Another trip to Chile?: Patagonia

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From the Stamford Library Series Map, 1912

Patagonia, and deciding where to go

The area is so vast, it seems almost an arrogance to attempt to visit and claim to be painting it.

 I`ve enjoyed the containment of my picture series: attempting in various series to explore places, often with re-visits. Ergo, I`ve been attempting to revisit places to augment existing sets (especially New York, Peru, and Scotland) and hesitant about beginning new sets.  

Revisiting a place is fascinating, making one extremely conscious of the extent to which ones subjective attitudes affected previous visits- what seems strange no longer is, what was grand now bores, and what strikes one as banal on first sight becomes fascinating with later visits. And there are seasonal changes too. Also, initial visits disproportionately involve a tick-boxing of tourist sights, which is time consuming, and just making sense of its layout, figuring out how to get from the hotel to the central square, and so forth. 

But it is nice to feel that I am extending myself at least a little, so when I went to Chile I decided to visit the area around Araucania and a little south, believing that this (admittedly timid) exploration would provide sufficient new inspiration. Indeed this was the case.

So perhaps the thing is to get to Puerto Montt then continue down the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway) stopping here and here on the way, and ending in O`Higgins. That`s 1200 km. It still seems overambitious, but provides at least some of the notion of a containment that I find so necessary, and avoids too much travel by boat, which I detest.

This site below seems to contain all the information one might need to plan a trip: 

https://www.worldlyadventurer.com/planning-a-trip-to-patagonia/

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A trip to Chile: Pucón, part 3, views just outside the town; travel and oil painting

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 Pucón, a hill, farms, oil on card, 24 x 30 cm- available through No 31 Gallery

This is one of the more successful of the trip. The larger scale allows for greater fluency. 

Oil painting and travel

A month trip, two sessions per day, is a good concentrated period to work through ideas about painting. It's a good time to learn about a place. I find that a longer trip tends to lead to some sense of exhaustion, a need for recuperation, for experiences to sediment and pass through filters. I work very well if the weather and location are kind. But I have never extended the trips beyond six weeks. 

There is also the lugging things around factor. You need no more clothes for two months than you do for a week. But with the paintings you will need to take more protective carriers so wet pictures can be transported safely. Oil paintings such as mine, which are thinly painted and pretty well without impasto need to be packed individually until a week has passed and then they can be packed together. Inevitably something gets damaged- it's wise to incorporate something of Wabi Sabi into your mental armory.

For me making art is better done alone. Human social needs and creativity can combine in performance arts such as theatre. But, for me, with landscape painting- at least the romantic landscape tradition that I am involved with- social needs and creative necessities sit in different zones. But it would be nice to have company at mealtimes, of course.

I had a thought that going all the way down, adding another month to reach Patagonia, might have rewarded me. The long thin shape of Chile cries out for a linear trip from hot desert at the north down to icy mountain in the south. But the costs would have become hideous: Chile is not a super-cheap option like Peru or Bolivia: a single room in in a budget place is about 25$. 

A separate Patagonia trip is on the cards, however.

 Pucón, a lane with children, oil on card, 28 x 21.7 cm -discarded

In retrospect, I find this picture a little overworked. I liked it at the time and perhaps I'll come back to liking it.

 Pucón, big blue hill, mist, oil on card, 19.8 x 23 cm discarded

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