Porto
My host Graciela Machado was waiting for me when I came out of baggage claim at the Porto airport. We went outside to the curb where her husband, Paolo, and two children were waiting in their minivan. We drove the quick ride to their home in the center of town and they showed me to my room above Graciela’s studio, on the top floor of a small building in their backyard.
Paulo prepared supper which included a blended vegetable soup, that I would find was served with lunch and dinner each day. In addition, we enjoyed some Portuguese bread and cheese. The bread was coarse from cornmeal, a little dark but soft and slightly sweetened with honey. The cheese was soft, made of sheep’s milk, and contained inside a barrel shaped rind, wrapped in fabric. Graciela told me that Portugal doesn’t export the cheese because only a small amount is made by hand and the country eats it all.
In the morning Graciela and I walked to the Fine Arts Faculty where the following day my course would commence. We stopped for breakfast at a nearby bakery. She ordered for each of us buttered toast and a meio leite, which means “half milk” and is a short and strong latte.
In the FBA etching studio I was introduced to Celia, the young technician. She and I toured the facilities and made a list of materials that we would need for the course. With our list in hand we walked to nearby shops to gather supplies. After visiting three little hardware stores we had most of what we needed. In the afternoon we cleaned and arranged stations. The school was in its finals week and the studio was in pretty poor shape and their one etching press made a good impression but the wheel that turns the metal cylinders to advance the press was completely detached and the gears were stripped.
On the first day of the course I met the 9 people enrolled. The group was a mix of young university students and mature artists. I was advised to allow for regular coffee breaks or risk loosing the students’ attention. At 11 and 3 each day I would announce a break and we go down to the small café in the campus courtyard to sit in the shade and enjoy pingos (espresso with a dash of milk) and watch another group of students work outdoors on a solar photo project.
After work Celia took me to the Casa da Mùsica to see a performance by Syrian pop star, Omar Souleyman. Inside the Casa we danced to his cheesy beats and cryptic deadpan vocals.
The next day after work two of my students, Teresa and Renata, who are members of Matriz, a printmaking collective, took me to their small studio downtown. They poured me a glass of Porto, showed me the shop and shared exhibition catalogs. After our visit another member, Céu, walked with me back toward the school and where I was staying. As we walked slowly up the steep streets Céu pointed out some of her favorite things. She stopped often to comment on the beauty of her city. We went inside the 19th century São Bento train station to see the tiled interior and peeked in the art nouveau Majestic Café where she explained the style to be “new art.”
When we parted I continued my tour of the city, wandering through neighborhoods and photographing varied tiled facades. Porto is similar to San Francisco in many ways in climate and orientation to water. The city was built along the Douro River and extends to the Atlantic Ocean coast. The long sunset and refracted seaside light recalls California. With many hills, row homes rise upon ridges, responding to topography. A gray patina of time covers all structures, dimming the brilliance of the tile work that decorates almost every building. Boarded-up buildings neighbor restored ones creating a patchwork of worn in and worn out beauty.
On my walk I found a natural foods store near where I was staying. I stepped in to get some lotion, which I was running low on. Unable to read the label, I grabbed a bottle with an interesting graphic and found out later it was shampoo. I went back the next day to supper and get lotion but mistakenly bought shower cream. When I returned for the third time, I confirming through gesture that what I was buying was actually lotion. For supper two days in a row I enjoyed a comforting Hari Krishna style vegetarian buffet in the cafeteria in the back of the shop.
On the third and final day of the workshop, we scheduled a late start, which enabled me to do some tourism. I spent the morning getting lost looking for galleries on Rua Miguel Bombarda, which I never found. I did make it to Torre dos Clerigos to see the view from the top of the bell tower and made a quick visit to the beautiful art nouveau bookstore, Lello, which was sadly completely over run by tourists.
Saturday was a full day of exploration. I got up early and walked to the flea market. After selecting a few small bric-a-brac items, I continued my tour on a road along the high ridge above the river. I found the public elevator that took me down to the waterside, where I caught an old streetcar that was heading in the direction of the beach.
Shortly after the tram passed the breakwater wall, indicating the end of the Douro and the beginning of the Atlantic, we stopped at the end of the line. I walked along the water and found a fancy restaurant on the beach to sit and have a small lunch snack. I spent two hours gazing at the water crash on the nearby rocks while savoring a cod salad appetizer with a glass of vinho verde, followed by fresh strawberries and vinho porto.
I left the restaurant badly sunburned and headed to see the Marlene Dumas exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art on the beautiful grounds of the Serralves Foundation. Months before I’d wanted to see Dumas’ new paintings when they were up at David Zwirner Gallery but had to miss the show because of a hectic school schedule.
I left the museum to meet up with Graciela and Celia at a small exhibition by student architects who had utilized printmaking techniques to investigate ways of finishing their work with decorative effects.
Celia and I left the show and walked back uptown. We stopped by her flat and she showed me some of her recent prints and drawings. I left her place to have a final dinner with Graciela and her family. We took advantage of the unusually warm night and dined in the yard.
On Sunday morning before catching my train I took a walk down to the river and crossed the bridge to check out the Porto wine caves. Across the water from Porto I found a great view of the old city, so I took some pictures and refused some fliers for boat tours, then returned to Graciela’s for my stuff and headed to the train station to board a train to Lisbon.
