Sagrada Família

Antoni Gaudí was no saint. His Sagrada Família is a beautiful monster—an engineered fever dream, a sandcastle visible from satellites, an atomic-scale vanity project that, for some, doubles as a religious awakening. I came to Barcelona intending to draw it, inside and out, but there was no universe in which my small hand, my small pen, my small sketchbook could contain that thing. I don’t know what I was thinking.

What fascinated me wasn’t as much the cathedral as it was the orbiting swarm outside: the awestruck crowds with their iPhones tilted skyward, the Gen Z’ers making selfies for their socials…the whole spectacle of devotion and self‑devotion colliding on the wet pavement. It rained on me—literally, psychically, atmospherically. So I zipped up my jacket, bowed my head against the downpour, and did the only thing I could. I put pen to paper.