 |
| all pictures in this post are screenprints from the video in the documentation |
The shell-decorated house in this post is located in Albuñuelas, a small village of around 800 inhabitants (2024) in the province of Granada, situated near the coast in southern Spain.
These decorations were created by Francisco Palma Jimenez. born in 1933.
Life and works
The village's economy is primarily focused on citrus fruit cultivation, and young Francisco quickly became involved with the locals working in this branch of agriculture.
As a result, his time at school was limited to just a few months, and he had to learn to read and write largely on his own.
Francisco married a neighbour girl, and the couple would have three children.
He was an enterprising man and built his own house on a plot of land next to his parents' house.
That turned into a project that took about 32 years. He worked on the construction when he wasn't working seasonally, successively during the olive harvest, the tomato season, and the grape harvest, for which he went to France.
But the project's duration was also influenced by his intention to decorate the house with shells, both inside and out.
He searched for them on the nearby beaches along the Mediterranean Sea, where he collected over two million shells, while he also collectid fossils found around Albuñuelas.
There was, of course, a practical reason for covering the house walls with shells, as it eliminated the need to re-whitewash them every year.
But more than this practical consideration, there was Francisco's artistic need to decorate his house beautifully.
Like he made his own planters decorated with cement flowers, and he made a collection of various tools and carved stone heads, while thousands of pumpkins adorn the ceilings of various rooms.
Hundreds of objects he made from esparto grass hang from the kitchen ceiling, ranging from a complete donkey to small baskets, saddlebags, coasters, mats, several bull heads, and even bras made from this material.
On one wall, he has another unusual collection: forty walking sticks made of wild olive wood.
Francisco Palma Jimenez, who was in his early 90s at the time of publication of this article, is a friendly man who is happy to give visitors a tour of the house and garden.
Documentation
* Article (2025) by Miguek Angek MolinePalma
* Article (2015) by Jo Farb Hernandez on the website Spaces Archives, with a variety of pictures
* Article on the website of the Town Hall of the municipality of Durcal
* Article (September 2006) on the website of newspaper Granada
Video
* Video (2022) by Serflac, the scenes of the shell decorated house starts at 13.20
Francisco Palma Jimenez
House decorated with shells
8 Calle Morales
Albuñuelas, Granada Province, Spain
visitors welcome
No comments:
Post a Comment