So you might already know this, I am a shoe-addict, I don't call myself a shoe-a-holic for the following reasons; I don't buy the same shoes in different colours no matter how much I love it, I don't buy shoes because they are on sale, and I tend to go against most stream of trend. I am a shoe-addict, in that I covet and perpetually looking for a pair of shoes that speaks volume.This is not a post about trend nor merchandise nor advertising the merchandise, this is about collecting an idea. This is one of the practices of a Fashion Ascetic*. An idea that speaks volume within personal parameters includes; characters, inclinations, and an argument on existential gravity. Let me try to explain this in the next few posts. 


Concerning the shoe in picture. Bought from a shop that sells vintage items, these pair of tan leather flats with slits and criss-cross leather ties are made circa the 90's by a French shoe brand called André.. André was founded in 1900 and their shop looks like this in 1903 -Pictured below.  I delight in musing about the epistemology of wearable objects in the context of quality ownership. A quality ownership is when you own something that is of not just good quality, but of considerable thought in it's historical lineage. Now you might like to argue that Chanel, and Balenciaga has also earned their own brand legacy that is continuing today, I mostly agree with that, however for the purpose of delineating the points whether an object has ascetic quality, versus it just being a re-iteration or a derivative of it's own historical legacy, we can begin our discourse here.  

Why is the history of objects important for it to have Ascetic value**? 
A pair of shoes with history such as this has an aesthetic footprint that expands the object from being something useful, to being something idealistic for it's purpose in maintaining quality through the test of time. 

More about André's history 

* Fashion Ascetic - definition of terms will be covered in the following few posts. This is my new project that combines both Art and Design in my body of work. It deals with thought theory about fashion items, it is an ongoing study on what meaning-making is in the context of consumption, specifically fashion consumerism.
**Ascetic Value - will be defined in Fashion Asceticism in the following posts too. 

Botak Banana 

“ I am the descendant of Genghis Khan”, this might explain why Botak* has light brown eyes, even when a lazy left eye, those brown eyes are piercingly clear. You see honesty, determination, and basic human decency in those eyes. Botak has been with Papa Jon for more then 40 years, when they met, Papa Jon’s father was the head of the circus and Botak was the orphan kid he found crying in a Banana plantation. Botak says ‘ I am the descendant of Genghis Khan “ because he was convinced when he was born he was always cold, he was always shivering even under all the blankets he was wrapped in. He also thought he couldn’t be from around here because of his light eyes, for a while he thought there’s something wrong with him. He felt a sense of pride about his light eyes after he was given a book by his Circus School teacher Mrs Gruenwald. The book was about the life story of Genghis Khan. Since then he took the position that made him feel most proud, that he must have been the descendant of Genghis Khan, who lived in mountains with his Mongolian army and their horses. The fact that the mountain was freezing cold confirmed his one vivid childhood memories of being cold all the time. The Mongolians were fearless, and aggressive and confident in their warrior positions. Those are the characters that seem to define him, he thought. Botak’s other real vague recollection is that he couldn’t work out his mother to his father. He remembered them both to have looked similar, very gender unspecific. He didn’t remember how he ended up in that Banana plantation either, he just knew he was hungry, cold and was left alone. Botak Banana is the builder and the maker in the Circus, they have travelled with the animals from Greece, to Russian, and Poland by land, and he is the builder of tents and cages. Oh and yes he does have a thing, like most people have their thing, Botak's thing is he collects vintage Barbie dolls. He doesn’t have the funds to buy brand new ones, so he would scour flea markets in whatever country the Circus was in and would rescue broken, one legged, abused and used Barbie dolls that families would give away. He would find fantastically sad ones, with half their hair gone, and eyes poked in or burnt and he would restore them in between his building and taking down tents and cages. One would think what a dainty activity for someone who is the descendant of  Genghis Khan, but let it be known that Botak is not gay.  In that he does not have any feelings for other men.  What Botak's 'thing' is about is no different then childless people adopting orphaned babies, or families adopting pets, its the caring and thoughtfulness that meaningful. So don't judge him, please! 

*Botak means Bald in Malay/Indonesian

Kubbult Kolintang, C.A

Defining characteristics? Wears a cracked antique monocle, a tender pout, wiry salt and pepper hair, an extremely perplexed expression at all times which normally means he is in a good mood. Mr Kubbult is the Circus’s accountant, he runs the magic number games, and the charity bingo once a while when the circus needs a little fund injections.

Kubbult is Half-Austrian but has never lived in Austria, he was another one of these misfits so easily fitting for the circus. One talent Kubbult has that is so under-estimated by the circus is that he can sing. His favorite tunes are sung under his breath, while he was doing the accounts on excel spreadsheets. His voice is a trembling kind like that of Louie Amstrong. This talent was discovered late, and by accident. Kubbult grew up listening to Pavarotti, but he loved to sing musical tunes. When he was young, Kubbult would be drawn to singing in a musical tunes without ever having heard it fully, often he would hear a faint song from the radio in one of the houses in his mother's neighbourhood, it played day and night so within a few days, he could sing bits of different songs. Kubbult could also harmonize naturally and his voice isn’t the kind of voice you’d expect from someone who looks like him. He was not a good looking child, he had a cherub-like cheeks, those cherub-cheek has continued to persist into his adult years that now resembles a pair of ball sacks. So now that he is almost 60, he looks a little like that cartoon dog Droopy. As far as disposition is concern, Kubbult’s is totally unlike Droopy, he is cheerful most days, except when it's tax time. Flexibility is also another great gift that Kubbult tend to keep to himself. He can do the splits, or kick his legs all the way over his head kung-fu style, without stretching first or warm ups. It’s so sad that Kubbult has never been in love. Maybe he thought that he has so much other things to offer, love is overrated. One thing for certain, Kubbult loved himself. 


*Kubbult's last name Kolintang, means the bamboo musical instruments played as an orchestra or a small group. The sound is very typical of South East Asia, and is produced mainly by hand.

Where might these grotesque faces come from? What I drew here could be the fears that I let surfaced. I can only ponder and wonder but I can’t really be sure. They all looked like they needed names and they look like they have interesting life stories. Questions arising are; why are they all men? The last sketch I did which is just a large worried feature reminds me to my uncle Benny, with demonic eyes and all. The other two are more interesting because they were full portraits. They are grotesquely charming in my opinion. I liked to consider the romantic ideas of the circus that they always have misfits, people who never felt like they belong anywhere else but they felt comfortable with each other.  They look like they could be circus performers.  I liked to consider the romantic ideas of the circus that they always have misfits, people who never felt like they belong anywhere else but they felt comfortable with each other. 


So in the next few posts I will give you their stories.

The sun is really beating down now and it’s not even 9 am. My head is full of thoughts, mostly over thoughts about what ifs. I wanted to draw someone, a portrait, so my over-thought began going in a large loop about’ how much would I pay someone to pose, if its 1000 rupiah per minute, if each pose is 30 minutes, can I afford to draw for 3 hours per day? How much would that cost at the end of the week if I do that every day? Who would want to do it? Would I make a commotion in the village and if everyone hears that I pay people to pose, would I get a long line of people wanting to pose for cash? What if I just don’t worry about all these things? Just ask someone, pretend your javanese is fluent and see what you get.

This is interestingly very revealing about me. I don’t do things cos I think about every possible outcome before hand, and either I chicken out, or I do something else so I don’t have to do that thing I thought would be too hard. Planning my day seems to occupy the bulk of my morning breakfast thought. I am planning away while the day is disappearing. Could I just sit here and do as little as possible, which means whatever it is I decide to do,I will do it slowly, and for a longer period of time then I’d normally be comfortable? Would this do anything to me? What’s the benefit. And so on I go.

Who’s my audience, what would I look like if I do 'anything'? It’s all externally focused is it not? All I can say is ‘oh for fuck sake!’. 

People who agree to sit for a portrait and a chat, are people who agree because they are curious, and they don't let their fear or ambivalence stop them, this is in turn productive for everyone because it gives the sitter an opportunity to do something unusual, and for me to sit and sketch them as they perhaps grapple with their own discomfort. If people sit because I pay them to, it makes the whole exercise change in tone because people are not here because they are curious; they agree for an economic benefit. It’s fantastically different and I want people to agree to satisfy their curiosity and use courage to do so. I am too in search of my courage and my curiosity never failed me. When people agree to sit for a portrait, they aren’t just Indonesians, Javanese, fathers, mothers, widows, daughters or anything else that they identify with, they are also just people, nothing special, nothing new, and just having a chat, even if it feels uncomfortable a little, it’s two people engaging in a very normal activity, nothing precious or out of the ordinary about it.

 Babun just came to check on me, what do I need, how was my sleep and how was breakfast. His name is kinda comical to a western mind, it is pronounced exactly like ‘baboon’, Babun has a regal javanese face, very soft spoken, and has a nose that most of those wayang's are modeled after, a perfect Javanese nose, and lips like the Buddha. I’ve just asked him to find out if anyone would like to pose for me. And not a minute later he found my first model. Ibu Narsih. The cook and the cleaner lady came and dropped her hat to reveal a long lush hair, she and I started chatting as I begun to draw her. 

She told me she was born in 1959, she has two daughters and 1.5 grand kids of which will become a rounded 2 soon with the youngest one pregnant.  She has been in this parts for 31 years and was originally from Gunung Kidul (Kidul Mountain) but her husband is from here. She has worked and known Warwick, the owner of D’omah since the early 90’s and she now has worked for this current place since 2003. She does all the cooking with Ibu Idah, and some of the cleaning and has worked in expatriate houses for a long time. She understands what most people are saying but has a hard time replying in English. She told me the workers and the village people are now used to foreigners hanging around, sometimes in their bras and bikinis, they don’t think much of it. In the past when the village was undeveloped, there were way more commotion, and naturally she added, ugliness in some people started to appear. With a resigned calmness she recalled when she had once worked for 3 months and hasn’t been paid, and found out that someone had been filtering the cash into their own pocket. As long as I was healthy, I can just keep working, she calmly ended that like just an anecdote. In Yogyakarta, she continued, it’s easy to find people but it’s a whole other thing to trust that they are good people and trustworthy. 


It’s quite hot on this porch now, I am visibly perspiring, or maybe it is from the pressure I give myself as I am drawing this portrait. It’s quite nice to small talk as I draw Ibu Narsih, the conversation seem to flow naturally, she has a high cheek bone, and also a full Javanese lips and good teeth, I should add, she has a demeanor that matches her self-image of someone fifty-something, she laughed as she said that in this part of the world fifty-something is definitely already old. The reaction I got after I’d done the portrait, it couldn’t have been more then 20 minutes, was her saying that it makes the hair on her body stand up.  The Javanese word ‘Merinding’ was the exact words used. So I attributed that reaction to two things, either the drawing looks absolutely nothing like her, or it is an expression she has since it’s her first time posing for a portrait. I can’t tell, and in the end it doesn’t matter. 


Does this feel like work? no but I am actually working on something, it is a lose concept - 'Work' is. I have been sitting here since breakfast. It feels like work, if what you think of work is a form of acting upon your artistic impulses, it doesn't feel like work if that means you have to judge your work later for it to be valid or mean something. In the end we all judge what every we do, so why shouldn't drawing portrait and talking to the sitter be work? 

When the food bills came, interestingly, my full name was spelled correctly and I seem to have just achieved an old patron award, which I guess I could accept, I have been coming here every year since 2008. It’s adorable and nice to be appreciated with a discount off my food bill too. Seeing my full name on the bill brings me two thoughts, one is of warm and fussy thought of coming home, and one of paranoia of ‘what else do they remember of me?’ They seem to be indifferent about me telling them I'm staying at some other place near by, a place without a pool, so I asked if I may use their pool, and ofcourse the Javanese always says 'yes, ofcourse, no problem'. 


Sleep came quite easily, the bed was comfortable and the night was cool. It sounded like rain came in the night. The sun rises really early here, it's 5 am somewhere in the distance there is already sounds of construction, and straw broom being dragged to cleaning floors.  People get up early here, around 4-5 am there are all kinds of movement and a bunch of little birds are chirping. I sat at the back porch watching the morning sun beat down on the paddy fields, and a man fertilizing his paddy plot. The plot immediately in front of the porch is already high, and when wind blows, the tip would swing every so gently and created beautiful waves of green leaves. As I was sitting there quietly, and present in the midst of my country's agrarian wonder fields, I grew to notice the sounds around me, creatures in the distance, chickens, trickling water, and a distant sound of Marvin Gaye's Aint No Mountain High Enough, and started to smile to myself and thought how cool that the workers next door was listening to that while they are working, how cool that they know Marvin Gaye? usually they don't go past the slow rock ballads of the 80's like Foreigner. The funny thing is that this one song kept repeating itself, or rather that one verse of Aint No Mountain High Enough….and I thought maybe is it because it’s a cassette tape and they only had that one song that repeats? I sat and tried to listen a little longer, and it was just that one verse repeating itself, how odd. I eventually got up to go find breakfast at the other porch, and as I walked inside my hut, Marvin grew louder and louder and it turned out the repeated verse came from my Iphone Alarm on the little wooden table in my hut. 


....cause baby,
There aint no mountain high enough
aint no valley low enough
aint no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you, babe