The Artist Date is a weekly solo outing to nurture your creativity, part of Julia Cameron's method. In Buenos Aires you can do it at MALBA or Bellas Artes, walking through Saint Elmo, Recoleta and Palermo, getting lost in the bookstores on Corrientes Avenue or among the colors of Caminito. The rule is to go you alone and without productive objective.
The date with the artist, Buenos Aires style
La appointment with the artist It is one of the two tools of the method of Julia Cameron: once a week you go out you alone, a couple of hours, to do something that feeds your imagination. It's not work or paperwork: it's playing, looking, letting yourself be surprised. Buenos Aires, with its intense cultural life and walkable neighborhoods, makes it impossible to repeat an appointment in a long time. Here are twenty-two ideas by zone.
Recoleta and the north
1. The MALBA. Latin American art of the 20th century in a bright building. Choose a room and stay. On Wednesdays there is usually reduced entry.
2. The National Museum of Fine Arts. Huge and free collection, from European to Argentine masters. Impossible to get bored.
3. The Recoleta Cemetery. A city of marble and sculptures, labyrinthine and silent. Walking among its vaults is an intense aesthetic experience.
4. The Generic Floralis. The giant metallic flower that opens and closes with the sun, surrounded by a park. Sit down and draw it.
5. The National Library. Its brutalist architecture and reading rooms invite you to spend the afternoon among books.
Saint Elmo and the south with history
6. Saint Elmo during the week. Cobblestones, mansions, antique shops. Without the Sunday crowd, the oldest neighborhood breathes something else.
7. The Saint Elmo Fair, Sunday. Antiques, street art, music. Don't go shopping: go look at objects with history.
8. Caminito, in La Boca. The alley of colored plates that Quinquela Martín painted. Pure eye color.
9. The Quinquela Martín Museum. Next to Caminito, the work of the port painter, with views of the Riachuelo.
10. Plaza Dorrego with a coffee. Sit down and write watching the life of the neighborhood go by.
You don't have to cross the ocean to fill the well. It is necessary to cross your own neighborhood with the eyes of someone looking for the first time.
The appointment with the artistPalermo and the green
11. The Forests of Palermo. Lakes, the rose garden, paths to walk aimlessly. Walking is creative practice, and there is plenty of space here.
12. The Japanese Garden. An oasis of calm with its carp pond, its bridges and its careful silence.
13. The MACBA and the Sívori Museum. Modern and contemporary art in different parts of the city, to vary the visual diet.
14. The streets of Palermo Soho. Design, murals, author stores. A photographic walk full of color and ideas.
15. The Galileo Galilei Planetarium. Its futuristic building and its surrounding park are a good plan to look at the sky and dream.
The literary center
16. The bookstores on Corrientes Avenue. The street that does not sleep, with bookstores open until late. Searching through balances and news is a textbook appointment.
17. The Grand Splendid Athenaeum. One of the most beautiful bookstores in the world, in an old theater. I went up to a box with a book.
18. Café Tortoni or another notable café. Sitting alone in a century-old cafe, with a notebook, is like traveling back in time.
19. The Teatro Colón inside. A guided tour of one of the most important lyric theaters in the world fuels any imagination.
20. The Obelisk and 9 de Julio first thing in the morning. The widest avenue in the world, almost empty at dawn, is another city.
How to get more out of your date in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires has its own rhythm that should be taken advantage of. The city wakes up late and goes to bed very late, so the early hours of the morning offer empty streets and clean light, perfect for walking without people. The notable cafés—those centuries-old bars with mirrors and marble—invite you to stay for hours without anyone rushing you: I ordered a tumbado and opened the notebook, which is as much a Buenos Aires tradition as the tango.
Another advantage of the capital is that almost everything is walkable or connected by subway. I chose an axis every week—the museums in Recoleta, the literary one in Corrientes, the bohemian one in Saint Elmo—and walked through it without any rush. Pay attention to the everyday as well as the monumental: the used book stalls, the murals in a passage, a bandoneon player on a corner, the bookstores that don't close. The artist's raw material is not only in the great museums, but in the texture of a city that breathes culture everywhere. Carry a small notebook so you don't lose what you see.
To close
21. An art movie theater. An independent film screening, alone, in the middle of the afternoon, in one of the historic theaters in the center.
22. A coffee with a notebook anywhere. The simplest date—a table, a coffee, an hour to write while looking at the street—is usually the most fertile.
As in any city, the difficult thing is not choosing the place, but showing up. Put the appointment on the agenda with the day and time, go ahead even if it doesn't work, and don't turn it into paperwork. For more inspiration, check out our 50 date ideas and the guide to make them without spending a penny.
And one last piece of Buenos Aires advice: don't wait until you're inspired to go. Inspiration does not precede the quote, it follows it. You go out without desire, you walk for twenty minutes through Saint Elmo or you sit in a cafe in Corrientes, and suddenly something lights up: a phrase, an image, an idea for that thing that you had abandoned. That is the entire logic of the method. The quote fills the well; the morning pages, every morning, unlock it. Together they sustain your creativity over time, in Buenos Aires or wherever you are.