This was my third trip to San Miguel and my second trip with this particular group, Mosaics in Mexico led by Julie Richey. There were about a dozen of us enrolled from various parts of the United States. We were to create mosaics on the property called Casa de las Ranas, the home of Richard Schultz and Anado McLauchlin, a psychedelic mosaic artist of some renown. Their property was located in the small village of La Cieneguita just outside of SMA. We spent five days working on cat mosaics applied to one of the adobe walls surrounding the property. These were cats which were residents at one time or another of Casa de las Ranas and had met some unfortunate demise due to karma. Hence, there were mosaic Taro cards on the wall with their names, Tormento, Chico Che, Gremlin. In the late afternoons and evenings I explored other parts of the city with my work mates. One evening we dined and toured the Hyder House thanks to Shannon Wynne. Another time I ventured out to Atontonilco to see the chapel there. I also enjoyed wandering through the streets and shopping in Mercado de Artesanias. The best part was just the sharing and partnering with other artists to create something extraordinary. Anado has since passed on. I hope I can still go to Casa de las Ranas in the future and see both mosaic murals I helped create from 2017 and 2020. This was a travel experience like no other. RIP Anado.
