Barcelona is full of beautiful antique and ornate pieces of street iron - actually, there is art all over the place. Besides architecture, murals, and sculptures I only dreamed of seeing before that, the city is famous for the floor tiles laid into sidewalks, streets, and alleys. I love the concept and of course, appreciate beautifying the grounds we walk on.
I only had a couple of days there so I didn’t really know anything at the time other than they were super rad and they created awesome patterns in some unlikely places. When I got back to the states, I learned there is a unique design for each region of the city and there are at least 13 different ones designed by well-respected Catalan architects. I felt lucky to notice and appreciate the tiles without knowing anything about them. Sometimes great things happen when you’re looking down.
Back to the original point. I found and admired some amazing covers in the city - old, worn, iconic, illustrative, elegant, and utilitarian.. there were so many to choose from. I only had about 30 hours and it rained most of those so I grabbed what I could at the moment which worked out perfectly in the end.
I had spotted this Clavegueram Barcelona cover on the way back to the room the night before and loved the patterns, borders, dots, and square shape. It was in the middle of an alley not far off La Rumba in the Gothic Quarter.
With a few hours of sunshine on the last day there, I decided to go for it.
During the process, I chatted with a few locals, the foreman from the construction site next door scolded me slightly, and a local school class greeted me with smiles. My personal favorite moment was watching the video, later on when I saw one girl giving the thumbs up on her way past.
That totally rocked and made my night.
I wasn’t happy at first as I kinda rushed the job, had no cleaning supplies, and regretfully admit I wasn’t even sure what Clavegueram meant. I did enjoy the moment and the social interactions so definitely called it a win. I took the print back to the room, laid it out to dry, and learned Clavegueram means “Sewer” which seemed appropriate at the time.
Three months later and I finally got most of the wrinkles out, I took it into the yard to get some pics, and realized how much I love the print. The ink coverage isn't perfect, there is definitely legit "street grease" on the edges, and I kinda missed part of the "M" in Clavegueram. What first seemed like mistakes turned out to be what I like most about it.
The only thing I regret from the Barcelona visit is not having time to see, learn, and make more which is all the reasons to go back soon.