Central America Weekly Article
The Survivor
Ceramic Workshop in Central America: The Rainforest and the Volcanoes
Published on Aug 31st in the Tico Times

Don’t forget to visit the Art Program learn about these great course

Published on Aug 31st in the Tico Times
By Tien-Shun Lee

The first day art students Sarah Dahlberg and Lisa Glogower began working on a class project to make a piece of "ecological art with spiritual dimensions," they walked out of their project site completely covered with clay.

Dahlberg and Glowgower are two out of eight students enrolled in the Mixed Media in the Rainforest course at La Suerte biological research station.

"This is an art and ecology class where we use all natural materials and we think of being sensitive to the site," says course instructor Debbie Matthew. "The art is inspired by biological ecology, deep ecology where there is a spiritual connection, and social ecology."

While students in the primate behavior and ecology courses spend time conducting experiments in the rainforest to study animals and plants, students in Matthew's art class spend time discovering natural art studios in the rainforest, and "bonding" with those sites.

"There was energy and there was light dancing across the stream here," says Glogower of her project site. "It was never boring and rarely ever quiet the feeling we got was kind of like the feeling when you meet people and you know that you're going to get along well."

To help students become sensitized to their environment, Matthews tells students to write stream-of-consciousness in their journals about their surroundings, paying attention to what they see, hear and smell, and their feelings of comfort or discomfort. She also has students focus on textures and patterns in the rainforest, and tells them to think about reproducing or using these patterns when constructing their art pieces.

Students construct their art pieces in an enclosed studio as well as in the natural surroundings of the rain forest. The final product is an "installation" work, inseparable from its natural environment. Like its surroundings, it changes with time and is biodegradable.

"It's fun because we get to pick up anything off the floor and say, "hey we can use this for something," said Carrie Watterworth, a recent college graduate who majored in art.

One of the students' favorite materials is rattan, a stretchy vine that can be tied, braided and weaved like rope or string. Other natural art materials include seed pods, which curl up when dried and stretch out when wet, hibiscus plants, which can be boiled to make a blue-grey dye, and chote, a seed which can be mashed up to form a red powder.

For their "deep ecology" project, students spent four to six hours a day discovering and exploring their site, and thinking of ways to present it to an audience in a meaningful way.

"Most of our inspiration came from just being at the site for long periods of time and seeing what could happen," says Ephraim Peniston, who presented his site with his partner Chad Plunket by pouring bags of red clay into the river. The flow of water was punctuated by aesthetic constructions of circles, pyramids and curved lines of stones.

Plunket further connected with his site by having Matthews bury him in the sand after lunch one day.

"I don't want to be a separate entity anymore," he said. "I don't want to walk on the land anymore, I want to be the land."

Matthews encourages her art students to mix with the science students at La Suerte. Some mornings, her students go out on walks with bird or primate watchers. Other times, science students are invited to watch art students present their projects.

"It's a very interesting mix, us with the scientists," said Meg Glasser, as she pointed out floating bamboo gates which were left over from her second art project. "We come from very different views. We're always looking and hearing and noticing how the environment affects our five senses, rather than thinking about how much we know about these specimen."

According to Matthews, mixing art with ecology and nature is a growing discipline which encourages viewers to question and gain a deeper understanding of their surroundings.

In her course at La Suerte as well as in her classes at the University of Wyoming in the United States, Matthews encourages her students to think of art as more than commodities.

"There is a strong history of disposable art, with no waste," she says. "The art goes back into nature."

The course has helped many of the students focus on what type of art they want to produce in the future.

"I want to integrate my art into the community," said Watterworth. "This experience is one of the most awesome experiences I've had in art."

Art courses are offered only in the summer months and cost $1,500, transfers, food and lodging included.

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Central America Weekly Article
By Tien-Shun Lee

By the time lunch is ready, many students at La Suerte biological field station are ready for a nap. Some awoke at 4 a.m. to the calls of howler monkeys. Others woke up to census green poison dart frogs. All are working on field projects in the tropical rainforest, following the activities of animals in the wild.

Students present their data to classmates and faculty at the end of their month-long field course. This year, about ten college-level courses are being offered at La Suerte, the research field station located about half an hour from Cariari. The courses attract students from the United States and around the world to do hands-on primary field research in the station's 700 acres of primary and secondary forests, swamps, marshes and pastures.

Sarah Ballard, Matt Klein and Nate Elgart, three twenty-year-olds enrolled in Kim Dingess's field course "Primate Behavior and Ecology", talk about their research project over plates of lasagna and rice.

"This is probably the best day yet," says Klein. "Usually we have to wait an hour for the monkeys to come out. This time we only waited ten minutes."

Klein and his two partners are studying color preferences among Cebus capucinus (capuchin) monkeys. In order to test the monkeys' preferences, they dye three groups of peeled bananas different colors - red, green and yellow. They then place the bananas at two feeding stations, and wait behind a screen made of garbage bags for the monkeys to come out.

Today, the capuchin monkeys came crashing through the trees at 11:07, ten minutes after the bananas were set out at the feeding stations. They stayed around the area for about an hour, picking up one banana after another from the feeding station, with no apparent preference for color.

"It doesn't seem like any time at all - you're so busy watching them and it's so interesting," says Ballard.

Ballard and her partners came up with the idea to study color preferences of the capuchins after reading a paper written by Paul Garber, a monkey researcher at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Garber also set up feeding stations in the La Suerte forest, and tested monkeys to see if they could learn the difference between real bananas, plastic bananas and a yellow block.

"They're pretty intelligent," says Klein. "Relative to body size, they have the same size brain as chimpanzees."

Capuchins are probably smarter than howler monkeys, the students say, because they actively forage for food instead of just eating leaves. "The howlers just live in like a large salad bowl," says Klein. Compared to howlers, which spend 65% of their time resting, the capuchins move around a lot more, swinging from tree to tree and peeling away bark to find insects.

After lunch, a few groups go into the rainforest to collect data on howler monkeys, which have been spotted earlier in the day lurking by the La Suerte river.

One group brings a stop watch and binoculars so that they can record what one "focus" monkey is doing after every 30 seconds.

Another group brings along a tape recorder so that they can play a recording of howler monkey calls to see how the monkeys respond. For this group, it is the second time during the day that they are visiting the monkeys. The first time, they located the monkeys by their early morning wake-up call at a little past four in the morning.

Tom Herr, a master's student at the State University of New York at Buffalo, goes out to check on his green and black poison dart frogs (Dendrobates auratos). So far, he has identified 78 different poison dart frogs within a 48m by 35m plot of forest. Each frog has a different pattern of markings on its back, which Herr has sketched in to his notebook.

Herr spends so much time with his frogs, he can often name them by sight.

"Oh yeah, that's number 61," he says with confidence after spotting a large male frog lurking next to a tree trunk.

One day he spent eight hours videotaping a pair of mating frogs as they copulated and searched for an appropriate site to lay eggs.

"Sometimes is gets boring for sure, but when the interesting stuff comes, it pays off," he says.

Days seem to go on forever at La Suerte. Besides going into the rain forest to collect data on their research specimens, students also have lectures at night, and planned social activities, such as salsa dance classes. In the little free time they have left, they write letters, study notes, visit the local grocery store, and chat amongst themselves in the cabinas, where four or five people share rooms with bunk-beds.

"You get used to things out here, like the mosquitoes being all over you and the heat," says Ballard. "It makes you tougher." Some students complain that a month is too long to be living on a rainforest reserve.

"This jungle is kicking my butt," said one student as he limped along with a bad foot that had been attacked by carpenter ants.

Most are satisfied with their intense rainforest experience and would consider continuing with field biology. Elgart, one of the students working with capuchin monkeys, had no doubts about his future.

"This is what I want to do," he said. "That's why I'm here."

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The Survivor
Daniel K. Sokol, Green College

Still unpacking my backpack, a semi-transparent scorpion, claws open and tail poised, creeps under my cabin door and scuttles nonchalantly towards me. I scream for Jeff who arrives in a hurry from the adjacent room. An expletive. He pops back into his cabin and promptly returns with a gigantic Spanish textbook. Eyeing the scorpion's every move, he gently approaches it, holds the hefty volume directly above it, and lets go. The book crashes onto the floor with a thunderous thump. He missed. Following a few minutes of chasing, he eventually succeeds in slaying the beast with a shoe. If this intrepid feat earned him the nickname 'Scorps', it reflected poorly on me. I was soon stuck with the unenviable title of 'whuss of La Suerte'.

When I told my younger brother by e-mail of my imminent departure to the rainforests of Costa Rica, the title of his reply was not comforting: 'You'll never survive!!!!!!!!!!'. But of course I did. I am not the adventurous type, and suffer from a near-pathological fear of insects, as illustrated by my girlish shriek at the sight of the scorpion. A few weeks after the completion of my Finals, I signed up for a four-week course in Tropical Rainforest Biology at 'La Suerte', a biological field station encompassing 700 acres of forest in northeastern Costa Rica, and which offers winter and summer courses in a variety of disciplines. There were around 35 students, nearly all American and aged between 20 and 22. This American domination added extra dimensions to the course. Linguistic obviously, as they regarded my accent as the height of comme il faut, and as I assimilated their colourful phrases with evident glee: righteous, word, tight, to be 'down' (all words indicating approbation) and, of course, the compulsory inclusion of 'dude' in every utterance. Cultural also; in particular their intensely liberal attitude to everything. For instance, I once made the error of expressing my disapproval of women's boxing and, in the space of a sentence, I became Satan himself. These differences and the ensuing arguments were a constant source of entertainment.

The daily lecture, from 10h30 to 12h00, took place in hammocks (I suggest Oxford adopts this fine idea) and was given by Professor Vern Bingman, a reputed American neuroscientist, fervent admirer of Britney Spears and quite possibly the world's most deplorable dancer. In addition to these informal naps, sorry, lectures, the students gave regular presentations on some aspect of rainforest biology. One of my more memorable ones was on the Jesus Christ Lizard, so called because of its spectacular ability to run on water. Although unanimously considered entertaining, I failed to answer a single of the many questions asked afterwards. I thought this amusing, but Bingman seemed unimpressed by my apparent ignorance. In fact, besides from a rough annotated sketch of the lizard on a torn piece of A4 paper (later reproduced by the group on my birthday card), the only information I provided was the rather spectacular ability of this metre-long lizard to actually run on water.

The rest of the day was mostly spent in the forest itself, although there was always time left for a spot of horse riding, kayaking, table-football (in which I managed to regain an ounce of pride) and the occasional game of cards. We were usually woken up by 5am, either by the pitter-patter of the rain on the cabin roofs or the loud cries of the howler monkeys waking up in the neighboring trees. Four or five hours a day were spent meandering through the forests in search of wildlife, and examining the many species of flora and fauna found there. I relied on others to find them, as I was permanently looking at my feet, making sure not to tread on a discretely coiled-up, potentially lethal, pit-viper. The snakes were remarkably camouflaged and it would often be the fifth or sixth person down the line who would spot the snake, literally inches away from everyone's footprints. When found, one of these yellow 'caution' tapes, lined with skulls reminding me of a danse macabre, was put up on a nearby tree warning others of the proximity of this embodiment of death. We also saw sloth, a bat cave formed in the hollow of a fallen tree (not vampire bats, Bingman assured us...well, me), three species of monkey, tarantulas, caimans, hundreds of colorful birds and butterflies, and thousands of bromeliads, heliconias and other plant species.

And let us not forget our beloved mosquitoes and cockroaches. The latter are indeed harmless, but are nonetheless traumatizing. One evening, my neighbor Pat came into my cabin and asked me to inspect his latest discovery. Once outside, he pointed his flashlight at the bottom of a large box. Taking up half of it, was the most monstrous cockroach I have ever seen; picture a Harvey's ciabatta and mentally transform it into a cockroach. As a fellow student commented, no less than a leash would be needed to control that mammoth! I very nearly vomited. But, mosquitoes and cockroaches apart, the richness and diversity of the ecosystem, the visual intensity of the surroundings and this unique, sumptuous sound that emanates from all corners of the forest, make the walks an incredible experience.

By the end of the course, having seen and lived in the company of dozens of vipers and scorpions, bucketfuls of spiders, miles of cockroaches, trees full of blood-sucking, disease-causing bats (despite Bingman's repeated claims, I am absolutely convinced they were vampire bats!) and myriad other species risen from the depths of hell itself, I am proud to say that I am still a downright wimp. A wimp, however, who has lived through a fabulous adventure, discovered the richness of an unsullied natural environment, and who returns to the dreaming spires dreaming a little more than he did before.

Published in Cherwell newspaper, Friday 19th October, Vol. 231, No 3.

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Alumni

Ceramic Workshop in Central America: The Rainforest and the Volcanoes

This past summer, my wife, three students and I traveled to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for a month-long studio arts course. I coordinated a class, Environmental and Cultural Workshop in Art, that involved the creation of work based on the abundant flora and fauna of the Costa Rican rainforest and the overwhelming beauty and mystery of the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua. We also developed our art work through the study of Pre-Columbian culture, as well as the art and society of present day Central America. The environment was sometimes challenging, but always inspirational.

History Of The Two Stations:

The workshop was part of the summer class schedule offered through the La Suerte and Ometepe Field Stations which are owned and operated by the Molina family. The Molina's involvement in the development of these two stations begins with a turbulent history that has evolved into a successful personal, ecological, and educational venture.

The story begins in Esteli, Nicaragua where the Molina patriarch, Rene Molina, and his family had several successful enterprises. In the late 1960's,

Cuban business entrepreneurs went to Nicaragua looking for a place to grow tobacco for the manufacturing of cigars. They chose land close to the Honduran border owned by the Molinas, and asked then Nicaraguan leader, Anastasio Samoza, to help them contact the owner of the property. Rene Molina gladly leased the land, and through this experience, developed a good relationship with Somoza. Eventually, he became a congressman from Esteli.

As the political climate changed in Nicaragua, and the Sandinistas rose to power, the family's ties to Somoza had strong consequences. "Things started to get ugly in Nicaragua, and in 1978, our house in Esteli was burnt down by a mob (Turbas)," according to Alvaro Molina, one of the sons and the Station Administrator. "The local priest (the famous Padre Julio) tipped off the family, and we evacuated my younger brothers and sisters to Jalapa, where my dad had the Tobacco farm with an airstrip. A few days later, we left for Managua, and then we flew the entire family to Miami. We asked for political asylum, and a few years later we got it. By 1990, most of us were American Citizens."

In the early 1980's, an uncle moved to Costa Rica and started a cattle ranch. Rene Molina also decided to begin his own cattle operation. The Molinas rented, and then bought Finca La Suerte (Lucky Farm) in 1987. Alvaro Molina began vacationing at his father's ranch, and became interested in the possibility of using the rainforest as an educational tool. After a few failed attempts at recruiting students, Alvaro contacted Dr. Paul Garber, a Primatologist from the University of Illinois. After a visit to the station, Dr. Garber taught the first official class at La Suerte in Primate Behavior and Ecology.

The station in Ometepe, Nicaragua, came into being as a result of an optional ten day trip with students from La Suerte. Alvaro Molina went with them as a guide, and fell in love with the beautiful island.

"This was my first time ever on this island, and I got a guide to hike the Madera Volcano. When I got back, contacted Dr. Garber and told him that I had found paradise with lots of monkeys and asked him if he was interested in teaching there." After visiting Ometepe, Dr. Garber was enthralled with the wild monkey population, and offered to teach a class. The Molina family set out to find an area close to the Madera volcano. Because a new government was in Nicaragua, Rene Molina was free to travel again in the country, and had also become the Minister of Tourism. According to Renee Lucia Molina (note the extra "e" in the name), one of the Molina daughters and the station's Art and Administrator, "He started to claim land that had been confiscated by the Sandinistas. This land was occupied by government agencies, pinateros (land squatters supported by the sandinistas) or private agencies. The government gave him bonds for the land that was confiscated back in 1979 and that is how he was able to purchase the site of Ometepe BFS." They started construction on he new station in March of 1997 and finished on December 27th.

The development of arts courses can be attributed to Renee Molina, who has a Masters Degree in Architecture, and a strong visual arts background. As she explained: "Alvaro started bringing in mostly biology students to the station.

I realized how unfair it was that only biology students had the wonderful opportunity to visit the rainforest and study it. I thought artists would love to come here and experience its splendor and beauty as well. The rain forest needs promotion in its fight for conservation, why not allow art to become a voice?"

Renee designed several courses, including Mixed Media in the Rain Forest, which drew a larger and more diverse group of students eager to use the natural materials at hand. The latest addition in the arts program, Dance Choreography in the Rain Forest, offers students the opportunity to create in a living studio with a full sensory experience surrounding them.

La Suerte

Our experience began with a two- week stay in a rainforest in northeastern Costa Rica. We stayed in rustic cabins along the Rio La Suerte (Lucky River) and experienced an overwhelming presence of nature all around us. Besides the lush, dense greenery, there were a multitude of insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Every morning we would awake to the calls of howler monkeys, and would occasionally see a Toucan fly by as we headed for breakfast.

Our first projects involved getting acclimated to our new surroundings. We ventured into the rainforest with our drawing pads, covered head-to-toe in mosquito repellent. We saw green poison dart frogs as we entered under the canopy. As the forest grew thicker, we found strawberry poison dart frogs; Smaller creatures with bright red and blue markings. We were able to draw in the environment despite the fact that our paper was usually wet in the damp environment. Some students took to using watercolors on the pre-moistened surface.

One of our drawing projects involved the dance class. We hiked out to a clearing and drew expressionist, gesture based works as they danced among the twisted roots of a huge tree. As we worked, a group of howler monkeys journeyed across the canopy, moving effortlessly from tree to tree.

These drawings became studies for a later mural project based on our impressions of the environment. My group, students from other classes, and several local people from the neighboring town of Primavera combined stylized images of the wildlife and jungle into a large mural that covered one whole side of our studio. We began the work by collecting natural pigments from the rainforest and the station. Our goal was to only use materials that came from the subject we depicted and to not use binders so the work would eventually return to the earth. We used boiled hibiscus flowers for blue, canario flowers for yellow, moss for green, poke berries for purple, coal and wood ash for black and white, and a variety of local clays for reds, tans, and browns. The end result was a swirling myriad of shapes that moved around and through each other, representing the dynamic energy of the rainforest and its inhabitants.

As we drew and painted, we continually worked on small ceramic sculptures and vessels using different slips for surface color and design. Our studio was very simple, with two tables and a kick wheel based on a Nicaraguan design that positions the thrower at a slant with the wheel-head off to the left-hand side of his/her body. The studio was also a little dark, so we occasionally worked outside on folding tables. As we sculpted, we would be visited twice a day by a group of white-face capuchin monkeys and one lone spider monkey.

One of the drawbacks to our surroundings was that the rainforest is continually wet, and our pieces refused to dry. We ended up having to load a kiln full of damp ware, and lost a couple of pieces to cracking and steam-explosion.

Our wood-fired kiln was based on a Nicaraguan bread-oven design that is intended for low-fire ware. The entire structure, starting from the bottom, is built over a shallow pit (approx. 30" in circumference). Then, a small (approx. 16" high) dome of brick and refactory cement is built over the pit with a large hole (approx. 10"in circumference) at its crown and the side facing the stoke-hole. A double row of red brick is built up (approx. 60" in circumference) around this dome, allowing for an opening in the front for loading/unloading, and an opening at the base to push in coals. Clay tiles are laid to make up the floor, then an inner dome is built (a brickâs length in). The gap between the walls is packed with dirt or clay for insulation, and the structure is sealed with refractory cement. More detailed plans for these kilns/ovens can be found at pyromas@cam.org.

We began the firing with the door partially unbricked. A small fire was built at the entrance to the stoke-hole. When the wood became glowing coals, we piled more wood on top. Slowly, we began pushing the coals into the innermost dome and eventually built up a bed that was hot enough to ignite wood instantly

as it was tossed in. My students and I cut up planks of wood from an old demolished shed with machetes to feed the fire. As we worked, struggling to split the boards, two women from Primavera watched me with amusement. One of them took my machete, and in two strokes, split the wood easily. The firing took twelve hours in all, and the work was fired to a low-bisque consistency.

At the end of our stay at La Suerte, we had suffered mosquito bites, lived with a myriad of exotic bugs, and walked carefully about at night looking for poisonous snakes. We also came away with a collection of great work and experiences-- and a variety of artistic inspirations we could take back with us.

Ometepe:

After the rainforest, my students and I were ready to create in a new environment. The next section of our class was held on Ometepe, a 276 square kilometer island that is home to two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.

Ometepe(a Nahuatl word that means "land of two volcanoes") is the largest Volcanic island in the world in a fresh-water lake. The two volcanoes that dominate its vista, Madera and Concepci—n, rise straight up over a thousand feet. The population of over 30,000 people are mostly decedents of the Niquirano Indians that regarded the island as a holy place. Petroglyphs can be found all over the island, and more are discovered every year. There are also unique examples of stone statuary and burial urns that can be studied up close without having to look through a glass case.

The Ometepe station felt somewhat like a resort. After a short boat ride across the lake, we walked out onto a private pier and walked up to our cabins. The red-tile roofed buildings are nestled under the huge presence of the inactive volcano, Madera, while on the other side you could look out across the lake that looked more like an ocean. Our studio was simply a table set up under the thatched communal space where all classes are taught in the open air.

Our first project involved designs based on petroglyphs. We went on a mountain bike ride across the dirt roads through the small town of San Ramon. Our guide, Rodolfo, took us on to a private property where dozens of petroglyphs could be seen. We hunted them out on the half-submerged rocks, and were told that during the winter (Nicaraguaâs winter is our summer) half of the ancient marking were hidden under water.

One of my goals while on Ometepe was to meet and work with some local potters. My group, and several other students, arranged a trip to Pul, a small community on the Concepci—n side of the island. We traveled by truck on the one road that circles the island, dodging potholes and the loose livestock and other domesticated animals that wandered freely throughout the island. We passed through many of the small, privately owned farms that are the livelihood of the inhabitants.

Our hour-long trip brought us to Altagracia, one of the two most important towns on the island. Right off of the town square, surounding a Catholic church, was one of the most impressive examples of Pre-Columbian statuary Iâve ever seen. Left out in the elements, these life-sized idols demonstrate the connection of Spanish and Indian ancestry as "pagan" and Christian symbols inhabit the most revered site in town.

From town, it was a two kilometer walk to the community of Pul. We visited the few remaining potters, and spent the day with them talking and learning about their work. Two years earlier, there had been a thriving community of potters in the area, but the ceramic trade didnât pay off for them, and one by one they left the collective theyâd formed to pursue farming full-time. One of the last hold-outs was Narciso Mena, his wife, and his nephew. Though Narciso told me he rarely had time to work in clay because of the necessity of feeding his family, it was still a duty of his to preserve this dying art in his community. His nephew, a young man with an amazing skill at hand-building stylized figures, expressed the same melancholy view (Note this is translated from Spanish): "I learned to work in clay from my mother. We used to have a lot of potters here, but now, theyâve lost hope. Iâve brought my work to Managua to sell it, but it costs money to take the ferry, and I donât always sell what I bring over. Iâve tried getting my friends to do work in clay, but they tell me Îwhatâs the point? Your just working in mud. How can I make a living out of this?â Iâll continue to work, but itâs very hard."

Narciso agreed to give us a demonstration on the wheel. I watched with respect as he centered and threw the black clay into a form on a wheel that was shifting with every kick of the fly-wheel. He told me: "A gringo, like you, taught me how to throw years ago. He then gave me the main parts for the wheel so I could build my own. I kept at it, and developed from what I knew." His work was eclectic and original. Trying to find a marketable product, he moved from style to style. From simple tourist ware with "Ometepe" written across the work, to anthropomorphic figures rising strangely from shallow bowls, Narcisoâs work held an unpretentious love of the medium that made the pots fun, funky, and individual.

With only a few days left on the island, we went to work on our final projects. We made a stabilized adobe statue based on the ones weâd seen in Altagracia. Making a mixture of clay we had dug, concrete, and coconut fiber, we packed it into a wooden box form. After a couple of hours, we removed the box and quickly went to work carving the form as it cured. The final piece was placed in a prominent spot on a large boulder in the stationâs center. We had also made a series of pots, figures, ocarinas, and beads to be fired.

To fire the work, we had to build our own kiln on the dock that jutted out into the lake. We found a stack of home-made red brick on the property and borrowed a few to make a very simple kiln. First, in a pre-dug fire pit set out of the wind, we laid a flat bed of brick, then brought up the sides into a crude box form. In the inside, we stacked up a few bricks to make a shelf. The firing was done by laying wood around the center shelf and feeding the fire slowly. After two hours, we fed the fire more rapidly and let the coals grow up all around the edge of the shelf. Then, we placed a sheet of corrugated tin over the top, and let it soak overnight. The color of the clay going in was a dirt brown, but the final firing color was a surprisingly bright terra-cotta.

Coming back to Ohio, I returned to my electric and gas kilns and Soldner mixer. Pre-cleaned, bagged clay and electric wheels. The experience at La Suerte and Ometepe revolves in my mind, edging me forward into new work. I hope my students on the trip feel as I do; Itâs good to get out and rattle the cage from outside.

For more information on the program, location, or classes being offered contact info@lasuerte.org

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