IMPORTS AND IMPRINTS

The plates here are plates I watched being thrown outside of Guadalajara Mexico some 35 years ago..I had exchanged my apartment in Silverlake (LA) for an artist's studio for a month in the summer.The family that made these plates were my favorite ....they had a sense of harmony and purpose...I purchased 6.. only one has broken over the years and they keep finding a new place to hang where ever we live.When I look at them I can still smell the dirt streets and the heat rising like a soft cloud, the smell of chicken fat heavy in the

air surrounded by all the noise and daily activity of life back then..Now the same spot has been transformed into a golfer's paradise and riddled with condominiums for visiting Gringos..A pink paradise..for me these plates remind me of the smell of wet clay,my hands taking command and the shape taking form as I pump a rusty pottery wheel.. They hang to remind me of a part of myself that sleeps but lingers forever.

The chest in the second photo is from Brazil..Someone has carefully painted chickens all over it..The paintings are wonderful, primitive but modern. This armoire reigns over our kitchen : our own chicken coop per say..It will travel forward with us when we move from here.

We are in the process of downsizing our lives since our children have moved to California. It is a gesture of embracing age and change which has so many layers I often feel as if I have cataracts over my visceral vision.. Change is constant ..change is inevitable...I know once I am installed in my new life I will embrace it but standing on the other side of the river,,I am trying to refresh my breast stroke..It all went too quickly..I am awaiting a new face of family.

Our daughter is part of the RAW movement and has taught us many nutritional facts and helped me to redesign how I prepare meals and eat..2 years ago we visited verdant Costa Rica with its overlay of McDonalds and development imprints..we found a beautiful home off

VRBO.com which was situated high in the hills overlooking the jungle floor and the ocean..The toucans would come out in the early evening ..mate..make noise..Occasionally we were lucky enough to have a wave of Mariposa butterflies fly by our shower window..It was magical..

Fresh fruit and vegetables were readily available by car on the open road..Our main food prep was either fresh juices or salsas eaten with fish or poultry or eggs..(Coffee was not scarce)

I don't think I have ever chopped more fruit in my life..

COSTA RICA SALSA

chop 1/2 pineapple into small di

chop 2 cups of watermelon into small pieces

chop 1/2 onion into small di

chop 1 cucumber peeled and seeded into cubes

Add the juice of 3 limes

salt

add green chili sauce to taste

add red chili sauce to taste

add 1 teaspoon of chili flakes

add 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro

Allow this to become itself for several hours covered in the fridge..

grab a tortilla....slice some grilled chicken..slice an avocado... blue blue flying by