Tuesday, January 28, 2020

A Decade of iPad


I spend the majority of my technology time on my iPad: reading email, browsing the web, watching YouTube. As I refresh my YouTube screen, I am reminded that it is the tenth anniversary of the launch of the iPad. It is astonishing that it’s been that short and that long a time. I can easily remember the day my first iPad arrived; it seems very recent – but it’s also hard to remember what I did before I had one.


Looking at my notes (I keep lists), I owned the first generation iPad, then upgraded after a couple of years to the third generation with the “retina display”. I left my teaching job at Bentley School soon after that first iPad, and started at the Oakland Museum, and they got me an iPad mini in 2012. After three years at the Museum, I went to Marin Academy, and in 2013 they got me an iPad mini 2, which became an iPad Pro (9.7) in 2016, and then an iPad Pro (11) in 2018. Both of the iPad Pro’s came with the Apple Pencil and the keyboard case. So six iPads in ten years.

My favorite thing is to use “Paper”, an app by “53”, to make drawings of some of the things that we’ve seen in our travels (see image above). This kind of work was not possible ten years ago when the iPad launched; the second generation Apple Pencil is the difference-maker. I feel completely comfortable now using it to sketch and build tone; that was not the case when I first used the “Pencil” by “53” (a kind of “advanced”, wood-encased stylus), as well as the first generation Apple Pencil. It definitely takes practice, and the new Apple Pencil is an enormous improvement in so many ways (weight, length, balance, surface finish). But using the app, I’ve found that I can clip and re-arrange little areas, save different versions, and erase without concern for the paper surface – it’s an evolved drawing tool. This kind of creative work is something that the iPhone and the Mac cannot easily match.

But now, more than when I started, and especially since Apple released iOS 13 late last year, I use the iPad as my “daily driver” tech device. My iPhone is my road device, and it’s my camera. My MacBook is my heavy-lifting device, and is only really used when I need to do specific, bigger (and generally more private) tasks – personal finances, database and spreadsheet stuff, and media work. When I travel, all I need now is my iPad; my MacBook stays private and safe at home. The latest iOS 13 allows me to multi-task and, for example, flip through my photos while I edit my blog in the “desktop” browser. I can retouch the images, and trim them up before I post them to Blogger. It’s just as good as my MacBook for most things.


One of the other work-flows I employ is for adding place-marks to my Maps “Collections”. For example, I’m reading José Saramago’s Journey to Portugal, and I can follow his trip around the country, zoom into satellite views, tap the location marks to get more info, and save interesting sites to my list. Similarly, while watching YouTube vlogs, I can research locations, and add new sites. Then, when we’re wandering around Portugal, with my Collections synced, all those place-marks will pop in my Maps view on my iPhone. Again, the touch interface and the tablet form factor make this kind of interaction and research super comfortable.


I think back to when I brought my first iPad to work, and a colleague asked whether he should get one. He bemoaned, as many did, that it was just “a big iPhone”. I recall asking him to consider that: it's a big iPhone – what’s wrong with a big iPhone? He shouldn’t despair it; he should celebrate it. And even as we celebrate this anniversary, we recognize that there is so much room for the iPad to grow and evolve into something even more.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Campo Grande - Three Small Museums


All around Campo Grande there are big municipal institutions including the Universidade de Lisboa, and the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (think Library of Congress). There are also some nice small museums; our survey of three of them is below.

Museu Bordalo Pinheiro

Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (1846-1905) is a well-known Portuguese ceramist, illustrator, and satirist. There is a very nice museum dedicated to him and his work at the north-east end of Campo Grande; there is an older villa fronting the park, and a larger, modern structure behind. The current show is called "Pé d'Orelha: Conversas entre Bordalo e Querubim"; a conversation between Pinheiro and a contemporary ceramist and illustrator, Querubim Lapa (1925-2016). Interestingly, the literal translation of "pé d'orelha" is "foot of the ear", but is equivalent to the idea of having a heart-to-heart talk – I imagine two people laying head to foot. Some of the work you see in the images are by Lapa.

The show is wonderful, full of color and character. Some of the ceramic art pieces by Pinheiro are stunning in their detail and craftsmanship. The older "villa" part of the museum contains a display from the museum's collection, with some amazingly large pieces, along with Moorish-styled and art nouveau tiles.

 

 

 

Museu de Lisboa, Palácio Pimenta

On the other side of Campo Grande, the north-west end, there is one of the City Museums of Lisbon (Museu de Lisboa), the Palácio Pimenta (see the stair lobby above). This museum is associated with the Teatro Romano and a few other museums under the City Museums banner. Unfortunately, the main level is closed for reinstallation, so we content ourselves with a presentation of drawings, documents, and ephemera documenting the development of the city. Outside the Palácio, there is a large formal garden. The garden is home to a family of peacocks as well as a gallery of contemporary art that does not seem to be accessible from anywhere but the Palácio.

To one side of the Palácio, the garden is walled-off, and inside there is another formal garden filled with ceramic pieces by Pinheiro: in the fountains and pools, in the tall hedges, hanging from the knotty trees, and on the sun-lit Palácio itself are all manner of crabs, frogs, monkeys and lizards. 

 

 

Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal

At the opposite end of Campo Grande, the south-west end, is the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal; it's basically on the other side of the park from our apartment. Inside the Biblioteca is a terrific gallery currently presenting a print show: "Volta ao Mundo: Obra Gráfica de José de Guimarães". The gallery rooms and passageways are colored and shaped like pieces from his prints. The primitive masks and art pieces appear to be inspirational items from the artist's collection.

The artwork is bold and colorful, and the imagery is reminiscent of the big modernists: Picasso (specifically named), Matisse, and Miró. Other well-known contemporary artists seem to be paraphrased: Robert IndianaArthur Dove and Kara Walker come to mind. The Kara Walker connection hits me funny as there may be some misplaced "American" concern for cultural appropriation, but reading more about de Guimarães, it seems much of this imagery expresses his criticism of Portugal's colonial past.

The show's title suggests a trip around the world; the work and the show are both very compelling.

 


  

 

 

  

 

Friday, January 10, 2020

de Fora - the Outside


I am recovering from a virus I caught during our trip home to Boston and San Francisco. Though the weather has been very mild, especially compared, I have been reluctant to go out, but am feeling fairly recovered today. So it's a good day to get outside: metro to Santa Apolónia and work our way back uphill through a series of churches.

Actually our first stop is lunch at Taberna Albricoque. Right near the station, this place is the source of my new favorite hot sauce (Piri-piri Bertílio), which is sold in little jars. Less like a typical sauce, it's thick with malagueta chilis and good Portuguese olive oil (azeite), so it doesn't pour. My chestnut and oysters soup is followed with a grilled pork sandwich doused in the sauce. Delicioso.

Our next stop is the Igreja de Santa Engrácia, the Panteão Nacional (National Pantheon) of Portugal. We had found and walked around this building in previous visits, but we never found the way in. Today we find the entrance is not on a main street, but off a steep, crooked side street – easier to find, it seems, if you come at it from the downhill side. It is a surprisingly clean neo-classical block: no tile panels, no big graphics, no graffiti. The dome, it turns out, is a much later addition to the chunky base, but it is the dome which creates an identity and a marker in the Lisbon skyline.

 


 

 

The building itself is eminently explorable, with lots of balconies and landings from which to look into the central space. Interesting that the exterior should have a flat roof, but the dome is built on a series of pendentives and half-domes. Climbing the stairs to the gallery, you can clearly see the change in the age of the stones just as you approach the roof level. The exterior walls at each arm of the cross, are circular, so one imagines that the left-over, inverted-wedge of space is up there under the roof, but with no other expression on the outside.

The base of the church dates from the late 1600's. A display of early images of the church shows the building's central opening with no roof, or with a low, flat cap. The tall drum and dome are from 1956-66, so total construction took nearly 300 years. As I researched the church for our visit, I came across the term "Obras da Santa Engrácia", which refers to "never-ending projects". However, I think it's important to point out the building stood idle for a long time, and-or was used as storage space and even a shoe factory, so the meaning of that phrase ought to be about keeping an interest in finishing something, as much as the scale of a project. Regardless, it's quite a beautiful place.

 

 


Just up the hill is the Igreja e Mosteiro de São Vicente de Fora. The "outside" refers to the monastery's being outside the city walls. We have walked around this place several times as well, but the church was never open. Between the Pantheon and the Monastery is the Campo de Santa Clara, the site of the Feira da Ladra (Thieves Market) and a gathering space for the neighborhood, and we've walked through the Campo a few times.

The Igreja is connected to the Campo by a narrow street (Largo de São Vicente). The street is bounded on one side by the outside wall of the church itself, and on the other by a fragment the city's ancient wall – which, I suppose, is the wall the Monastery is "outside". The church itself, which dated from the late 1500's, holds some interest: a long, barrel-vaulted nave, with shallow transepts, and the same kind of flattened, octagonal "dome" that might have once been on the Pantheon. The dome is pierced by several standard-looking arched windows, like they were pulled out of a catalog; seems odd to see them at such an angle.

There are some unusual variations in the forms of the classical architecture. It is doric, but the way the pilasters are designed makes the reading a little difficult: the corners of the abacus sweep outward, there are leafy decorative panels which read as part of the capital, and the triglyphs are replaced with brackets.

 

 

On the other side of the Igreja from the wall is the Mosteiro. The monastery, visible from the roof of the Pantheon, is quite long – almost as long as the train shed where we started the day. Entrance to the complex is from a a small courtyard at the foot of the stairs to the church; so you enter from below.

The first feature is the cistern. As the church and monastery were built and re-built for hundreds of years, starting in the lower levels is a look into the past: old construction is integrated into newer construction, or broken away to allow access, while other parts are left to fall away. It's fascinating to me, but there is precious little visible here. Climbing the stairs, we arrive at a large entrance hall, the painted ceiling faded by time, and the walls covered in tile panels.

 

 

We enter the first of two cloisters; wonderful, bright archways filled with more tiled panels, illustrations of a series of fables written by the French poet, La Fontaine. From the cloisters we find a series of smaller tomb rooms and chapels, including one room holding the Braganza Family (the Royal Pantheon). It is surprising in its simplicity, ornamented almost solely by crowns and marks of office, and the statue of a hooded figure, weeping – upon entering the room you feel as if you are interrupting a mourner.

The fables continue along the stairs and up to the gallery level, where there is a show explaining the fables and showing more tile panels. Next to the stairway, there is an outdoor space facing west towards the river with wonderful views of the Alfama. Continue up, with more tile panels, and we emerge from the bell tower and onto the roof of the church. More amazing views, but we can also now look back down into the cloisters with the sun setting beyond.

 

 

 

Finishing at the monastery, we continue up the hill to the Igreja Paroquial e Convento da Graça. This is the complex that is visible from the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte. Unfortunately we are too late to enter the church, but the evening lights come on just as we arrive at the miradouro, and the view is fantastic.

We end the day at Carpintarias de São Lázaro, an art space where we attend the opening of Fim da Terra:
 "a multimedia project, with an interactive installation, film projection, as well as performance"
In a large, below-ground industrial space, a series of posters are laid out between areas bounded by cardboard boxes; an app is used to view the media and hear the various artists involved – very difficult to understand given the performance (singing interview?) and the other visitors. Unfortunately, the posters are accompanied by burning incense, and this triggers Donna's asthma, so we cannot stay long.

Perhaps the presenters might suggest headphones or something; there seems to be a dystopian-tinged theme which appeals to me. Though turns out you can use the app by aiming your smartphone camera at the images on the web site (not all the images are posted), so anyone can try it out. In the end I am still feeling left out: can't keep up with the Portuguese rap, and the images don't tell a cohesive story out of context (maybe even in context). Still it's always worthwhile to get out and try new things.