Carlos Páez Vilaró’s Casapueblo and giant fingers

As mentioned in my last week’s post, my wandering this past
month has been in South America. We are just back from three
wonderful weeks in Uruguay with a weekend in Buenos Aires.
We savored time with our daughter and her husband and children
who live in Montevideo,and wandered discovering art,artists,
architecture and countryside new to us. There is much to share.
My creative energies are definitely stirred up.

I'll start with some images of one of the first places we
visited:Carlos Páez Vilaró’s magical Casapueblo:


This amazing structure created by the Uruguayan painter,
ceramic artists, sculptor, musician and all around energetic
human Carlos Páez Vilaró sits on the shore of Punta Ballena
North of Montevideo.To learn more Vilaro, his life and travels
go to his website: www.carlospaezvilaro.com
He bought the property in 1958 to build a home and studio.
It grew and grew as he added new rooms for friends, created
a museum, a hotel and on and on. He still works in the top
floor studio area and divides his time between Casapueblo
and a home in Tigre, Argentina across the Rio Plata.


It’s an experience to wander its rooms and paths...or sit in
the intimate sculpted theater to see a movie of Vilaro’s art
and life. Several rooms serve as an art gallery and museum.
Here are some images of his art in the gallery area. Needless
to say I was drawn to the bird sculpture!




Then, one can take the elevator down 9 floors and walk down
a long pathway and end up in a café area open to the shore.
Or - fly above catching air currents as one parakiter was
doing when we were there. How I would have loved to have
had that avian perspective!


One could spend a whole day there just photographing
angles, looking at the artwork, and dreaming up legends.
We were entranced by Vilaro’s art, but settled with buying
his 2008 book “El Secreto de Casapueblo” -a children’s book
which lays out possible legendary origins of Casapueblo.
Did it arrive on the back of a whale? Did a herd of white
horses transform themselves? Did a cloud alight and become
a house? The sun descends each day guarding the secret.

The day we visited Casapueblo, the sunset found us
wandering between Chilean artist, Mario Irarrazabel’s
giant fingers at Punte del Este, a little farther up
the coast. I wondered about all the stories children
and their families had created over the years after
playing in the sand next to his "La Mano en la Arena".

Next week - our discovery of the Museo del Carnaval!
Journey on..Wendy