We are in Barcelona.
We have an appointment with a PLOM family.
Today we visit the home of Alma (6 years old), a very special girl who believes in the Superpowers of Art.
Like her mother, Núria, who is an interior designer.
And like her father, Nicolás, who is an architect. PLOM: Why do you believe in the Superpowers of Art? NÚRIA: Art helps us to know more about the world, about others and about ourselves.
NICOLÁS: Art allows us to get excited.
ALMA: And me because, since I was a child, I have liked to paint and look at paintings.
What to do inside a work of art
PLOM: Which of the Plom paintings you have at home would you like to get into?
And what would you do once inside? NICOLÁS: I would choose the one by Marta Gustems: Fall.
The one where there are two children with a wooden bike on the ground, over a stretch of water.
Personally, what makes me most curious is the strip of water, so, in all likelihood, I would go in there and investigate where it comes from.
If it has rained or if it comes from a faucet, from a hose? 
At Alma’s house we found an original watercolor by Marta R. Gustems entitled Fall. In our SHOP we have other works by Gustems that you may like.
We can also see a piece by Joan Brossa belonging to a limited series of posters.
In our SHOP we have other similar pieces.
NÚRIA: Yes, it’s a watercolor that we liked from the moment we saw it.
It takes me back to Alma’s childhood, when she used a bike similar to mine.
If I entered it, I would imagine that the whole white background of the paper is snow, I would roll on it and play at making angels with my arms and legs.
ALMA: I would also take the wooden bike! (laughs) I also really like the poster of the Vall Karsunke’s mousetrap.
I would get inside and dress up as him, with his big round ears and that mouse nose. 
Here we see one of Vall Karsunke ‘s ratolins , belonging to our first collection of posters .
Do you like it?
Visit our SHOP. If you prefer an original Karsunke, HERE you have one.
Songs to dance with the family
PLOM: What is your favorite song to dance to together? NÚRIA: Impossible to choose just one!!!
To dance with the family, Me voy a ir, by Jenny and the Mexicats. Besides, you just have to listen to it and go into summer mode. To dance together, Tomeu Penya’ s version of Illes dins d’un riu with Adriana Ceballos .
“Art helps us to know more about the world, about others and about ourselves”. NÚRIA (Alma’s mom)
NICOLÁS: From Colombian music, the version of La tierra del olvido, by Carlos Vives; Pescao envenenao, by ChocQuibTown, and several by Bomba Estereo. Alma is now in full flamenco mode, as well as Estrella Morente, Rosario, María Jiménez? ALMA: And also all the ones I have prepared for the music concert. “Un rayo de sol, oh, oh, oh, oh” (singing while dancing).
I draw, paint, color, mold, cut and paste.
PLOM: What do you like best: drawing, painting, making collages, working with clay or plastelina…? NICOLÁS: For me, drawing.
I spend the whole day drawing!
Partly because my profession has to do with drawing -I’m an architect- but, above all, because it has always given me great pleasure to do so.
I use a notebook that I carry everywhere, and also napkins, placemats, envelopes, etc.
Whatever I have at hand.
Drawing also helps me to think and to explain things… I explain better with a pencil in my hand than with words!!! 
“We draw, we paint with watercolors, with acrylics, we make collages, and, above all, we mix some things with others”. NÚRIA (Alma’s mother)
NÚRIA: I totally agree! (laughs) It’s very hard for me to choose a technique.
It depends on the moment and the mood, but at home, in general, all of them are appreciated.
We draw, we paint with watercolors, with acrylics, we make collages, and, above all, we mix some things with others.
For Alma, the more techniques mixed, the better.
In that sense, for Alma, more is more. ALMA: All five things.
And I really like to make a painting and crafts with things I pick up in the park and recycled things.
ALMA: Oh, yes!
And drawing in my secret notebook (his diary).
A family with artistic superpowers
PLOM: Which of the works (drawings, paintings, collages…) that you have made have turned out so well that they deserve to be hung in PLOM Gallery?
Tell us what it looks like, with what materials you made it and what inspired you. NICOLÁS: A few years ago I made a drawing in my notebook in which I started to deform a grid of vertical and horizontal lines, until the squares became trapezoids of different sizes and proportions… All different.
I filled them with three shades of gray (light, medium and dark), and in the end, the result was a very abstract drawing that looked as if I had made a lot of folds in the sheet.
This drawing started as a game, without any kind of objective or precise inspiration.
We had it framed at home for a while until we moved. 
“I really like to make a picture and crafts with things I pick up in the park and recycled”. ALMA (6 years old)
NÚRIA: A Wallpaper guide to Paris that I transformed into a “useless book” in an exercise for a picture book self-publishing course.
I multiplied the Tour Eiffel, the symbol of the city, on the map of the guide.
The rest of the pages I glued them in blocks and cut three islands out of them with a cutter.
My goal was to remove the guide, through an aesthetic intervention, its function.
I also have a pencil portrait of Alma that I am especially fond of, and finally, and because of the love with which I did it, a drawing with colored pencils of Alma playing with my father that she asked me to do for her when he passed away this year.
ALMA: The one I have of Picasso’ s blue lady . There is a lady drawn with many blues, putting more or less water, with some magic watercolors, because behind the watercolor cards you can see the color you are going to paint but in front of it a very different one. 
“In Bogota, Alma would sit on the floor of the museum with her notebook and her colors to copy in her own way the paintings that caught her attention. It was a nice way to bring her closer to art”. NÚRIA (Alma’s mother)
Art to admire, art to inspire
PLOM: Which exhibition did you like so much that you would visit it every week without getting tired of it? NÚRIA: The last one we visited with Alma was Cy Twombly ‘s at the Pompidou Center in Paris. The color, the contrast, the calligraphic strokes and the spontaneity of his work and the layout in this museum have made it a very special exhibition.
NICOLÁS: I couldn’t go to the Cy Twombly exhibition that day because I was working on a photo reportage, but I would definitely go back again and again to the Pompidou to see the private collection they have. 
“I spend all day drawing! Drawing helps me to think and to explain things… I explain myself better with a pencil in my hand than with words!!!”
NICOLÁS (Alma’s dad)
NÚRIA: But I have to say that I have a special affection for Botero’ s personal collection that the artist donated to the Banco de la República de Colombia.
This collection, which has paintings by Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Klimt, Matisse, Chagall, Monet, Miró, Picasso and Dalí, among others, and several by the artist himself, is a great little collection of modern art.
Besides, the place where it is exhibited, in a beautiful colonial house in downtown Bogota, makes it a very special place and we have been able to enjoy it a lot (admission is free!) during the year and a half we lived there.
In fact, it was the plan for many afternoons with Alma, who would sit on the floor with her notebook and her colors to copy in her own way the paintings that caught her attention.
It was a nice way to bring her closer to art.
ALMA: I really liked the exhibition at the Museum of the World that I went to visit with the school.
I loved a painting that was like Jesus because, as my grandfather has died, I think of him a lot when I see him.
And it’s like a cross with my mother next to it. 
PLOM: Alma, would you have liked to have known your parents when they were little, what would you have played with them? ALMA: ¡¡¡¡¡¡Síïïïïïïïïïíííííííí!!!! A lot, a lot.
I would have played tag, hide-and-seek, and pick-a-doodle.
