It's a busy day before traveling tomorrow to Beirut for a two-month residency. I'm going to concentrate there in local themes but meanwhile Virginia and her team are painting in Talavera my new series of ceramic plates that will be exhibited next February at Arco Madrid. Today I'm going to see the first finished plate.

As an artist I'm filled with enthusiasm for going to Lebanon but as a father of a family it's sad to be separated from my kids so long time. Living in a small village but working with global themes requires me to travel and extend my horizons periodically. I don't want to be too dramatic because there are millions of people in the world that must work always far away from their families. And I'm going to back home for Christmas!

Yesterday I had a meeting with Alexis in Madrid to talk about our future projects but it seems that the future of the city is darker than any dystopia I have imagined. I took the metro from Principe Pío to Atocha and passed by Puerta del Sol, the station at Madrid's emblematic homonymous square, the kilometer zero, the conceptual center of Spain where all the roads begin. Astonishingly, the metro stop had been renamed and now it's called vodafone Sol (sic, with the lower-case letter). The ruling conservative party is privatizing the symbols of the nation. What's next? Maybe the capital city of Spain is going to be called Santander.

I’ve lived ten years permanently in Spain but it has been difficult, if not almost impossible, to penetrate the Spanish art world. In 2003, I thought I was going to be a Spanish artist but that has never happened. I have had some shows here but my presence as artist in Madrid has been anecdotal.

I hope the situation changes, when I show my works in February at the Arco Madrid art fair. Actually, I hate art fairs but Arco has a very special meaning in Spain. Unlike other fairs, it’s something very popular, the only art event that my parents-in-law know. Many Spaniards go to see contemporary art only once a year and, absurdly, they don’t head to a museum but to Arco.

Ironically, I’m not presented at Arco by a Spanish gallery but Korjaamo Galleria that represents me in Helsinki. Finland is a the invited country of the fair and Korjaamo is one of the eleven Finnish galleries participating. After ten years, I’m showcased in Madrid in a context of exotic art from Finland. At least, I’m making sure that my work is 100% Spanish, made in Spain, about Spain for the Spanish public.

I haven't been working very regularly lately. My son started school this month and the first week he had only one hour class per day and last week a half of an hour more. I've been more a cab driver than an artist. This week I'm finally back in business and working on several projects before the routine breaks again - 15th of October I'm off to my two-month residency in Beirut.

I'm still obsessioned with the red monchromes and I've been trying to paint a big canvas with enamel but I don't manage to get it enough glossy and even. My wife had an idea that I should ask an automotive painting workshop to do it. I thought it was a stunning solution and I went to the place where they have fixed damgages of my vehicle but, unfortunately, they didn't get what I wanted them to do. I must try another place and not to mention that what I'm doing is art - but just tell that I want a red square to be painted on a canvas.

There are thousands of artworks about Coca-Cola and that's why I've tried to avoid it as a too obvious content or target. Now share Coke campaign started in Spain - they print the most common first names on the bottles and cans - and I felt that I had to do something. I went to Carrefour a got some soda and wrote on them with acrylic color second names to accompany the printed first name.

This is my list that will be continued: Diego Maradona, Julia Roberts, Carlos the Jackal, Teresa of Calcutta, Silvia of Sweden, Manuel Noriega, Rafael Nadal, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Miguel de Cervantes, Isabel the Catholic, Paula Abdul, Oscar Wilde, Alejandro Sanz, Marina Abramobic, Mario Draghi, Eva Longoria, Julio Iglesias and Salvador Allende.