Hello Lovelies!
Today I’m posting a few of the mosaics I’ve created over the past gazillion years. What a joy it’s been! I’ve taken a break lately due to wrist issues, but I’m slowly making my way back in and loving it. The new pieces will be smaller (grumble), but they’ll still be a joy. They range in size from 8 x 8 inches to about 14 x 20.
Who has a favorite?
When I first made this trip 20+ years ago, we traveled across the Pan Am Highway, her roads broken into car-sized holes that slowed the journey considerably. It didn’t bother me an ounce, because travel teaches us truth. And during every visit since, I’ve watched Costa Rica blossom in so very many beautiful directions. I pray it will always be so.
And now, once again, we’re here! First, we’ll enjoy a beautiful three-hour journey through the countryside. Along the way, we’ll pass small houses with colorful laundry hanging, stalls selling creches and life-size deer figures, and vast fields of sugar cane. The backlit fronds of the cane will compete for our attention with their feathery tufts.
The roads are hilly and winding, with lushly planted homegrown guardrails of Dracena protecting against the steepest drops. Fortunately, traffic is mild. A small white dog trots up the road; a hilltop palm missing most of its fronds arcs leeward in the mist. I spy a rounded tree literally covered with white birds — at least 50 of them — and again, I wonder.
Halfway through the drive, we stop for coffee and the skies open wide for the twenty minute afternoon rain. When we pile back into the van, mist has settled onto the hairpin turns taking us down the mountain, but not enough to obscure the drive of banana, coffee, bougainvillea, citrus trees, dracena, palms, unfamiliar tropical fauna with giant leaves in every shape, blooming brush, and one surprising stand of three-needled pines.
Bridges become more frequent as we cross rocky streams and rivers, each path only one-laned, making a gentle dance of transport vans and the occasional bus or truck. Most of the locals walk, wisely against the traffic but still along the road with neither sidewalk nor shoulder for safety. Small signs advertise local businesses: “Many Meaty Dishes. All Meatless. All Tasty.” The rafters of a porch along the roadside support 20 bunches of bananas hanging by ropes. We pass through several small towns, and as the 5:00 sunset moves in, the people double in number — there is so much walking through the nightfall, and I hope hard that each arrives home safely.
We reach Finca Luna Nueva at what seems like 10 or 11 PM, though it is actually closer to 6:00, and we ascend the gravel just as moonstain moves in, spreading her welcome across the sky.
The lovely ladies of the lodge feed us well — offering chicken with saffron rice, soup, organic spinach, juices and salad from the farm, and I’m fast asleep before 9:00, tucked away in my little cabin with Costa Rican breezes blowing through.
I pray it will always be so.
P.S. Twenty years of visiting Costa Rica regularly, and I’ve never, ever tired of it. Bring it on in January 2024!
Late Bloomer, © Pam Goode. Glass, Stone, Beads, Thread, Carborundom
I still remember, and always will, the moment I decided to draw. Pretty much everyone in my family was artistically inclined, and at 7 or 8 I wanted to try my hand. I scrounged up a pencil and some paper and set to it — nothing too difficult — just a self portrait (insert laughter and/or groaning here). I was pretty chuffed at the result, but it only took one comment from one person (who was NOT an artist), to send me right back to the closet for a few decades.
Older and wiser, I now realize that art is created differently by each of us; that art has deep power no matter the subject or colors or latest craze; and that whatever originates from your hand and eye always, always contains something magical.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
1) Do it your way. Do it every way. If your art looks just like the photograph, what’s the point?
2) It doesn’t matter if anyone likes it. Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter if YOU like it. We’re here to create, to learn from both our successes and failures, and to keep at it. Don’t allow your psyche to get stuck on any one piece. It’s a waste of your time. Keep creating.
3) If it moves you, it will move others. Work in a vacuum. Don’t listen to anyone. Follow your heart.
4) And then get out of the vacuum. Input feeds output. If you don’t point your brain in a new direction every now and then, it gets crusty and stale.
5) People, and often strangers, will sprinkle insights here and there that never occurred to you. It’s a gift. Take it!
6) Step back. Look away. Reunite. See with fresh eyes. If something nags at you more then once or twice, rip it out, smooth it over, and make it speak your voice. That’s what we’re here for.
7) Do I still draw? Yes I do, but now I do it with thick glass instead of a skinny pencil. Find your passion.
Pam Goode Writes 