A Wednesday of the past and present

We started the day by waking up late -- Rafael and I's bedroom shares a window/wall with the dining room, and I was woken up by our mamatica letting us know breakfast is ready. Already, I was in a rush to be up and brush my teeth since we were to meet everyone at the bus stop by 8 -- it was probably 7:15 by the time I started eating the amazing pancakes made for us.

We hurried to get dressed and called a ride to take us to the university due to our time pinch. As 8:30 rolled around, we were on the bus and off to San Jose again. Ange gave a talk on what to expect at the Meseo Del Jade (Jade museum) and how it was established, and how it's changed over time. We arrived and were given roughly two hours to explore the four floors of the museum with the permanent exhibits titled "The Jade", "The Day", "The Night", "Memory", and the fourth floor being dedicated to offices and additional miscellaneous ceramic collections. There were three rotating exhibits featuring work by Salvador Dali, local José Manuel Solórzano, and a local magical realism artist named Isidro Con Wong. I have a profound love and passion for archeology and art that is very old, so I admittedly poured more of myself into the permanent exhibits displaying the works of the pre-Colombian indigenous people of Costa Rica.

On the second floor exhibit, there was a diorama depicting a family spending their time together. In front, there was a few hinged plaques with depictions of each of the family members -- mama, papa, abuela, hermano, y bebe. Once you opened them, there were the lovingly made clay depictions of each of them -- mom with a nursing baby, abuela lounging, papa lounging, etc.

If there's one thing you need to know about me is that if I think about archeology or look at cave paintings for too long I start to weep. Like a baby. So this pushed me to that point just a little bit! Thinking about the love that has been persistent throughout human history, and the promises we make to the future by creating art to be found for people you'll never meet.. Ugh. I cried a little bit.

Hand drill used for jade extraction

Rocks that had their jade removed via twine extraction

I proceeded through the museum taking in what I could, attempting to translate what I couldn't, and found myself sucked in. Something I found notable was the raised details of the pottery -- fine texturing was very seldom to be found. The faces and hands were globby pieces adhered to the main body, very clearly little tubes rolled out to a minimum thickness to keep them from being broken off or eaten up by the firing process.

To the untrained eye, it looks exactly like the technique you would use to add a scary snake or polka dots to your pinch pot in elementary school. It would surely be an indication of lower artistic ability, right? I looked at these globby details and thought of all the pieces I've every tried to make with sharp, fragile embellishments that never make it past the air-drying phase without being crumbled off. These pieces were made with prior of knowledge of what does and does not stand the trials of time.

I feel confident in making this conclusion by comparing two of the many different mediums displayed in the museum -- gold vs. pottery.

Example of a globby, clay guy

The works of gold were at a much smaller scale with more comfort in lifted, sharper details. This, I believe, demonstrated a profound understanding in the nature of these materials.

Example of a pointy, gold guy (size of a US quarter, maybe)

In lieu of time, I'll briefly mention some of the things I found incredibly interesting about the people of the exhibit -- their use of stamps/seals dipped in inks derived from ash/plants to create temporary tattoos (with some cultures making permanent depictions via scarification), the displayed depictions of sexuality/genitalia reminded me that people have always been like that about sex, and the convergent evolution of people's beliefs. What I have in mind is the belief in the divinity of birds and how they bridged the human world and the world of the divine. This belief parallels a lot of indigenous cultures -- like the Haidi of what is called western Canada, Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), and the Cheyenne people just to name a few. It also parallels Christian depictions of angels clad with huge wings.

Another belief I found cool was the association of frogs with fertility. In a conversation with Tanya, she asked why there was that association. I thought that made a lot of sense -- come springtime

Resident fertility experts

(in Indiana, at least), there are heavy rains and lots of bodies of water for frogs to lay their eggs. As the weeks pass at ponds, lakes, streams, pools, etc, you'll not be able to see your feet with the number of baby frogs running around the place. When it comes to fertility, I'd probably look at the sheer amount of baby frogs and think "Yeah, they probably know what they're doing.". Additionally, male frogs can stay in amplexus (fancy word for "mating pose") on the female frogs' back for days at a time -- so they probably saw that too!

Resident fertility experts (pt. 2)

As our museum visit wound down, we walked through San Jose's Chinatown to get to the Artesan's market. I bought a bracelet made out of out-of-circulation 5 colones coins from a beader who's been crafting for over 20 years and walked back to the bus with the group. I ended up dealing with the peak of a migraine that'd been

brewing all day, and asking Angie if I could visit a pharmacy for migraine meds. I bought two pills (crazy to me), took one, and ended up taking the rest of the night to decompress. Before that though, we had a guest lecturer from ULatina coming to the university to come and discuss Costa Rica and it's current events, though admittedly I was still nursing my migraine through it. I'm blaming the trampoline park visit from yesterday for it.

Hope you enjoyed my spiels,

- Riley Ramsey