Second Year in Spain - September 2007 Part Three

Coincidences and Connections

Robert Carbonell's artwork: Robert Carbonell is an artist from Catalonia. His work is multi media. Have a look at his website.

When we made the decision to move to Spain I made a guess that it would take about two years to achieve this.  All was dependent on selling our house in Hampshire. In fact we were about to exchange contracts five weeks after putting the house on the market.  Most of the packing had been done, pictures off the walls and so on, life as we knew it was winding down very quickly because our buyers wanted to have our house immediately.  Then there is this long message on the answer phone explaining how the buyers were pulling out - probably a real red herring because their  excuse was never an issue again with other buyers.  The feeling was awful. Then it happened again - this time a three family chain. Our buyer was made redundant a day or two before exchange. Do I buy this stuff? In the end it took two and half years....  Depression and stress were a big problem for us - because once people know you are going to leave them the area etc you become out of the loop so the stress increases.  That excludes the fact that just everything you are looking for of course was packed  months, years ago!

One of the things though that I did during this strange period was to concentrate on getting some of my photos exhibited.  I had had an offer which I started to work on but had been seriously discomforted by because they were of the World Trade Centre and I just could not work on them after 7/11. 

With time on my hands I decided the moment  had come.... What then happened was a series of offers to show at various exhibitions and also out of the blue came an interesting offer from a Barcelona gallery, Galeriazero. What a coincidence. I agreed to show a number of my images at an exhibition in November 2005. The curator Karel Stoop was amazed when I said that I was moving to Spain.  I declined an offer of Beijing but accepted an offer of space at the 2007  Cork Street Show in London. This was a really positive experience but this time I had to travel to London from Spain. What a reversal. I have photos on show in Barcelona again and to complete this circle I have today received an offer to show some photos in an exhibition next year called " New York, New York" in Tribeca Manhattan. I think I will say yes.

One door closes and another one opens.