The Art Fair

So I didn't really plan on going to the art fair, it just sort of happened. I had been hanging out with a Spanish teacher in America's school named P. We had went out for juice, and ended up talking for quite a while. After walking around in the Parque Forrestal, she said that she needed to go to the Ferria near Bellavista in order to buy a christmas gift for her father. I went along with her, and was completely surprised to find that the ferria was about four times its normal volume, with tons and tons of venders. I wandered around and looked at all the stuff for sale. From CDs to clothes, organic skin products, honey, wire art, photos, paintings, pipes, mirrors, drums, food, juice, Artisean licor, sculptures, and plenty of interesting people wandering all about through the lively labrynth.

I stumbled upon one bookbinder, she didn't sew her books she glued them and I talked for a while in espanol about her process and all that. She used the facilties at the University of Chile, and her books were all pretty cool. Then I wandered some more, stopping with P to talk to different venders, my espanol can get me by but I have trouble with groups and with some of the accents that I encounter. She asked questions and we looked for a present for America as well. I ended up buying her some fruit honey, which was so so good.

Then I stumbled on another stand selling books, lots of them, along with boxes. I checked them out and then asked the two chileanas running it about the spine, which was glued as well. One of them asked me if I spoke English, it turned out that she had lived and traveled in the States before and spoke very well. It was a very engaging conversation, we talked about traveling, about books, about anything that came up. The two were sisters, one who spoke english one who didn't. I switched back and forth trying not to let my brain get to deep into its English side. C spoke english, is an industrial designer, and M paints and studied photography in school. I was really interested in the paper that they make by hand, and wanted to buy some to use with my books. I was so interested that I forgot about P, who after a while wandered off and eventually went home. I searched for here but couldn't find her, finally called her and learned she had went home. Oops! The next day (thursday) I returned, bought paper, and talked more with C.

It turned out that she too had traveled to Guatemala as I had, to visit M while she was there. She was just as surprised as I was at the level of poverty, and how different it was from Chile. She offered to teach me about making paper, maybe sometime this week, before I leave Santiago for traveling. We talked about the places we had been, about christmas and the family. We talked about politics, about 9/11, and about Santiago. She had to return to work, and I headed home feeling enthralled by the conversation, and thankful that I had wandered through the art fair, its always great how the best things many times hit you when you least expect it.