My Last Visit to Portugal before the big move
In May, I spent ten days in Portugal. I went specifically for my residency interview, although it wasn’t much of an interview. More of a 2.5 hour wait, some paper shuffling, fingerprinting, photo taking and payment for said residency card. I met all the criteria so sometime soon, my two year resident card should be arriving in the mail to my home here in Portugal. Oddly enough, my husband Nick’s appointment is 3 weeks after mine, so he was in Portugal for a few days in June, repeating the same process.
So many keys, and yes the skeleton keys are actually in play too.
In the spirit of maximizing my time there, I picked up the keys to the new place, and got a mattress and refrigerator delivered. These felt like important first steps to setting up life in a new home. I stayed in the new place most of my time there. I wanted to walk through things with all the windows open, and no realtors around. (When we made an offer on the place, it was a cold and gray day in March, and all the shutters were closed). The place looks so different when the shutters are pulled up. The natural light floods every room, and it’s heavenly.
Living room of the resident house. This may become a double bedroom, as we have another living room downstairs.
I walked the attached guest house, the house were resident artists and small art retreats will be hosted, with new eyes. Taking measurements and assessing how many guests could be accommodated comfortably at once. Dreaming of how I may paint and decorate the rooms. I’m so excited to get some work done and start hosting guests and sharing creative space with people.
Future studio space before we bought the place. (forgot to take new pictures)
I also walked the garage space that will become my studio, trying to imagine how to best utilize the layout. Also trying to assess alternatives to an electric high fire kiln. You see the energy grid is quite different in Portugal and my current set up won’t accommodate the high temps I need to fire the way I currently do. When we move in September, we’ll talk to the electric company to see what’s possible and what the cost is, but I may need to consider other options for the home/residency studio- like a smaller electric kiln and/or a gas kiln that doesn’t need electricity. And of course there is the option of driving work to Mariana’s or the new community studio to fire.
The most exciting part of this trip (excluding the part about being granted residency), was the meeting with had with the mayor of one of the local municipalities. It was our second meeting with this entity, but the first with the mayor. We made our presentation of the project… and he loved it! The idea of a community ceramics studio, the classes and workshops, cultural exchange between local and visiting artists, the gallery and artist talks. He seemed genuinely excited about the idea! And he may have a space within the municipality to house the project! What? So our next steps are to write the by-laws and form a board to manage the Association that will be known as Com Fusion Community Ceramics Studio (an Association is the Portuguese equivalent of an American non-profit).
We will leave Portland in just about 8 weeks now and there is so much to do! But the next time we set foot in Portugal, and visit our new home it will be to stay! How exciting is that?