update from Spain

A small update about our group's Flags for Peace activities:

The members of the artists group 'Roots' that are involved in the Flags project met last Friday evening to plan our activities. We met in Ana Carreras' studio and had a nice dinner after the meeting. I took this shot while we were seated at the dinner 'table'. From left to right: Birgit, Esther, Francesca, Angel, Lilianne, Jordi, Monica, Silvia and Ana. I was holding the camera.

We had fun and we also decided the course to follow. We are barely starting to create our flags, so I can't show you any yet. But we did make a definitive decision on how we will fly them. They will all be hanging together from a rope or wooden bar and we will be meeting with representatives of the local institutions to find a public space for them. Some alternatives (pending authorization):

* In the square in front of a fourteenth-century castle
* Near a Medieval stone bridge in Valderrobres (the main village in the area)
* In one of the main streets of Valderrobres

There are 18 villages in Matarranya (an administrative devision comprising a number of municipalities) and we will try to get them all involved, so that the children of each village participate in the project too, creating their own flags for 21 September. It really depends on the teachers in each village to organize workshops for the children for the occasion. Then there would be flags flying in each one of the villages, apart from our own flags. I think it's a wonderful idea and I do hope the teachers will collaborate. This way, the Flags for Peace Project would become a mass event in the area.

I must say the Flags that have already been posted in this blog are really inpired. I love the creativity and open-mindedness in them and the beauty of the resulting works. They make the project even more inspiring.

do flags have roots?

Hello everyone! This is Ersi, from Spain. I haven't posted anything in this blog for quite some time but now I have news about the 'flags for peace' project here.

I am part of a group of artists called 'Roots' and we all live in the Matarranya, a beautiful small county in Northeastern Spain. Please bear with me those of you who already knew that, I thought I'd go briefly through the details again for the artists that are newer to this blog.

We are a group of 26 and there are painters, sculptors, photographers, textil artists and mixted-media artists among us. We met last Wednesday in one of our (almost) monthly gatherings and the 'flags for peace' project was one of the issues on our agenda.

We met in a lovely place called 'Mas Marianets', a country house that also has space for exhibitions, workshops, etc. I felt like sharing some photos of our meeting with you, so you can be part of our gathering.

It's not always easy for 26 artists to commit themselves to one project, there are so many things that can get in the way: jobs, family, summer holidays, previous engagements... So, for the time being, only 10 of us have confirmed that we will fly our peace flags in September. We will hold a special meeting on the subject on 27 July and then I'll be back with more news and specific details.

Some of us will work with fabrics, others with paper and one sculptor is bent on creating an  iron flag! Mary Jane, I hope we won't put your patience to the test!

The main thing that still has to be decided is whether we will fly our flags individually (I am really looking forward to watching an iron flag fly ;) or as a group. The idea would be to join all our individual creations in a larger compound and set it out in a public space, where it would remain till the weather - and some art-loving by-passers - takes its toll on it.

I like the idea of a very large 'flag' that would be the sum of ten different parts. Peace will bring them together and their togetherness will strengthen the idea of peace.

The other important thing still to be determined is where the flag/flags will go. There were many lovely suggestions on this: 1. On a by-road skirting a forest. 2. On the shore of a nearby lake. 3. On a famous local mountaintop! (I think this one won't do at all. Not if people have to walk up steep mountain trails to find out what the heck that distant huge banner of sorts is.) 4. In the main squares of the villages in the county. This one is my favourite. It would be like an itinerant exhibition of our flags and it would also be a great way for the Town Halls to get involved in the project.

I am sorry I cannot show you any actual flags yet but we'll get there. We intend to have them ready by the first week of September. And we're sure to get the local media's attention too, on the project and on this blog.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour around Mas Marianets. I wish we could all meet in a workshop there sometime!