A GREAT ARTIST IS ALWAYS BEFORE HIS TIME OR BEHIND IT.  Edward Edward Moore

The Roof top of Gaudi's Batllo house in Barcelona                     photo by elizabeth Gordon

La Familia /Barcelona                   Gaudi      photo Elizabeth Gordon

Art is a human activity which has as its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.
Leo Tolstoy(click)


It might seem odd to pair a photograph of Gaudi's(click)Church Architecture with Leo Tolstoy, but it tells a story about the highest and the best of ourselves. Gaudi worked a good bit of his later life on the designs and construction of La Sagrada Familia,(click) he actually died while begging money for the continuation of the building.  When I visited in the early 2000's it was estimated the workers working today on the cathedral would not live to see it finished in their life time.  Gaudi had passion and talent, but people recognized that what he had started was so brilliant and exceptional it was worth building on another hundred years!

An Affinity for All Thing Spanish

I love Spain for many reasons. I feel an affinity for all things Spanish.

It is more than likely mixed with my love of Cuba as well. Growing up in Tampa, the Cigar city, I have been influenced by the Spanish, Cuban and Italian peoples that worked in the cigar industry in Ybor City and West Tampa.

For many years I could not tell how to separate the influences. But when I traveled to Cadaques, Figures, and Barcelona I began to understand how each culture effected me. The food at the Columbia Restaurant, Las Novedades and the Valencia all carried Spanish dishes. The Flamenco was performed at many of the restaurants. The Columbia still brings Flamenco dancers from Spain. I loved it, I could travel to another country without leaving home!

One of my childhood memories was of the art at the Las Novedades and the Columbia. El Greco and Goya's work adorned the walls of the Novedades. I loved El Greco's dramatic use of lighting and elongated limbs of his human figures. The Columbia brought in painted tiles to decorate the foyers and seven dinning rooms of the world's largest Spanish restaurant. The Valencia also had wonderful landscape paintings by early Spanish artists. More recently the Dali Museum was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida across the bay. What a wonderful resource to add to the richness of Spanish influence and culture in this area! Visiting Dali's museum in Figures and his home in Cadaques in the Catalan region was a lifetime event. What wonderful artist Spain has produced! Gracias Espana!

The Calling

The Calling

What is your life calling to you? When all the noise is silenced, the meetings adjourned, the lists laid aside,and the wild iris blooms by itself in the dark forest, what still pulls on your soul?

In the silence between your heartbeats hides

a summons Do you hear it? Name it, if you must,

or leave it nameless, but why pretend it is not there?_The Terma Collective. The Box: Rembering the Gift

(Gaudi in his elder years still fighting for his calling)

Each one of us has a calling!

Each of these artist heard the calling and answered.

There were people who believed buildings should be square and rectangular, professional who scoffed a Gaudi's vision of architecture. Craftsmen and masons said it was impossible to craft.

Miro, did odd shapes and talked of wonderful theories, he hid symbols and ideas, but the critics may have said it just little shapes, it makes no sense, it is not a pretty picture.

And Dali, what a mad man people thought, how odd are his ideas, flamming giraffes and melting clocks!?

Believe in your calling, no matter what friends, family or critics say...it is your calling not theirs! And what ever your calling is, it is your passion, your being, your experiences, your background, and your expression of yourself-there is not another you out there. Do you have to be a Dali or Gaudi or Miro, no you do not. All you have to do is listen to that small voice inside that says oh I so want to do this. Listen, listen with your heart and give it life!

Gaudi/Barcelona/Two of my favorite things

I love Barcelona. It was a love story from the beginning. Everything Spanish draws me, as it is partially my roots, here in Tampa. We have Spanish, Cuban, Italian and a whole bunch of other folks. But Ybor city and West Tampa were a strong influence. So when I went to Barcelona it was a bit like coming home. They I saw Gaudi's architecture and was awed beyond belief. How could someone make hard rectangular concrete...look soft, dripping, melting , curved and sensual? Gaudi was a master. Someday I hope to be there again on Los Rambles having cafe con leche!