Studio and Hill Walk
Walking up the steps from Centro Negra follows the path up the hill to the castle and the Plaza del la Virgin. The castle sits not too far above and then it’s an accessible hike up a path to the top of another hill where there is a large statue of the virgin Mary. It’s a vertigo inducing view up there with some sheer cliff drops. There is a flat area nearby that shows some kind of ruined dwellings or farming enclosures, lots of boulders. Was a nice place to sit and listen to the sound of nature. The other thing that I got to see for the first time ever, was a Cicada. I've been to Cyprus probably at least a dozen times and they are omnipresent across the island, but were always too elusive to be seen. So to my surprise, I was able to close in on the sound being made by one on a bush and I got really close to it. In fact, it seemed happy for me to be poking my phone up close to it. However on a second attempt to get the phone even close, it obviously had enough and flew off. Never the less, after all these years I finally got to see one.
The air quality on the Monday and also on the following day was very poor quality. This was due to the strong winds that were blowing in a lot of sand from the Sahara desert. I spent the two days constantly blowing and clearing my nose. The atmospheric conditions resembled a foggy misty day. Not very enjoyable. The castle took on a very ghostly quality and would have been good to make a painting of it in that type of light conditions.
After the walk, I spent the rest of the day in the studio working through ideas and thinking about the performance space at the bottom levels of the centre and how I could use this.
