This image is a detail from a pastel painting I made in Costa Rica. It took a few days to get someone to help me carry plastic table and chairs up to my painting spot on the wild banana mountain. I went up there every day (almost). I preselected my colors and carried them in my back back. I had a light weight folding easel to carry over my shoulder. I loved painting on banana mountain. It was the opposite of what I love about New Mexico – New Mexico with its ancient mesas and the intense stillness of the sky. Everything in Cuidad Colon is moving. The banana trees I especially loved. They are mostly diagonals, and they point and wave and curl and the shadow and light are constantly changing.
There is no way to “copy” and I’m not interested in copying anyway. The colors I use express the energy of the place, not the locale’s “local” color. This is the second year that I have gone there to paint. I stayed at the Julia and David White Artists’ Colony for a month and I plan to go back next year. I recently came home, back to Santa Fe
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