Work In Progress

For the past year or so I have been thinking it would be useful for me to have a blog to post thoughts and ephemera that come my way while I am working on my art. So I decided that my big research/art trip to Ecuador would be a good place to start.

I arrived last night. The trip was the same as any other trip to Ecuador. Cramped, slow lines at customs. Although I have traveled here from the states many times before I am always struck by the enormous amount of people peering into the airport waiting for their friend or family member to arrive. It is a little overwhelming actually. An American woman turned to me baffled and intimidated and asked “who are all these people?” I assured her that this was the norm. That it was customary to bring along your entire extended family for the homecoming.

Today was fairly mellow. I tried to go to the MAAC, which is the El Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo located at the Malecón 2000. The Malecon or boardwalk was rebuilt in 2000 under the Mayorship of León Febres Cordero to clean up the downtown Guayaquil area. Downtown Guayaquil used to be in so many words: a shithole. So they rebuilt this whole park and boardwalk by the River Guayas and repaired and cleaned up the buildings around that area. Also included in this so-called rebirth were Las Peñas. Now my Aunt Judy hates the Malecon and the new Peñas with a passion and refuses to set one foot on it as she is convinced that it merely drove out the poor people of the city. And that now its just for rich people. This is also true. Particularly with Las Peñas. Las Peñas were the slums of Guayaquil. But due to all this reconstruction no one lives there anymore and all the properties have been converted into shops and restaurants and in my opinion garishly painted with Gliddon brand paint. I think they should have kept the rich white patina like the nearby cemetary has. It is one big advertisement. But the downtown area admittedly looks nice. And walking on the boardwalk is fun.

I tried to go to the museum last Christmas but it was closed and no surprise here, closed again. Tomorrow it should be open. It just seems to have a weird schedule. To receive my grant for this trip I had to submit a very detailed itinerary, that I knew would quickly go out the window because of schedule issues like this. Writing the itinerary was useful as it helped me list all the goals I had for the trip but I secretely knew that things would change. Because nothing is ever certain. Thats OK though. I will still get what I want to get done. But Ecuador will happen on its own time.