With the second week came the start of the communal lunches at the director’s apartment. For the remainder of my stay, there was a revolving door of artists from all over the place, who did all sorts of amazing things with their lives, who had come to teach at Altos. And I got to swap stories over a cup of espresso with all of them. We would sit in the dappled shade, under the wisteria, passing our delicious family style meal around the long table. Briefly removed from the heat of the day, we looked down into the sometimes tourist laden courtyard and out and over into the hills along the river. We would share stories half in English, half in Spanish. About our students and the classes we were teaching, about where we came from and what we did as artists. There were music videographers and stop animation makers, sculptors, photographers, street artists, typographers, fashion designers and painters. From the Dominican Republic, New York and South America. This was, I think, one of the best parts of my experience on this residency. The food was served with care every day by Feliciano who, also the resident model, could be found on the absent director’s walls, which were plastered from top to bottom with past students’ work. We listened to a Tito Rodriguez album playing faintly in the background, over the sound of purring lap cats while we sipped our lemonade.
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