Caceres and Fluxus Museum

Dear friends and family,

Nearing the end of our trip with a mixture of sadness that it's almost over and relief that everything has gone so well. Woke up to a beautiful, sunny day after Xmas; although still quite cold. Took a few more pictures of Caceres. Hard to imagine we have been here only 2 days.

Don's photo of me taking a picture of Caceres.


What is with these pointy-headed guys; can anybody tell me? This is outside a church in Caceres. Inside some of the churches are costumes with the same pointy-headed masks, sometimes in different colors. It seems so creepy with its KKK connotations, and also brings to my mind the Inquisition, and also, to be truthful, the Coneheads. I am sure it must mean something different to a Spaniard or they wouldn't have a bronze statue like this up in one of their town plazas. They have moved far beyond Franco.

Climbed up a church tower; view of the rooftops and some of the city towers. There are 30 towers in Caceres which were built by the Moors when they occupied the area for a couple hundred years. Many churches have huge creches displayed for Christmas, complete with village life, real living plants, Roman soldiers, blacksmiths shoeing horses (animated), as well as the usual Mom, Pop and baby Jesus.

Our dear friend and artist Salustiano recommended that we go see a Fluxus Museum outside of Caceres, and we are so glad that he did. Thank you, Salustiano. This is a little beyond a small town called Malpartida-Caceres. It is truly like a dream.


Those are stork nests in this area of other-worldly nature; other-worldly to our eyes because we had never seen anything like it, except in some prints of artist Peter Drake who sometimes gets his imagery from his dreams. I have written him and asked him if he had ever been here or heard of it, but haven't heard back yet...

Just heard back from Peter. He was amazed by the above photo; had never heard of this area before. To see the uncanny re-creation of this imagery in the artist's mind, please check out this link:  http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/Content/Drake/F00003.html (for Nest) and http://www.magnoliaeditions.com/Content/Drake/F00002.html (for Stiltwalker). It is amazing what can happen when an artist (or anyone) ventures into the creative zone.

The Museo Vostell outside of Malpartida - Caceres.


Sculptures by Vostell. Jeff Kelley might be pleased to know that we checked out an Alan Kaprow grey felt room which was installed in the museum, with written commentary by Kaprow.




The back of the museum. This brick pier juts into a beautiful lake with more extraterrestrial-looking scenery surrounding it. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to take a walk around the lake. We had to get on the road to our next stop, Ciudad Rodrigo, and on our way home. Will we even be able to fly into Paris and then on to NYC? There has been heavy snow and flight cancellations in both cities. Hard to believe on this gorgeous day in Spain.


Love from,

Era and Don