On the following morning we went to Calzadilla de la Cueza and I began my work outdoors, once again with the local flowers. Christian turned up that day, an Austrian journalist-cum-photographer who lives on the Camino.
At a certain moment I was taken by surprise by a flock of sheep.
I did a piece of work where the small paintings were numbered to form a panel. I don’t know how I will assemble this – I will need a very big wall.
I buried the paintings at Cesar’s hostel, with the help of Nene, a Brazilian hostel-owner.
Then we went to Calzadilla de la Cueza to meet one of the Camino’s’s characters. Cezar is the owner of a super-comfortable hostel, which even boasts a swimming-pool – as well as a delicious restaurant.
Cezar is a cowboy of the Camino – they even say that Shirley MacLaine wrote in her book about meeting him (she must have recalled her American desert and John Wayne).
He very kindly invited us to lunch, and after eating I decided to start on a new painting. There was a beautiful weeping willow there, a tree that I love so much I even had one planted in St. Martin.
I decided to stamp the relief of the trunk on the canvas, then divide this canvas into thirty small pictures, my idea being to continue with the flowers of spring. I would come back the next day to finish the work, because I felt exhausted.