Visit to Fernando Llort’s Gallery "El Arbol de Dios"

  Fernando Llort, born in San Salvador in 1949, is a well known and influential artist here. Today I visited his gallery in Colonia Escalon.  The parking entrance features his colorful murals; the inside has several rooms lined with his paintings, lithographs, and ceramics; others are dedicated to creation.  Visitors included a busload of teenagers, three Italian businessmen, and some traveling Salvadorans who were about to head to the beach.  Llort’s artwork is available for sale, and includes beach towels, bookmarks, and colorful wooden boxes.  I came home with some cloth napkins depicting happy scenes of life in the countryside in El Salvador.  

The cacophony of sounds I hear from our new apartment

~dogs barking

~tropical birds singing, “tuu-weet! tuu-weet!”, “tweet!”, “twee-uh-wee-uh-weet!”, “brruh, brruh, brruh" 

~the aerating swimming pool five floors below

~an old woman shouting “pan!” (bread), "empanadas!", carrying a large round basket on her head maneuvering the neighborhood on foot

~someone singing

~the shouts of a school teacher at a school for kids with special needs “bravo! bravo!”

~car alarms

~the loud speaker atop a van driving by advertising something, I don’t know what

~fireworks (day and night) though they sound a lot like gunshots

~a ringing bell by a man selling paleta’s (popsicles)