‘I am looking out of the window of my room at Los Gázquez (home of Joya: AiR) at an olive tree in the courtyard, which has recently started to bloom. It is gently blowing in the cool afternoon wind. I recall a conversation I had with Simon earlier today, I too have an olive tree at home that flowers and also yields small fruit scant enough to make a teaspoon of olive oil. I am reminded that both trees are of the same species but belong to profoundly different climates. This relationship is something I felt a great kinship to during my time at JOYA. To inhabit such a severe environment through an art practice is in stark contrast to the bucolic soft landscapes of the West Midlands. The overwhelming beauty and scale of the environment that surrounds you here sets a challenge for your creativity, the gestures I came to perform in the barrancos (ravine), down the many paths and fire breaks in the trees, were reflections on an environment and an ecological situation that revealed itself very slowly to me over the natural course of the days.

Here in the Sierra María you follow the sun rather than the clock, the days seem to stretch and fill at an indeterminate rate as a natural existence.

I arrived expecting arid desert, wandering over white washed limestone plains, and was greeted by brilliant red poppies and rich vegetation. A three-year drought broken a few months prior to my arrival left vast fields of poppies and other ephemeral flowers running wild along the contours of the topography. After many conversations with all of the Beckmanns I came to understanding the work I was making, through arriving with virtually no materials the ephemera of the environment and the environment itself proved the richest and fertile material I could want. It was no longer about making something in the environment but to pass through it with the lightest of touches. I found myself during the nights unable to sleep through the bizarre dreams that I was having consistently, this place itself feels like a waking dream, I am returning to England with many pieces of work, a box of pine needles and a newly founded research to follow. I can only hope to return very soon to realise that this waking dream was no mirage’.

Fred Hubble     http://www.fredhubble.com/

‘Una mirada al intimidante paisaje infinito. El espacio abierto de las montañas da para pensar sobre el poder de la naturaleza. Sin embargo al comenzar a caminar poco a poco somos conscientes de las posibilidades del cuerpo humano. Paso a paso, lo imposible se hace evidente, empezamos a explorar la natuaturaleza del paisaje tanto lo global como lo microscópico. Mirando el paisaje de la Sierra de Maria Vélez observamos un sinfín de posibilidades. La participación en el paisaje nos provoca a hacernos preguntas y observaciones, tan importante en la práctica del pintor’.

Paweł Szeibel  https://pawelszeibel.jimdo.com/

“I generally prefer not to make too many plans before doing residencies and let ideas develop out of the experiences I have on them instead. In the course of several walking and cycling trips in the area around Los Gázquez I was struck by the conjunction of forest, crags and the geometric forms created by the agricultural practices in the area. Particularly the rows of almond and olive trees set agains the softly shaded earth of the fields. Geometric and abstract forms crop up regularly within the landscape structure of my paintings. I also enjoyed exploring the Barrancos, each twist and turn becoming a minute landscape in itself, a child’s eye view of the world.

This prompted me to try something which I have wanted to do for a long time but had never found the right environment for. I made various geometric props in the studio using some leftover building materials I found here combined with the rudimentary materials I had brought with me. I then carried these to the Barranco and set up a series of stage-like arrangements within these micro-landscapes. I am looking forward to using the photographs of these small installations as starting points for paintings and drawings back in London, but the process itself is something I would like to try again in different environments and with different materials”.

Ben Deakin   http://bendeakin.co.uk

“My work is based on my personal experience of being immersed in, exploring, travelling in the environment. The residency at Joya: AiR gave me the great opportunity to walk around the mountains looking for shapes that catch my eyes which I then transfer into drawings and paintings. I also I spent many days walking up and down the Barranco which I found to be an extremely interesting place, full of geological shapes revealed by the force of the water. Many of the drawings that I made on the residency are inspired by these experiences.”

www.annalytridou.com

‘I came to Joya: AiR with the plan to work on illustrations for a book that has been in my head for a long time. The first week I was here, I was the only artist in residence, which almost never happens, so I had a lot of time to think, draw and write. However, with the beautiful surroundings of La Hoya de Carrascal it was impossible to stay inside and work all day, so I found myself going out everyday a lot, just where my feet wanted to take me. I discovered the most amazing landscapes, sometimes even together with Fufu, the pet-goat. I stumbled upon all different kinds of forests, almond trees, stones, baranco’s, abandoned houses, mountain tops, fossils… and all those amazing colourful flowers…

As Joya: AiR is a place of exploration and discovery, my walks started influencing my work. I took a lot of photographs of the flora and these plants entered my work. I also found myself painting on the treasures I found on my walks… such as stones, branches, bones… and making compositions with them, something I never did before. I think that is the interesting part about being a resident here, is that the place itself enters your work, even if you didn’t plan it.

The tranquility of the place provides you with a great concentration. And the nature almost becomes like a personality, you meet everyday.

I’m a Brussels based visual artist, as well as an anthropologist. So as an artist, as well as an anthropologist, I’m always studing humans and animals and the way they interact and the stories that can evolve. Being at Joya: AiR provided me with a fresh start for the book I want to make’.

Katrien Matthys

‘In my work I am interested in all aspects related to nature, using various media based on text and image. The idea for the time at Joya: AiR was to explore the landscape by walking. And this was absolutely great and precious’.

Roland Schön

http://www.schoenroland.de

‘Way back in the early 70’s on day one of the sculpture course at St. Martins School of Art we were simply given ½ cwt slab of clay and told to work with it, to use no other materials other than a base board and not to exchange clay with other students. No further instructions or staff input was given for the duration of the five-day project.

Similar minimal projects followed and I found I enjoyed the constraints and sense of challenge these tasks presented. One could have no preconceived intentions,but had to rely on spontaneous improvisation, play and invention. This particular strategy seemed to suit me and I learned a confidence in exploring materials and ideas and not knowing quite where they were going. Content could be uncovered rather than prescribed. I began to recognize that the outcome and reward I was seeking was surprise, and through a process of play and interrogation I could arrive at a place I had not been before.

So many years later and with a much older head on I now find that residencies can take me back to that first day at St. Martins. Parachuted from my familiar studio into a new environment without my usual panoply of tools and tried and tested processes I enjoy the same sense of challenge and anticipation of surprise and discovery.

Residencies in remote locations such as Baer in Iceland, Café Tissardmine in Morocco and Joya: AiR in Andalusia amplify the challenge and inevitably force more surprising inventions. The isolation brings a focus and the unique landscape a new and particular inspiration. To have no plan or project seems to work best for me. I like to just arrive and respond to what is there. I have acquired a faith that something will happen’.

Alan Franklin

http://www.alanfranklin.net/index.htm

University of London Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art Group Residency at Joya: arte + ecología 2017

Johanne Wort

Nastassja Simensky

Dimitri Eristavi

Shao-jie Lin

Jingqi Su

Melmel Chen

Maeve O’Neill

Adrianna Liedtke

Soljee Ahn

Maria Paz Garcia Silva

Yuro Huang

Roxana Perez Mendez and Mario Marzan

‘Blooming from our center, we trekked forth in the Sierra Maria — Los Velez –looping from a center, immersing in the rosemary-fragrant and almond blossom spotted landscape, pivoting, scaling, descending and returning back to center. Our dialogue between body and landscape becomes a way to travel in time as well as space, to understand the landscape short of painting it. This informs how we relate to the natural world in an artistic context—our bodies are the instruments, our path the music. Making art about the landscape is one way of listening to the world, walking the landscape is another.

We began the residency at JOYA with a conversation, confronting triumphant yet troubled interpretations of nature and our practice’s relationship to it, aiming to answer tough questions about the perceptions of the environment, its ascribed meanings and shortcomings in reaching diverse perspectives. It was a direction that joined our individual practices. Most of our research while at Sierra Maria — Los Velez involved peripatetic modes of investigating places and employing logistics of outdoor navigation that respond to the landscape’s history, its people and the ecological imprints on the land. The terraces scraped into the mountain surface, the long worn paths scarred into the terrain, farms that form a wondrous cardiovascular system for water, Nature’s defiance in reclamation, all oriented us to our own geographic discoveries of the region. Witnessing the tremendous challenges, the landscape surrounding JOYA faces, our work points us to a direction of land conservation and to challenge what “Leave No Trace” ethics means to land long employed in support of human activity.

The time at JOYA allowed us to have conversations and brainstorm on a project we are calling CAMPO RESEARCH STUDIO, a collaboration that fosters the integration of nature and art through creative production and education, exploring the philosophical origins of walking, their connections to contemporary art, history, conservation and other intercultural connections. We walked nearly every day, looping routes that covered more than 120 kilometers. We started small and took paths that deviated off the trail into the dry contours of the mountains, searched for ancient caves, collected samples and photographs. Ultimately, our spirit grew with discovery as we walked into the nearby towns of Velez-Blanco and Maria, spiriting small interventions and performances, interacting with the people, the architecture and extensive trail system. Each of these explorations circled us back to JOYA, to our peers in residence and to the Beckmanns. Our paths formed a bloom with JOYA at its fixed center of origin, a spirograph upon the map. As we left, it was clear that a new loop was created. Our practice upon the landscape was initiated and our work, set forth at JOYA, will be complete upon our return’.

As our personal interest in hiking, trekking, and ecocriticism has grown, Mario Marzan and I (Roxana Perez-Mendez) are starting a new artistic collaboration that brings together our joint interest in the pedestrian, pedantic experience and the landscape, mirroring our collaboration on a new study abroad program that takes students through the Camino de Santiago while producing art all along the way. We want to embark on a small body of work based and produced while on a series of long distance hikes that enables us to generate visual, performative and written notation, correspondence, and further historic research. In this new context, the landscape will become our studio and the length of the walk our site.  

This new partnership is centred on a common feature in our work in which the ways in which human constructs of land influence our experience of place. These particular contexts exist in our individual work: I have created video performances embedded in Pepper’s Ghosts Holograms and installations that situate the viewer into an Other’d landscape while Mario has created drawings and installations that reference the graphically encoded language of cartography and tropical weather patterns. Similarly, in both of our work, we interrogate the nineteenth-century Romantic landscape tropes and traditions. For this residency, we will, through the undertaking of a pilgrimage/series of long walks, undertake this discourse within the Parque Natural Sierra María – Los Vélez in order to experiment together the ways our mind frames the land and our experience of landscape. With this work we aim to demonstrate the vitality of deep-lasting human connections to land use by interweaving autobiographic and historic narratives into our experience of this park. 

Websites:  www.roxanaperez-mendez.com 
www.mariomarzan.com 
www.walkingseminar.wordpress.com 


Artist and Associate Professor Roxana Pérez Méndez: 
Professor Roxana Pérez-Méndez is a video performance and installation artist who creates work about the slippery nature of contemporary of history and identity through the lens of her own experience as a Puerto Rican woman. Her research interests include installation, site specific and video performance, imprint of the landscape or loss of landscape on the self, post-colonial/colonial identity, Spanish colonial history, Caribbean migration and migration politics, tourism and pilgrimages. Roxana embarked on her first Camino in 2012 and has logged thousands of miles on foot since. She holds a BFA from The Ohio State University and a MFA from Tyler School of Art. 

Artist and Associate Professor Mario Manuel Marzán: 
Professor Mario Marzán is an artist who creates work about the constantly shifting, changing and evolving negotiation of liminal spaces in relation to individual and cultural identities and histories. His research interests include landscape drawing and painting, investigations of place and space as a way to discuss identity, and maps as modes of representation. Among drawing courses, Professor Marzán teaches an immersive Walking Seminar course on the intersections of art and nature during UNC Maymesters. An avid hiker and long distance backpacker, Mario carries a NOLS Wilderness Medicine Institute Wilderness First Aid certification and has walked both the Camino del Norte and the Camino Frances. He holds a BFA from Bowling Green University and a MFA from Carnegie Mellon University.

‘During the spring of 2016 I had been working on a theme titled ‘A Table in the Garden,’  which involved putting objects on a tabletop in an outside environment. This was to challenge the idea of a traditional approach to Still Life painting.

I planned to explore this theme during my residency at Joya, with the title now slightly changed to ‘A Table in the Sun’. I brought paper, charcoal and an iPad, I only had a week and knew this time would be precious in developing and reevaluating ideas and ways to move forward with my work.

When I arrived at Joya in March 2017I felt a beautiful sense of calm and honest simplicity here, found in the environment and an unspoken understanding of creativity that needs time.

I found the landscape humbling and hauntingly beautiful. Out of this white clay, a great pine forest covers the mountains and in the valleys, farmers grow almond trees which were just coming into bloom with their pink and white delicate flowers. So beautiful and mesmerising were these almond trees with their dark trunks and pretty flowers against the blue sky, it was tempting to draw them but I found myself looking down into the white of the stones that covered the earth

 I have returned to the UK full of inspiration, my ‘Table’ has been upturned and I’m already working on a series of paintings from the drawings I made at Joya: AiR, it was a wonderful residency, so precious, in so many ways..

Thank you Simon and Donna for giving me the opportunity to share a little piece of Joya: AiR as an artist in residence.

‘The first thing students from Manchester noticed is the silence. Arriving after a long journey , dropping the bags of in the rooms, they all went out, sitting on the sloping field, they just kept saying “I can’t believe how quiet it is”.

90% of this years group of students had never seen an unpolluted night sky. Alistair could not sleep, his mind was buzzing with thoughts on the size of the universe.

You learn a lot from each other on a 7 hour walk up to the fire watch station.

The students loved it. Cooking for each other, singing  and dancing was as important as scrambling up the hills and creating work.

The night we all turned into blonde Dolly Parton (15!) becoming props for Tulani’s degree show piece was unforgettable.

4 students went out to one of the abandoned houses and created wall drawings .

Lying in the sun, reading and just being with each other .

One of the best and most difficult points of Joya is, that when you are there, you are there. Students can’t escape so to speak, the nearst pub or village is too far away.

Students don’t realise until they leave, that Joya is the realisation of an artist’s vision! (better two artists) And that it is actually possible to make and live a difference. This is perhaps the most lasting experience they take away. Art is much bigger than whatever is in the white cube at any time. It’s about life, having a vision and grafting, so the vision becomes more and more real’ .

Artist and tutor Brigitte Jurack.

'This morning, I sliced a banana into a bowl, covered it with yogurt, stirred it as I sat on my couch, with a cup of coffee nearby, and sunlight pouring through the windows looking out to my garden.  All of this, together, reminded me of Joya, and my mornings there, with virtually the same food.  The sunshine there was filtered through Iberian skies and clouds of course, and that sun beat down on land much rockier and more sparse than the earth in my backyard, but it was the morning writing, the steaming coffee, the competing flavors on my tongue that brought me back to Las Gázquez . . .

Joya.  Jewel.  A rocky jewel in the mountains of Almería.  Turn one way, and the land climbs to the sky; turn the other way, and the rocky soil tumbles to a valley that, for me, was often an inspiration for meditation, a kind of of visual respite from the computer screen I stared at as I wrote, and a reminder of where I was, what a gift I was given to be here, and a jewel this place was.

I had given myself a goal to write two film scripts while at Las Gázquez—two short film scripts with similar settings, related themes, and very different circumstances.  I achieved that goal—I finished both scripts—and I was thrilled for that, and proud of myself, because I can allow myself to be distracted, to be lured to concentrate on something unrelated, usually inconsequential.  The fulfillment of the goal, in and of itself, is good, but in this case, it was what was fulfilled in terms of the content, how the stories grew, changed, became intertwined, then unraveled from each other, only to grab onto one another again.  It was how the characters spoke—to themselves, to each other, to me—and how they changed genders, professions, how their relationships morphed from one thing to another . . . and how the autobiographical nature of the stories and the characters grew fainter as those characters themselves became independent of me, telling their own stories, and living their own lives on the page.  I put them on my narrative springboard but the water they dove into was their own—is their own—and the stories are a part of their biographies.

All of this might have happened—hopefully, would have happened—even without being at Joya, but Joya, the jewel, hastened the process tremendously.  Allowed me to live in isolation (almost) with the characters, with their words and their thoughts, so we became better acquainted much more quickly.  And they became feistier, and sexier, and more caring, and, in the end, more human.  Whether taking a walk around a mountain and coming upon crumbling buildings, or sitting quietly with a bowl of yogurt at a window watching snow falling, or sitting on the crest of a hill gazing down into a distant valley, the characters were with me—sitting quietly or babbling like fools—and the solitude, the attitude of Las Gázquez gave me the space to tell the stories of Charlie, and Vinnie, and Matt.  For that I, and they, are grateful’.

HD Motyl

HD Motyl has been transitioning from a documentary media maker to a narrative media maker. He has been a Producer/Writer/Director in the Documentary world of Chicago, creating work for both the educational and home video markets, then for TV (National Geographic, The History Channel). These video were historical documentaries, children’s documentaries and scientific documentaries. When he turned to teaching full-time, he produced a feature-length documentary (using grant money) called American Rodeo: A Cowboy Christmas, that looked at the behind-the-scenes lives and work of professional rodeo cowboys. (This film is now available on Netflix and Amazon Prime.)

http://www.hdmotyl.com

‘Doho Performing Arts Group are Sara Feli and Maedeh Shanehsaz. They came to Joya to develop a research based project called ‘The Roll of Affliction in Imagination’, a mythical mapping. The project is rooted in mythology and psychology, as well as the laws of physics.

The envisaged outputs for this project will be a series of performances, talks, lectures and a final article. Their residency with Joya: represents part of the research. The group felt in need of landscapes to develop the theoretical and practical parts of their project simultaneously. They came here to explore, to get to know and perform in different environments to develop the project before reaching a final outcome. The south of Spain was one of their envisaged landscapes from the inception of this idea. They came here to explore, communicate and share their work with other artists and perform a small sample’.

Doho Performing Arts Group  https://dohogroup.wordpress.com

English text abridged by Joya: AiR

‘In 2014 I graduated from OCAD University. I Majored in Industrial Design and double minored in both Sculpture & Installation and Goldsmithing/Jewellery Design. After graduation, I worked for two years in the technology industry as a Design Technologist and then a User Experience Designer. As a designer, I had a great job that provided me with a steady income, but I was completely miserable. In July, I left my career in
design and have begun to dedicate myself fully to developing my practice as an artist. Since then, I have never felt more fulfilled and passionate.

During my time at Joya: AiR, I  created a series of installations and sculptures that examine the nature of human perception. My installations  incorporated sensory elements such as sound, smell, one’s relationship with space, and the experience of time. Through my project, I  created shared emotional experiences between myself and the various members of the residency community.

Having a background in design and craft, my goal was to integrate the principals of both processes in my practice. Empathy and continual iterations are essential elements of the Design Thinking process which I will focus on. I will closely examine the relationship that is formed between my work and those who experience it.

I believe that the process of creating a piece is integral to my understanding of the subject matter of my work. My time at Joya: AiR has resulted in a comprehensive body of work that will serve as a jumping off point for further pieces to come’.

‘Coming from a snowstorm in the north of Norway to the dry and varm landscape around Joya: arte + ecología was a big contrast. The residency at Joya: became my home for one week. Long walks to get to know the area, learning a lot of new things from fellow residents, great dinners following interesting discussions and listening to presentations, filled the days at the residency. Simon and Donna are very present and give a good and open vibe to the residency. It’s a place to feel comfortable and at ease.

The residency gave me time to think and to develop projects. I loved having time to experiment with different ideas and research the area. I ended up making a proposal for a long-term project about the birds in the area in historical and present perspective.

Though the environment around the area is tough, being very dry,  Joya gives hope by acting through sustainable practice and research’.

Marie Skeie

http://www.marieskeie.com

https://www.facebook.com/marieskeieart/

JOYA : arte + ecología / AiR / writers residency

A DEEP DRINK FROM THE WELL

‘Blossoms were barely evident on the gnarly trees as we dropped down the hill into Cortijada Los Gázquez. Springtime was upon us in late February, quite normal for southern Spain, but it hadn’t quite fluffed out the trees at this altitude of the Sierra Maria. This is almond growing territory, an adaptable crop for the dry limestone soil.

14 k of clay packed road through national forest brought us up to a whitewashed Cortijada, 5 houses in one, with a roofline of traditional half-moon terracotta pipe tiles piled one over the other. Smoke billowed from the chimney. I knew it would be warm inside, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like living totally off the grid. A wind turbine became a familiar whooshing sound and the photovoltaic solar panels moved like a sunflower with the sun. I have lived without electricity before, using candlelight and lanterns, but this would be the first time living in a place that generates its own juice. Cortijada Los Gázquez sits calmly in the open on 50 acres, commanding the surrounding wilderness with quiet renown. After four months of dreaming about it, I had at last arrived at Joya: arte + ecología, an ecological retreat for artists in the wilds of Andalucía.

I settled into my room with warm radiant heat under my feet and opened my window to get a scent and a sense of my view. I can see the movement of the landscape and how it undulates with feminine earth curves the colour of fair skin. Lines of almond trees edge the fields and hillside terraces giving it friendly definition. I look forward to waking up each morning to watch for the almost inevitable slow motion explosion of frilly pink blossoms on the branches. I can’t imagine a more perfect place for writing.

I crafted a business in 1992 called Culinary Adventures, which began in Tuscany cooking with local chefs and food artisans. I loved it; the travel suited me so I stretched it to other regions in Italy, Sicily, Spain, Morocco and India.  After 25 years of handholding every trip, I was dripping with images and wanted to start writing about the extraordinary people that I have met along the way, especially the hidden artisans. I write my own website and newsletter content and the occasional magazine article, but I hadn’t stopped long enough to go deeper. Every time I tried to write a proper proposal, it lacked depth. A cookbook would only skim the cream off the top. I wanted to go as deep as possible. Memoir, I realized, would require a full stop and a deeper dive. I needed time to contemplate and digest my memories. I began writing short stories about the characters I have met and needed time to develop them and to refine my voice. I applied to Joya and was accepted to my first residency for writers.

These last 10 days have been merciful. I had just arrived from the bustle of India and this was the perfect antidote. Dropping into the warm, forgiving, atmosphere has been a balm. It takes time for the world to stop spinning and when it does, there is a noticeable lightness of being, as if someone has opened a door and let the long lost light and fresh air circulate. Even breathing is easier. I found the time that I needed to edit working stories and slowly, I started to recognise my own voice. We have to get really quiet to hear it, as if it doesn’t really want to talk. Some experiences are hard to articulate, because they do not exist in the realm of words. This was the most surprising discovery. The voice that I have been listening for is practically inaudible. I found it. It’s there, awake, intelligent and knowing, but so far it prefers to be silent. I accept this like a secret offering. I will have to get quieter to get to know her. She may be saying, “find a way to interpret my language”. This is what the trees said to the Navajos.

When I first arrived there were a handful of other artists here. I was overwhelmed at first at how fortunate I felt to be in the company of young people who have chosen to delve into the practice of fine art. I climbed the nearby sunrise mountain with three artists from three different countries; Norway, Canada and the UK. Long Gao had collected found objects like glass shards and wanted to make an installation on the top of the mountain in the shape of a griffin vulture shadow. It was intriguing enough to get me all the way up to the top, stretching my body and physical boundaries more that I thought I could, but I did it. I considered it a metaphor for what I wanted to do with my writing. Go beyond self-imposed boundaries.

Along the way, we had lessons in natural navigation from the primo expert in the world, Tristan Gooley, who was here to contemplate his next moves.

Marie Skeie shared her big view of the relationship between ecology and politics.

I was exhilarated. Filmmaker Hanley Zheng tutored me in film editing. My perspective blew open and for the first time in a long time, I could see out of my box.

It was like there was a certain yeast in the air, to use a food analogy. Bakers build up a yeasty environment that bread responds to.  Cured meats, cheeses, wine, anything that’s fermented needs the air to be thick as thieves with supportive enzymes. This is what Joya felt like to me, an environment rich in invisible creative muses.

Evenings were delightful with owners, Simon and Donna. They have built this place as a labour of love. Both are brilliant artists themselves with a down to earth mix of wit and English sensibility. We didn’t lack for anything and feasted practically every night on Donna’s delicious food and stimulating conversations. Presentations of artists work were given nightly. Simon kept things lively at the table and gave spot on feedback of constructive support.

The table has a way of bringing everyone together. It’s a platform. All you have to do is show up to be fed in so many ways. You get to know each other, which relaxes any creative process. Warmth in every way loosens the grip of rigidity. We had become a community in just a few short days. I’m convinced it had to do with being held so beautifully in this intentional, off the grid container called Joya. I came to the well and I took a deep drink. Yet, I’m thirsty for more. The muse is in the AIR’.

Peggy Markel

‘My recent move to my home country of Macedonia has kept me so occupied with a collaborative project I was working on that didn’t allowed me the time to spend on developing ideas for a new body of work. That is when I realized I needed an artist residency to attend. Not just any artist residency, but a residency that offered a creative environment while focusing on sustainable living, a direct connection with the surrounding nature and environmental understanding. That was what Joya: arte + ecologia was all about. The location and isolation of the residency allowed time to reflect, time to create, time to engage with other artists and time to be with self.

I summarize the two weeks at the Joya residency with:  the long walks and the white wet clay stuck to the shoes, the smell of the wild rosemary bushes, the wild boar tracks and the wild goat poop reminding of their existence, the crumbly stones and rocks under the feet, the collecting and eating almonds from the surrounding almond trees, the taste of the dried back olives from the olive trees, the finger licking tasty dinners prepared by Simon and Donna and the after dinner conversations, the presentations, the moments of creating in my studio, the short daily walks of Fufu and Uuu, the night sky and billions stars, the bird singing conversations with the contrasting sound of the silence, the sound of the harmonica played on top of the surrounding hills and all that toped with mesmerizing views’.

Ankica Mitrovska   https://www.ankicamitrovska.com

‘I came here to be IN what inspires my work. Living and working in Brooklyn, NY,  I make things that connect me to what I would call the tendencies of natural places and their elements. For me, this has a lot to do with nature’s gestures and movements, a signature to all things natural that translates regardless of form.

I didn’t bring materials knowing I wanted to be impressed with the place and know myself through that impression, deciding later what form my work at Joya: AiR would take.

There had been heavy snow a week or so before I arrived, followed by warmer weather which softened the land into clay. Two experiments with clay took shape in the studio, both of them involving multiples to create larger compositions. Both of them meditative and intuitive in process. Both of them coming about organically and revealing meaning as I made them.

The experience of shaping (with only my hands and a little water) the ground I’ve lived on for two weeks has been intimate and immersive. I’ve been loaned a red bucket and a shovel. When I run out of clay I walk down the hill until my feet feel soft ground, I fill the bucket, and take it back to the studio. The seamlessness of making something in this way has allowed me a degree of focus and freedom that has blended the process into something entirely fluid. It’s quiet, there is no interference, no middleman between self and materials, no speed bump (so to speak).

The home has also been a very important element of staying and working here. Everything is beautiful and kind to the senses. The Beckmanns are welcoming, generous, warm, and utterly respectful and encouraging of their guest’s process and needs. I would describe it all as mindful luxury. Here we are mindful of water, mindful of sounds, mindful of the electricity we use, and this makes for a very present experience that is coherent with the human appreciation of nature.

I took long walks up hills and down barrancos without running into a single person and saw colours, shapes and textures that very much delivered what I was looking for in coming here.

This time at Joya has been extremely meaningful and has given me the space to clearly assert why I make art and how I want to make art. I am grateful to Simon and Donna for this opportunity which I hope to repeat in the near future’.

Melanie J Moczarski

http://www.melaniemoczarski.com/no-beating-heart

‘We were isolated on a hill yet there was no sense of loneliness. We would venture into our backyard of wilderness and return to the warmth and intimacy of our little house. I was surprised at how much I felt at home here. Being at my first artist residency, I expected a quiet, solemn retreat with most of my time spent in solitude with nature. Joya turned out to be a lively communal experience. There was no time to be alone except in sleep. It reminded me of the joys of family and community that I’ve missed, growing up in cities. We explored our surroundings like children, chased the goats, picked almonds, joked at the dinner table, gazed at stars. Even while walking “alone”, trees, bushes, mud rocks and mountains surrounded and enveloped you. With the constant company of human, animal and nature, old troubles and worries became irrelevant and dull. I came here as an abstract painter and sound artist but I’ve collected more than just images and sounds – I’ve collected new seeds of wonder and optimism for the future as both an artist and a human being’.

Wei Tan

Wei Tan is a mixed-media abstract artist and environmental sound artist currently based in Malaysia. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music (King’s College London) and a Master’s degree in Music Technology (New York University). In 2015 she started practicing abstract painting and has since exhibited her art in New York, London, Rome, Barcelona and Berlin. http://tatawaart.com/

‘We hack through thickets of doubt and disquiet in search of a land of satisfying work. If we are lucky enough to find this place, then we settle. But soon some new nemesis rises opposite: sameness, a monster with three ugly heads – boredom, apathy and restlessness. Joya is the castle that contains the potion that slays the monster.

It has been a thrill to explore the rich, dry landscapes that surround Joya. And a privilege to do it with such talented and inspirational people. Thank you Simon and Donna for creating a unique place in sympathy with this wild environment. The building is an an artwork, the drawing together of diverse souls with like minds, a treasure.

In the end, the monster was finished off with a thousand cuts, each one a small step up a steep mountainside with new friends. And it was laid to rest under almond blossoms. Flowers that pointed south, to the sun’.

Tristan Gooley

Tristan Gooley is an author and natural navigator. Joya: arte + ecología has been a follower of his work and research for several years so we were particularly pleased to receive his research proposal.

Tristan set up his natural navigation school in 2008 and is the author of the award-winning and bestselling books, The Natural Navigator, The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs and How to Read Water, three of the world’s only books covering natural navigation.

Tristan has led expeditions in five continents, climbed mountains in Europe, Africa and Asia, sailed small boats across oceans and piloted small aircraft to Africa and the Arctic. He has walked with and studied the methods of the Tuareg, Bedouin and Dayak in some of the remotest regions on Earth.

He is the only living person to have both flown solo and sailed singlehanded across the Atlantic and is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Royal Geographical Society.

http://www.naturalnavigator.com