Day 47: If you love San José, you must follow this artist

I only found her Instagram account a few days ago, but I’m already figuring out which corner in my house will belong to Carolina Rodríguez of ChepeArt.

San José is a marvelous city wrapped in a thick layer of crud. It frustrates me almost every day, and yet I feel more at home walking down Avenida Central in a crowd of people than in any other place on the planet. Yup, right about here.

Rodríguez’s images wipe away the worst struggles of the city and show off the iconic structures and places that make us proud to be josefinos. Somehow, the scrubbly look of her prints captures the imperfect nature of the scenes, such as this one featuring the public phones downtown that I used to search for a job during my first days in Costa Rica in 2004. (Yes. With a phone card. As my daughter says, “Those were days of yore.”) This was my office:

If you, too, love this city, follow Rodríguez on Facebook or Instagram – where you can also see the places where her work is displayed or for sale – and you’ll get a little happy boost of colorful Chepe whenever you need one.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).