One month in Barcelona has shown us hundreds of artworks by masters and anonymous street artists, having perused both white-walled museums and gritty walls with a mélange of spray painted tags. This is a city whose eye-bending architecture was designed by people who never forgot they are, above all things… Artists. Barcelona is a patchwork quilt. Ancient Roman ruins are tucked away beneath dark and narrow streets, neighboring 19th Century parks with ornate pavilions, gilded fountains and English gardens. Even the waters of Barcelona’s beaches will unveil art if you keep a keen eye. Fragments of colorful hand-painted tiles litter the ocean floor alongside grape-sized seaglass. This fiercely Catalan city masterfully balances both the hard and soft of what it is to be truly diverse.
It’s no secret we are “art people”, having been children with noses buried in sketchbooks. This said, we’ve always tried to give our son Ronan as much a spectrum of styles as we have everything else in his life. One of the few natural blondes in Miami, he has been raised around the colorful chatter and flavor of the Caribbean… A complete departure from what much of what mainland America both looks and sounds like. We don’t hold back in showing him anything and everything. Even our stay in Barcelona has us positioned in front of a clothing-optional beach we have lovingly dubbed “Peach Beach”.
So, while much of our trip has necessarily been focused on Spanish artists we deal in, Picasso, Dalí and Miró, we’ve also tried to show our son ancillary masters and next-generation talents as well. He has all but filled a 300 page sketchbook with drawings of the things he’s seeing on this trip and has amassed a collection of art books. We continually find him sketching buildings, paintings and experiences, being inspired by his Spanish surroundings. Travel takes us out of our mundane routines and exposes us to other ways of life. Our responsibility as a family, business-owners and people living in a multi-faceted and diverse world, is to raise our child to be curious of other cultures and perspectives. One of the best unifiers in the world is the calm, universality of art. In Art We Trust.
