The End of Week Two

This past week I helped a couple children with their drawing. I found a clay pot for a still life and we had a good "class" even though my Spanish was very poor. There was a lot of hand gestures. Others came by and wanted to join in. We decided to do it again and Eleanor will work with us, which will make it much better.

 

On Friday we joined the director Royce and Holgar, another artist-in-residence from Winnipeg, for a trip to the forest beyond San Ramon. We caught a cab in the center of the city and headed to Las Musas, a small water park and restaurant that overlooked a 200 ft. waterfall. Swimming, watersliding, hiking and lunch. A real find.

WorkDay

This week has been fruitful. We have both settled into our work- Eleanor developing sketches for an assemblage reflecting the extended family of our barrio... and I working on a series of small figurative abstracts. It is blended with conversation, copious amounts of food and drawing lessons for the kids. Con mucho gusto.

Eleanor getting some tips

Studio

New work

Committee of "critics"

moving with a purpose

The Children and the Master Sculptor

Barrio Copan has many casitas that are very humble full of people, especially children. They are always present due to their school vacation. The playground across from our house was community- built with the help of a previous artist-in-residence. 

We share our studio for a while

The farmers market is only on Saturday. We got there early to buy for the weekend when we are on our own. The weekdays we enjoy Dona Isabel's great cooking.

 

 

On the walk back from the market

Saturday afternoon we grabbed a bus in town with other artists and headed for Palmares and the Carnaval. Loud and colorful.

 

 

On Sunday we got another bus and headed up the mountain to Sarchi and Zarcera. In Zarcera a man has given his life to cultivating and sculpting the vegetation in the cathedral's park.

He and Eleanor chatted and we found that he had been working for 50 years for little pay from the church. He said that the faces in the shrubs were all him. I'm guessing it helped to depict himself. Very personal work of love.

 

 

A constant mist blew through the town. We climbed a street and upon turning were taken by a beautiful, and at that moment, a somewhat hopeful, rainbow. Que linda!

The bus returned to San Ramon via a higher mountain pass. Clouds filled the valley below... lined with tropical farms. We continue to absorb the nature/culture. It will inevitably inform our work here.

Dulce

We waited for a local bus beside the puperia (small grocery) to take us up the mountain. It came pretty much on time and we started a slow, winding accent, picking up others along the way. Passing lush, rolling hills of coffee plant fields we reached Trapiche, a stop with a small restaurant and our planned destination... a working sugar mill.

fresh cane

crushed in trapiche mill

stoking fire with dry cane leftover after extraction

cane juice cauldron

formed sugar

making candy

adding in peanuts, milk powder, lime

back down after big comida at the restaurant.. tamales in banana leaves

A Tropical Winter

Last week...

Eleanor and I applied and were awarded a residency in San Ramon, Costa Rica for six weeks this winter. Our departure is a week out and have, uncharacteristically, started packing early. It started last week collecting and purchasing art materials, choosing clothing, trying out different bags and most likely piling up too much. Now it is time to lighten up and finalize the list.

Today...

We flew south via Atlanta and landed in San Jose yesterday. We are sitting under a veranda with a warm breeze blowing waiting for our ride to pick us up. Then off to San Ramon to meet our host family and start working.

Out and About
Our host Royce brought a taxi to the airport and carried us and our supply-laden bags to San Ramon. It is a small unassuming city 45 minutes northwest. We went straight to Barrio Copan to meet our "homestay family", a welcoming woman named Isabel and her extended family that frequented the house, living close by. It was very typical Tico... warm, open and happy to share.

We soon left again with Royce and walked the streets to get oriented. A grid patterned cityscape with no street signs or house numbers, many small shops, a central cathedral, jardin, and no 'gringos' in sight.

Paint palette ideas

en la jardin

Gentleman

Vintage Land Cruiser

Storekeepers

Summer is Here

If you have been looking it is quite apparent that I have taken quite a posting sabbatical. There are reasons, but I tend to reason way to much. So I'll stop thinking and recapture the flow.

Our new "base camp" as we fondly call our house has a great vibe. We both have studios and its potential is just starting to open up. Eleanor and I have had a lot of resettling to do when it became apparent that we needed this place. Our vagabonding 'experiment' led us here and will continue with this place serving us as a pivot point... a useful point of departure.

Why Richmond? First, we had decided when we departed St. Augustine it would be our next stop after Iberia. It was Chloe's senior year and when she would make dance as well as perform other's work and we wanted to be in the same creative place. It was a remarkable choice for she excelled and we were right there, 12 hours closer than we had been. She will soon be leaving for the West Coast and we will continue with our work, our investigations and new plans yet to unfold.



Richmond, like us, is in a period of growth and creativity. The food is exceptional (a number of fun restaurants in our neighborhood) led by young chefs and entrepreneurs. There are scores of activists pushing to better present the city's southern history in new and more equatable ways. The river is a huge ever-present ecosystem that changes daily. And with VCUs cutting edge contemporary art scene... each year brings new work and expansion.

There are organic growers everywhere. The music scene is dense. The Chesapeake is an hour and a half east, the mountains the same west and DC is a $22 bus ride... round trip. Our neighborhood is progressive and we are making new friends each week. The downside... we miss our old friends. But we look forward to them visiting. I feel it will be well worth the trip.

New maritime work on steel...