Sevilla Farewell Tour

Our last two weeks in Seville were spent cleaning up our “Things to do in Seville” checklist that we had made at the start of the summer. First of these was a ceramics workshop. If it has not become evident through my blogs and photos so far, ceramics tiles are a very important part of Seville’s history and architectural character. The industry, originally based in the heart of Seville, was producing tiles much like those you can find all across the Middle East. And the middle east was such an ideal location for such an art form to develop because Islam forbids the displaying of any divine figure, which can be interpreted strictly as outlawing the depiction of humans and nature. Therefore, simply colorful, geometric patterns and calligraphy form the basis for what is considered to be Islamic art. In Seville, ceramics moved from the center of the city to Triana, across the river from the Bull Ring due to the large amounts of pollution that the process creates. This western side of the city was historically home to lots of immigrants, many of whom practiced Flamenco, as the style was mainly mixture of styles from India, Africa, and the Middle East. But this is all to say, Triana was poor, and those who had power and influence successfully moved the dirty and dangerous industry out of their areas and into the area of those who were lucky to be just in Seville anyways. Throughout time, Triana went from being the outskirts of Seville to a culturally rich neighborhood, home to all those who gave Andalucia its characteristic flare. The pottery industry began its death in the 1800s, following the industrial revolution, and was saved only by the Ibero-American Friendship Exhibition, which commissioned countless tiles with the creation of the Plaza de España and the Maria Luisa gardens, both of which are adorned with complex patterns and intricate paintings on tiles.

The ceramics studio that we attended was on Alfarería street, whose name, coming from Arabic means ceramics. There, we learned about the three main styles that’s used to make mosaics. The first is what was historically done, and what is still done in Morocco and other areas of the Arab World: cutting out each element of the mosaic individually, and then filling them with grout. This process is incredibly painstaking, as we saw in a video of the process. It's all done by hand, which means that those 8-pointed stars and complex, round shapes are all chiseled out by hand, by artisans who train from young ages to do this. The second method is what’s typically done in Andalucia, which is using barriers, either physical or chemical, to separate out the paints. The chemical barriers are drawn with charcoal, which the oil-based paints will not interact with. The physical barriers are created by pressing wet clay into a mold that has grooves with the desired pattern. Then, you simply fill the spots with paint. We got to do this method at the end of the workshop. Finally, is the technique that we did, which involves painting glazes onto glazed tiles. This method is pretty akin to an afternoon in Creative Art Studio, so the actual process of painting our tiles wasn’t all that thrilling. However, there are a few things that were cool when we did this. First of all, this is the method that was used to make the majority of tiles in the Plaza de España, so walking through the Plaza now, I have an idea of what the ceramicists had to go through to make these. Second, they will often use stencils, which are thin paper with the patterns put in with just dots. You then rub charcoal over the stencil to get the pattern onto your tile. Just like with chemical separation, the charcoal disappears upon firing.

On the left is the just painted version, on the right is a physical separation style. The colors all change after firing, due to chemical processes. The purple, for example, on the left one, turns to a deep blue. 420, by the way, is the address of my friends' house, because I frankly didn't need another

Left: the internet background. Right: me!

On Tuesday, we went to Jerez de la Frontera, a small village outside of Seville, in Cádiz province, famous for Sherry wine. We were there for one reason only, though, and that was to see the internet-famous greenscreen background picture on a TikTok video filter. Despite our rather shallow reason to be there, we still had a really nice night there, just walking around, exploring, and enjoying the much cooler weather there. They get a sea breeze, as they’re not that far inland, so their weather was 80°F, whereas Seville’s was 110°F. There were all the staples of a Spanish city… an Alcázar, a cathedral, colorful, windy streets, and tapas bars sprawling out into streets. A main square, wineries, you name it.

Wednesday night, we went back to the Flamenco Bar, and Thursday, we found some live music by a Cuban band downtown. We stayed there for a few hours, dancing along to their salsas, tangos, and chachas. It was awesome in there, so much energy, so many people, and everybody was in a great mood.

The next week, on Monday, we took a Flamenco class. We learned a style of Flamenco called Flamencos Tangos, which are in 4/4, with the second, third, and fourth beats clapped. The first beat is strong, still, but that strength is implied by the listener’s ear. From what I can tell, Flamencos Tangos don’t have much to do with Argentinian Tango.

From this class, it was very interesting to see all the inner workings of a Flamenco show. Flamenco is traditionally not rehearsed, which means that there needs to be a definite form of communication for when a given cycle will be finished. Refer back to my first post from Seville, titled “Getting Oriented,” for more information on this cyclical nature of Flamenco, but in short, the rhythm, provided by the dancer, grows in intensity, speed, and loudness until it reaches a maximum, at which point all focus shifts to the musicians, and the dancer goes back to moving discretely, sneaking across the stage, with burdened arms moving as if they were in a viscous honey. So to convey this breaking point, this climax, there is a series of steps. Taking up two measures, there’s first the llamada, or calling, which brings the nearing climax to the musicians’ attention, and then there’s the finishing step, ending in a traditional Flamenco flourish.

We also learned a series of different skills, such as how to make distinct clapping sounds by using different parts of your hands, we did studies in changing the rhythms of our feet, and we worked on making our hand motions more fluid and expressive.

The speaker system was broken, so our instructor invited us back on Thursday to do it all over again!

The rest of the week was spent going around Seville, doing our favorite things, seeing our favorite spots, and eating at our favorite places.

Work these weeks wasn’t too thrilling, as the first week, my bosses were still mostly gone, so I did some work looking at regulations dictating hazardous areas on boats, then highlighting areas on the boat that would be deemed “hazardous.” The second week, my bosses were supposed to be back, but I actually didn’t see them at all until the last day, where Luis took me out to breakfast and then never gave me a task. My interim boss from the vacation weeks didn’t want anything more to do with me, so I wasn’t given a single task all week long…

Firday, Mercedes and I slept in, went to Triana and then the Plaza de España to go enjoy one last Flamenco show. The Plaza was the first place I visited in Seville, and I deemed it only fitting to make it my last too. We said a bittersweet goodbye to LIV and then headed to the airport, as both of us had 5:30 flights out of Seville, but this time, for the last time.