" I remember the silence and the wind. And when the wind stopped I heard the humming of bees. Not the sound of bees swarming around you, but bees very far away. Lots of bees, way too many".
Brecht Koelman
Books:
Four Quartets - TS Eliot
La Pasanteur et la Grâce - Simon Weil
Vae Victis - Nescio
Les Dimanches de Jean Dézert - Jean de la Ville de Mirmont
Le Otto Montagne - Paolo Cognetti
"When applying to Joya: AiR I intended be close to nature, in isolation and completely away from chaotic London, where I have found myself feeling claustrophobic and making work that responded to ways of breathing in a squared format.
By spending a week away from the references and connotations that I am familiar with, I was able to immerse myself in the surrounding landscape and safely experiment, while being introspection, contemplation and self-reflection with one own artistic practice.
I walked around Joya: AiR site, sang to the mountains, collected found objects, taking analogue photographs and drawing its shapes. I have transferred my impressions and recollections of the landscape by hand sewing pieces of fabric with threads with the colours of the surroundings.
The relocation of my practice to a natural environment opened up to new lines of questioning and the possibility of new elements into the work and wider perspective on the ways of production.
This residency has facilitated the involvement, engagement and exchange not only with the hosts Simon and Donna, but also with fellow residents that challenged and added a new perspective into my practice and career. Consequently, this introduced new perspectives that empower the exploration of other possibilities and give me a better understanding of the diverse ways my work is perceived".
Clara Dias
Books:
• Florbela espanca – Antologia Poetica
• Fernando Pessoa – the book of disquiet
• Paulo Coelho – the alchemist
• Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos – My sweet orange tree
• Sophia de Mello Breyner – Shores, Horizons, Voyages – Selected poems
"Dissolving into presence, the immediate landscape holds me in its earth bowl. Ambling through the scent of rosemary, almond blossom and pine, a patch of ground calls. Lying on the earth, looking up at the sky. The clouds pulse in and out of being.
Surrender, let silence have you".
"I normally introduce my practice as a lens for seeing from a technological perspective. The waves and cycles of trends, obsolescence and failures. So, it may seem peculiar that I want to be a resident at JOYA: AiR an off-grid, rural retreat. The JOYA: residency has come at a time in my research where I’m questioning the natural earthy materiality of media technology. The ore origins. The sites of excavation, of transmission and of processing vast amounts of data. Technology is not divorced from the material of the earth even though it may be extracted from it. Yet these natural ephemera are difficult for 3D capturing technologies to deal with. My practice and Ph.D. research marks a critical examination of reality capture (3D photogrammetry), asking how 3D content created from 2D images represents something other than 3D reality and can be problematic when dealing with non-visual phenomena and natural ephemera. Therefore, I have been ‘capturing’ parts of the landscape, weather and sites of excavation through photographs and drone footage. These ‘difficult’ subjects/objects create error, glitch and holes in the 3D mesh. JOYA has been a great site for exploration where you feel exposed to the power of nature; a power that still has control over its connection with technology.
Books:
Failure – Lisa Le Feuvre
ERROR: Glitch, Noise and Jam in New Media Cultures – Mark Nunes
The Internet Does Not Exist – e-fux journal
The Elephant in the Room – Jon Ronson
"My art is a both response to and a product of the contemporary culture of image circulation. Currently studying my MA in Fine Art I have been developing a process of mark-making using a browser-based CPPN and image editing software. I then iterate the saved files in vinyl decal to create large wall installations, built up of sweeping computational strokes and gestures. Creating the cut-outs I always consider the platform for the documentation, the work exists on the internet and in physical space but both are equal assertions of the art. The work is relayed back and forth across on and offline spaces, becoming imbued with the residue of each new location which then informs and progresses the on-going project.
Staying at Joya allowed my project to explore new avenues of investigation - I wanted to integrate the drama of the landscape into my work, to create an installation that responded to the unique environment. Being here has been invaluable to my practice and has provided me with time and space to focus on creating with a truly inspiration backdrop. My days have been spent trekking up hillsides and down dry riverbeds in the hot sun, and the evenings have been spent sharing wine and fantastic conversation. Whilst being here I have met amazing fellow artists from across the world, of which I have made some brilliant friendships. I am so grateful to Simon and Donna for providing a platform for art and for welcoming me into their beautiful home. It’s been an astonishing experience".
"I have spent one week on a JOYA Residency. It has been a time of quiet exploratory work, with the stark beautiful landscape surrounding the house a calming stilling presence.
My week here has been a time of reflection and a time to return to drawing and painting, leaving aside my work of the previous months as I drew inspiration from the landscape and the wonderful contrast of vibrant fabrics and objects from India within the house. I have produced a series of drawings of masks and self-portraits exploring masking which I plan to exhibit next month.
The day at JOYA is calm and unhurried; your time is entirely your own to work, walk, sleep, eat and feel incredibly cared for in an atmosphere that is supportive and studious. Donna and Simon are the nicest hosts, as are their children. Even the pets are adorable! Donna and Simon are also amazing cooks – communal dinners were a perfect end to each day, while artists’ talks in the evenings were interesting and inspiring and a great insight into fellow residents’ work.
I very much hope to return to JOYA one day"!
Amanthi Harris
Favourite Reading:
At The Bay – Katherine Mansfield
Running in the Family – Michael Ondaatje
and our faces, my heart, brief as photos - John Berger
Break of Day – Colette
Storytelling and the Art of the Imagination – Nancy Mellon
"I sit and write this in the studio, with its picture window looking out onto a perfect landscape, a low white wall, a row of olive trees, and the terraces of almond trees sloping away up the hill, where they merge with the Aleppo pines on the mountainside.
This evening it has rained, a soft, nourishing rain, much needed, and the land has changed colour, from white to warm brown. I hear it is snowing in Cornwall. I am glad I am away in a desert land.
I walked this morning out into the campo, up past the empty farmhouse, on the white road. The sun was shining and it was warm – I wore a t shirt on the last day of February. The white path took my breath away, literally. I panted and puffed up the hill. Simon told me we are at the same elevation as Snowdon, so it makes sense. A good excuse to sit and rest, and draw the rose-coloured rocks and scrubby plants at the side of the track.
I am not a painter of big vistas, but up there in the pale, clean air I couldn’t help but be drawn to the far views of mountains in every direction. I came to a crossroads, and sat down. I like the places where roads meet – there is a topographical openness, and a sense of possibility. The wind was getting up and blew my hat off, a black oval scuttling across the bright earth while I looked on in dismay. Luckily it was trapped by a helpful thistle and I was able to retrieve it.
I keep looking and looking at the small plants, the tiny spiny structures that grip the dusty soil for dear life. They are so perfect, and so delicate yet incredibly robust. I love their muted colours - pinky brown, pale olive, silver grey. And they are spiky and thorny so I have to be careful where I sit down. Yesterday I got a hand full of thorns.
The walk is circular and from different points along it I can look down and see Cortijada Los Gázquez in the distance, which is a work of art in itself. Low and long and white, with orange-pink tiles and the lone windmill whirring away, it looks like it has grown from the ground. It is a remarkable place, full of warmth, friendship and creativity. I am a painter but came here with no fixed idea of what I would do, beyond make a small film on my iPhone. I thought this would be a film about plants and rocks, but it has become a film about the spirit of the place, and its embodiment in the mysterious dog, Ptolemy. I have also been painting every day in the studio, writing, and thinking, and most of all, looking. I am here for only one week – not quite enough time, but up here in the hills time is irrelevant. What is important is to be open to all the sensations, impressions, the people, the visual beauty, and the small things – the desert plants, the rocks and the white soil".
http://www.tregonygallery.co.uk/artistdanafinch.html
5 Books
1 Journey to Ixtlan, Carlos Castaneda
2 Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy
3 The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver
4 As I walked out one midsummer morning, Laurie Lee
5 The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
"This was my second residency at Joya: AiR. A year earlier, I had come and found that this wonderful space presented for me a new way of working, a fluidity with new and available materials that provided spontaneous ideas and experimentation.
The unlimited access to the clay that forms the ground as far as the eye can see was the material I knew I wanted to work with during my residency.
The Beckmann's were incredibly generous, providing me with space in their terraced garden to create a sculptural space meant to be physically interacted with. Three, separate areas to sit or lay on came to life through trial and error, and gave me an opportunity to become more acquainted with the textures and weights of the land.
It was a truly transformative learning experience to work in this way, and this was only a fraction of what I bring home with me after this residency.
This is a place of great beauty on every level, and it’s the people I shared with that brought the experience to life. The dinners with Simon, Donna, and the other residents, time spent in the different spaces of their home exchanging ideas and evolving my own, and the space to connect with myself and others outside of the context of my day to day life and my sense of my practice were nothing short of precious.
This is a place I will return to for as long as the Beckmann's will have me".
Melanie Moczarski
'I have built up a body of poems which largely relate to landscape and knew that I needed a new landscape and a new point of cultural reference to anchor some of the themes. I went to the Joya residency hoping to find this. I did find this, and much, much more. The landscape itself, vast and deserted, moved me profoundly. The spaces in the house, the professionalism and warmth of our hosts, the fruitful and fun interactions with the other residents and the interns, the opportunity to be social or not, the motivation of seeing others absorbed in their work, it all fitted. My work started to become sparser and more directed. I am grateful to have had time in this place with these people.'
Maxine Backus
‘Bleak House‘: Charles Dickens
‘We have Always Lived in the Castle‘: Shirley Jackson
`Poem for the Day: One, ed. Wendy Cope; Two, ed. Andrew Motion
‘The Good Companions’: J B Priestley
‘Noon Wine’: Katherine Anne Porter, in Collected Stories
"My work is inspired by nature’s patterns and formations, and by the way time transforms them. I’m also fascinated with native handicrafts and the use of natural elements to create tools and artefacts. Joya: AiR has been the perfect place to immerse in an inspiring environment.
Coming to the residency has been an incredible adventure, both artistically and humanly. Donna and Simon have created such a special place for their residents, their beautiful and respectful sense for their environment has been a true gift to experience.
Meeting them and the other artists in residency has opened my eyes on the importance of surrounding oneself with people that inspire you, care and share a similar mindset. Being surrounded with the landscapes natural beauty, and having the possibility to work outside with the elements has been liberating and inspiring.
I am thankful to Simon and Donna for their generosity and for having created this wonderful residency, it has been one of the most unique and joyful experiences of my life".
Athena Poilane
"Joya: AiR has given me more than I ever expected.
Being my first artist residency I had no idea what to expect and what would evolve within my art practice and myself. It has been a life changer.
I have endured a journey that has allowed me to explore deep parts of myself I never knew existed. I began my two weeks with a state of urgency to create sculpture as I find it hard to find the time and space within myself to create back in the UK. I quickly realised this trip was going to be much bigger than that. I found myself immersed within a beautiful arrangement, surrounded by creative and interesting people, within a mesmerising setting being the beautiful home to Simon, Donna and their two children.
My time here has reminded me what my art practice is all about and how important it is for my hands to take lead when creating my work. I found myself making clay from the ploughed fields and collecting material from the area – allowing myself to let go, play and trust my instinct with no plan what so ever. I think more importantly I have faced areas of myself head on and I am leaving with a great deal of confidence and excitement for the future.
The people that I spent my two weeks with have filled me with hope and I am elated that I have found some life-long friends. The variety of people and the variety of artistic discipline brought conversation to light, which was so important to my time here.
I can’t thank Simon and Donna enough for allowing me to have this opportunity and I hope to be back in the future".
Jasmine Bradbury
"Over the last few years I have been exploring finger-style instrumental music (guitar, banjo, slide), with special attendance to improvisational techniques and hidden polyrhythms. I have been greatly influenced by the composer Terry Riley, along with musicians Sandy Bull, Leo Kottke, John Fahey and in particular Henry Flynt.
Joya: AiR was a transformative experience! I arrived with a vague notion of exploring minimalist longer-form instrumental works for guitar, and am leaving with a collection of well defined meditative guitar patterns and forms inspired by the natural beauty and creative environment in place at Los Gázquez. Time, distance, and perspective were all recalibrated during my stay. I am feeling wistful as I head back to my life in NYC".
David Kammerer
Jaunt
Observing
Yourself
Ambling
Astronomy
insights
Reading and Reflecting
"Currently studying in third year BA Fine Art Mixed Media at the University of Westminster, practice is at present centred around robotics and making machines out of found objects and incorporating casting through exploring the fragility of materials such as plaster and porcelain. These explorations of materials links to a sense of the fallible and humorous aspects within human failures. Whilst at Joya: AiR I have been casting components of the landscape through making moulds and then creating plaster casts from them, which are painted using fine particles of rock to make pigments from the landscape.
Joya: AiR can be found tucked away in the Parque Natural Sierra de María-Los Vélez, having the opportunity to come here has allowed me to step away from hectic London, as a means of allowing time to reflect on how my practice has been developing over the time I have been at University and has encouraged the use of materials that I wouldn’t necessarily use, as a means of detaching from comfort zones and moving away from preconceived ideas. Which in turn has allowed thoughts to form as to what to exhibit for degree show in May 2018.
Joya: AiR has allowed the opportunity to be independent in the day and then in the evening we all meet together for dinner, sharing laughs, life and creative insights. Joya: AiR has been my first residency and it has been really insightful with regards to discussing with creative minds from cross cultures and disciplines, ranging from poets to musicians and artists".
Helen Farley
Books:
Hyperdrawing Beyond the Lines of Contemporary Art
The Nakano Thrift Shop - Hiromi Kawakami
An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth - Chris Hadfield
Erwin Wurm - Erwin Wurm
John Wood and Paul Harrison with essays by Charles Esche and David Batchelor
Dana Venezia is a mixed media artist working within artist moving image and installation. She recently graduated from the Royal College of Arts and is based in London. She previously lived in Barcelona for 4 years studying and working...
She says of her residency at Joya: AiR...
"I came to Joya: AiR with three objectives in mind. One was to simply to (re)learn to contemplate and be mindful. I seem to have slipped into a mode of living which involved constant ‘doing’. Second was to just simply respond as a photographer to this unique landscape. No concepts, no preconceived ideas - just ‘to be’ in the landscape and see what happens. Thirdly to research, so as to be able to articulate what I think my work is trying to achieve, how I am trying to achieve it and what this means in terms of how it is outputted. I had layers and layers of rambling thought collected over time swishing around in my head and not being particularly helpful. Joya: AiR seemed a wonderfully tranquil place to try and sort it all out!
So, what of the outcome. Well I’ve had wonderful and inspiring time just going with the flow, taking it as it comes. I’ve made some photographs which I am happy with and which I believe can be related to the nature of the environment and my ‘feelings’ towards it. More importantly the process of making those images has iterated productively with the thinking side of my visit. The clarity of the air has crept into my thinking and I feel I understand what I am trying to do better than at any point in recent years – and I think it leads to some ideas for outputting my work which I am finding exciting and uplifting. Too little space here for the details so I will just repeat some thoughts which have been more than helpful from Richard Povall of art.earth and Schumacher College in a talk/essay on ‘what is ecological art?’
‘An ecological arts practice is about a way of being in the world, open to all its wonder and complexities, feeling rather than seeing, expanding rather than reducing……a truly a praxic opening-out, a re-embracing of wonder, of enchantment, of the power of the mind and the soul.
A lithographic representation (Untitled 1966) of the ocean by Vija Celmens - a square of agitated water entirely without context, drawn in fine, extraordinary detail - is not a backward step towards representationalism or ultra-realism, but a spiritual meditation, a re-telling of a place to which we seem inexorably drawn'.
http://www.artcornwall.org/features/Richard_Povall/Richard_Povall_Ecological_Art.htm
Walter Lewis
https://feedingbodyandsoul.com/
he Mersey Sound – Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten
Falling Awake – Alice Oswald
The Hundred Thousand Places - Thomas A Clarke
Ametsuchi – Rinko Kawauchi
The Living Mountain – Nan Shepherd
"My experience at Joya: AiR was rather incredible. I had come to this residency after several years of major life disruptions: the end of a 26-year marriage, moving from the Western US to Scotland for a new professorship at a university in Dundee. This was literally the first time I truly stopped moving in about three years time. I came to Joya to work in a new, yet old direction in my work. I was born colourblind, a red green deficiency. Last year I bought two pairs of Enchroma color blind correcting glasses, prescription, one set for indoor, one for outdoor.
My goal at the residency was to paint. I’m a media artist and activist by trade, working in electronic disobedience if you will. In my undergraduate years in the early 80’s I was studying to be an illustrator. Painting was always a challenge for me as I could not properly work with colour, kind of like being a tone deaf musician if you think about it.
At Joya: AiR I found the time and place to dive back into painting – last time I tried such was 20+ years ago. It was an amazing experience – I have a new confidence in what I can see – working with colour now feels normal. Hard to describe but not having to ask for help with colour in this work allowed my hand to flow freely – very happy with the results. The environment at Joya: AiR was so conducive to this kind of focused, quiet work. I took daily walks in the desert, enjoying the colours, the space, the QUIET. Yes, it is so QUIET there…simply an amazing experience and allowed me to reengage with my creative practice after several years of personal life disruptions. I feel now renewed and ready to move forward on any number of creative fronts.
I hope I return to Joya: AiR someday and highly recommend the experience to anyone looking for a place of solitude and remove".
Joseph De Lappe
Note* Joya: AiR is intending to expand the posts relating to resident artists/writers in the future. It is not obligatory (for those considering applying) but a means to expand the conversation with residents who have experienced Joya: AiR. We ask, in addition to your post entry text, for 5 books and 10 pieces of music (which can be found on the Joya: AiR Spotify account).
The Reenchantment of Art - Suzi Gablik
Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space - Brian O'Doherty
Relational Aesthetics - Nicolas Bourriaud
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television - Jerry Mander
Center for Artistic Activism (for additional reading resources) https://artisticactivism.org/reading-list/
Spotify joya_air
A Performance To Camera-as text-as songs-as movement
"Pressure sensors in the feet communicate instantly with the brain, internal organs and other body parts, in extreme danger the feet must be prepared to participate in fleeing, they do this by processing environmental information gathered through the soles, helping the brain to determine how much oxygen to release, over time this communication speeds up and allows us to adapt to the rhythm of running.
Can traces of history and past events be found in our nervous system and in our muscles, can we discover these through movement?
This landscape demands that I give way to instinct and surrender to its pulse.
According to Lamarck genetic assimilation allows an animals response to environmental stress to become a fixed part of its developmental repertoire so that characteristics formed in a given environment can be inherited and retained, even outside of the conditions of that environment, Lamarck calls this phenotypic plasticity.
Knowing this landscapes requires knowing my body, a coordination of eyes and feet, even whilst watching the sky and the land, whilst calling out, sounding the mountain, sounding the well. I walk through clumps of silence, startling. I strategise over grains and potential scores, of dividing space, documenting human interventions, measuring the distance between trees and equalising space with a grid, offering a segment to the other artists...does this landscape choreograph me?
A fugue is a contra-punctual composition in which a short melody or phrase is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving parts
Or it is a loss of awareness of ones identity, often coupled with a flight from ones usual environment
There are bee's drowning at the old well. There is a trough with a plastic tube that runs into a bath, its a hot day but there is ice floating in the tub, it fixes the bees in a curving pattern that oscillates to the hum of those flocking to the water that pours from the arched mound of mud and bricks, through the tube, flooding the trough, into the tub., they circle with a low drone.
I keep walking, consuming every old stump, the shape of the dry wood, grains, almond shells, mounds of soil sitting in pyramids next to the shallow ditches, formed in their creation, one has a thick wadge of coarse bush protruding
I pick up the sole of the heel of a shoe, a heavy sole, turned on in its side, you could say it was the shape of the mounds of the hills in the middle distance and the lumpy protruding old well, all formed with an arching top and a flat base.
Dung in the dining room, dung on the floor, the floor made of dung, dung surrounding the decrepit remains of a manger, climbing onto hardened dung, hearing the beetles tunnelling through, corroding, consuming, digging down, removing 8 tons of dung, collecting it and drying it up then grinding it into a fine dust, cracking an egg through your hands to form a fine paint.
The weather report states that there is a 100% probability of rain, a deluge, it will fill up the fields and run down the barrancos and into the ramblers and off to the sea".
Hazel Dowling
"I arrived at Joya: AiR with only a small pink sketchbook, oil pastels, and acrylic paint. I had no clue what I was going to make, but I was excited. Each day I would glance through the studio window and observe the beautiful Spanish landscape. I mixed a lot of paint, and created various color palettes. I often wrote down my thoughts and drew objects that caught my attention as I hiked up or down the hill. It was a bittersweet feeling to have to leave this place - a place where I met wonderful artists, had conversations about life and art, shared laughs, and learned about new cultures. I am very grateful to Simon and Donna for giving me the time and space to nurture my artistic practice, stay in their home, and eat their delicious meals. I left feeling inspired and ready to make new work in my studio in San Francisco. I will always remember this place as the hidden gem in Vélez-Blanco".
Massiel Mafes
https://www.massielmafes.com/
"De repente me he despertado, el silencio se podía escuchar, el tiempo no transcurría…
Al principio resultaba inquietante, pero tranquilizador.
De donde yo vengo (País Vasco) la cultura del ruido está inmersa en la sociedad vasca, cuanto más “jaleo” mejor.
Aquí he podido vislumbrar que la nada existe.
Ahora sé, que podré aislarme en cualquier entorno, gracias a mi corta estancia en la Cortijada de los Gázquez.
Sólo tendré que oler el viento de la sierra, acompañar con la mirada el vaivén de las ramas y mirar al cielo para perseguir a las nubes en su rápida marcha.
He comprobado que la soledad, es uno de los más preciados regalos".
Brenan Duarte 2017
"Suddenly I woke up, the silence could be heard, time did not pass ...
At first it was disturbing, but reassuring.
Where I come from (Basque Country) the culture of noise is immersed in Basque society, the more "fuss" the better.
Here I have glimpsed that nothing exists.
Now I know, that I can isolate myself in any environment, thanks to my short stay in the Cortijada de los Gázquez.
I will only have to smell the wind of the mountains, accompany the gaze of the branches and look to the sky to chase the clouds in their rapid march.
I have found that isolation is one of the most precious gifts".
Brenan Duarte
