the shop window, postcards, prints, and paintings in different formats and styles. Coline the owner, organizes the chaos into a harmonious blend. A door leads you into the artist’s domain. A couple of sofas and soft lighting are there to read, rest, or nap. I may be guilty of the latter, but short ones! 15-minute power naps only. From there onwards it’s all big desks, shelves, and easels. Each station has space to store materials, so no carrying things across town. Some stations are impeccably organized with boxes and labels like: small fabric pieces and even smaller fabric pieces. A small kitchen and a shelf with your name on it to make lunch easy, no need to rummage like a racoon in my bag.

Seamstress, plant whisperer, and keeper of the artist’s space, Coline makes Artistyco not only practical but warm and welcoming. I was there while she was designing a wedding dress. It was thrilling to watch pieces of fabric scattered around and slowly come together into a dress. Like a magic trick.

I cannot recommend enough visiting the space, working there, and meeting the woman behind it. Find the studio @artistycostudio and Coline @ateliercolinef

Artistyco Studio. You can see some of my facade work in the window!

Barcelona

Oh Barcelona. You either love it or hate it, or have a complicated relationship with it. Indifference is not an option. Over the years I had visited for a couple of days at a time. My memory of it was chaos and a funky smell. The funky smell is still there, and yes, some areas are crowded and overwhelming, and yes, some are disappointingly generic. Thank you Starbucks, Zara, Adidas, and the rest. But I also stumbled across a leather shop where you can get custom-made sandals. And I sat in bookshops for hours, reading. Not a library, a bookshop, where Carito and I read our own books side by side.

The many faces of Barcelona

The Art

I arrived in Barcelona with a small yellow suitcase, 80% art supplies, 20% clothes, and a plan. I’ve been working on facade portraits for while now, and I wanted to try something new: bigger formats, bolder colours, a different style altogether. The subject: door knockers. I twist on the facade theme that had been running in the background for a while.

I did some sketches. Bought more art supplies. Made more studies. I confess I am genuinely happy with them. And then The Carnival of Fate map happened. This is a commission for an upcoming fantasy novel by L.M Sanguinette, and I had been struggling with the composition. Caro and a good conversation sorted it out, and suddenly that became the priority. This is the life of an artist: you have a plan and end up somewhere else.

What I did finish were the the lino prints for the Delivery #1 of the Ink Club. The sky, our neighbours, and Barcelona gave me the subjects. I just needed to pay attention to capture them. Their story deserves its own post.

The door knockers are waiting for me. They’ll have their moment.

What you see on the table is everything I took to Barcelona. The little wagon is from the map. You'll recognize it for the bold colours

Act III: The Community

When I decided to go to Barcelona, one of my goals was to connect with other artists. In corporate lingo, “expand my network.” What I wasn’t expecting was to reconnect with a feeling I’d had back in college: the joy of sharing a creative space. Being there made my soul tickle. I met wonderful artists with very different backgrounds, life stories, skills, and art. Everyone was ready to encourage, give feedback when asked, or simply smile on they way out. Unless the international sign of not disturb was on: headphones.

What truly makes a coworking, or a company, special is its community. It’s what can tip the scale when deciding to stay or leave. I know it because for fifteen years I served communities of developers, software engineers, and all the flavours of SW professionals. And for four of those years my role was Community Manager. Little mystery there. I managed international programs for a community of developers, facilitated learning spaces, and survived my first of several live demos. I visited communities within communities, inside communities. I was part of that world, but differently. I couldn’t be a member. I wasn’t like them. In Barcelona I experienced again what it felt like to belong to a community while also knowing I could serve it. Here I already spoke the language and the rites of passage.

I was so in the moment I didn’t take any photos of the beautiful people at Artistyco. But here’s a photo of ink pads organized by colours

Epilogue

I learned my lesson and took the train home. The yellow suitcase carried even more art supplies than clothes. Ticked invisibly inside was also my member card for the Artistyco community, a new friendship, and more books than I want to admit. I’m already looking forward to the next trip, the next tribe, the next creative room to walk into.