VCFA Puerto Rico Residency Day 6

Posts from my Vermont College of Fine Arts winter residency.

Today we hiked into the rain forest in two groups-one for people with physical issues who would go on a less strenuous walk; the other for people able to make the challenging climb up to a huge waterfall. I joined the waterfall group and it was indeed challenging. We ended up scrambling over rocks and up through a kind of caged metal ladder–see the photo and you’ll know what I mean! We chewed on native plants such as tiny begonia flowers and little blueberries. We also examined the seed pods of orchids. Here are more photos. Truly a beautiful experience!

Okay, yes, that’s me. Swinging on a vine. I highly recommend the activity.

This leaf (below) belongs to the trumpet tree. On the tree this leaf is green and bigger than your whole head. But after it falls its underside turns white and it has the feel of a thick paper bag. I wonder if it glows at night like slices of moonlight on the ground.
We started the hike around 10 a.m., ate sandwiches on the trail at lunchtime, and returned around 4:30. We still had a lecture to attend! I was tired, but the talk was worth it. Mary Ruefle took us on another kind of journey, through her notebooks. It was a great demonstration of a creative mind at work–wondering, questioning, challenging the stories, pieces of information, and teaching she encounters every day, especially as she reads.

For instance, before we left Old San Juan she asked each of us to visit The Butterfly People, an art gallery featuring butterflies, dead and pinned, and arranged in thick plexiglass boxes that can be bought (small boxes for $40 and larger boxes for hundreds, even thousands of dollars) for hanging in your home. Mary described her experience of this gallery, of being stunned by the color and beauty of the butterflies while at the same time being uncomfortable, even angry, at where the gallery was getting the specimens. Were they truly grown on farms, as the owners told me when I asked, or were they obtained in a different way, possibly putting endangered species of butterflies at risk? Mary put this thought process in her notebook.

I feel Mary has the mind of a genius. I’m not sure people can appreciate her (but then when is genius ever really appreciated?) if they haven’t read her poems, essays, and lectures. (She read us a brilliant essay on shrunken heads earlier this week.) But can people appreciate the pieces if they never get to experience the whole? If you want to explore pieces of Mary, I recommend her book, Madness, Rack, and Honey, a compilation of her lectures.