Getting down to business

Oi Gente,

A few days ago a good friend and employer and landlord Steve Ford said I should probably use this blog to track my progress towards getting a Fulbright Scholarship. At first I was intending this blog to document my trip as a whole and to share my adventures with anyone interested. Also I wanted to Outline the steps I took in being able to take this trip as an artist with debt and no stable job.

That being said (And I think accomplishing the latter part) I am going to start documenting everything. The fun and the more research oriented stuff. I'll start to document who I talk to and where that leads me and my ideas.

A couple of days ago I visited two museums in Rio, trying to get an understanding of the arts culture here. First I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, then the Museum of Modern Art: Both were a little disappointing.

The Museum of Fine arts was a beautiful building architecturally, but it was small, there were many areas closed off and I felt the work didn't show a complete view of the work that was produced and is still being produced. I think there were about 70 or 80 paintings, a handful of etchings, and less than 10 sculptures.

The Museum of Modern Art was equally beautiful architecturally and equally lacking in substance. The space was gigantic, but I felt it was poorly organized and again the collection was sparse.

Later that day I met up with Tiago, a ceramic artist in Rio whom I met in Philadelphia through Hope Rovelto. He was a visiting artist at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, but he's originally from Rio de Janeiro Brazil. I was just lucky enough to have met him prior to my trip.

Anyway, I met up with him and talked a lot about the arts in Rio and in Brazil. He said there is a lot of passion and appreciation for the work, but there is no funding for it. Looking back at the museums, I started to understand why they were lacking. He also told me about four other museums that should be a little bit better and I'm hoping to check out some of them tomorrow or later this week.

I also asked about the state of artists in Brazil. From my perspective, they seem difficult to locate and I haven't found any art galleries as of yet, the only arts establishment I found was the Art School in Parque Lage. Tiago said that most artists are "outsider artists" or artists that need to sell their work for much less than it's worth and also tend to be uneducated in the arts. I think I would consider them to be "folk artists."

These conversations let to a more important point. We started taking about ceramics and he mentioned that there's an old wood kiln in one of the neighborhoods here. The people in the neighborhood want to start using the kiln again, but lack funding, and there's a woman at a university who is trying to get the project up and running. I think it would be fantastic if I could help out. I would love to dig up clay or chop wood or clean or build.

And more importantly, I think a fantastic project would be to start a little art school based out of the neighborhood. It could help get kids off the streets and start getting people to be more interested in art. I think I might be able to turn this into my Fulbright project as well, I would love to research the ceramic history of Brazil and incorporate that into the school.

My next step is to contact the woman and see if there's anything I can do now to help. And I also need to meet some more ceramic artists in the area: Maybe they can give me ideas of where to find supplies or tell me more about the art history and culture of the region.

Any thoughts about this idea are greatly appreciated!

Valeu,
-Josh