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The Importance of History

26/6/2013

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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. 

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Vanilla Cotton Candy

23/6/2013

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The days has settled in my mind, it means I am becoming more grounded and the novelty of being here has shifted into a quiet beautiful presence, where I am noticing the small things. The peacocks now has their little play pen and it’s enclosed with wire, one of them used to follow me around in curious and almost menacing way that made me very uncomfortable. The white pigeons by the pool are as cheerful and picturesque as ever amongst the crawling green plants along the grey walls and thatched roofs. 


The sky is dotted with fluffy vanilla coloured clouds like cotton candy. And the lizards are a plenty, they seemed really used to people too. I supposed this is their house way before it temporarily becomes mine. I don’t mind them as long as they don’t come too close to me, and do their nervous thing. Frogs are everywhere, some really big and they look like rocks until they start to hop away. I dislike rocks that makes sudden movements especially at night when all I have is a dim torch between my hut and the restaurant. 



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The Bloodshot Circus

21/6/2013

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Welcome to the Bloodshot Circus. Today I introduce you to our three main characters.
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Papa Jon

Papa Jon, sickly pale complexion, only 67 years old but has been around the motorway a few rounds, he runs the circus which was his 6th attempt since his father made him in charge when he was mauled by one of their own tigers, the other five times, the circus went bankrupt and tragically most of the animals didn’t make it to the zoo on time. So he decided this time he will just have ‘weird and interesting people’ in his circus, they can take care of themselves and are easier to manage.  He began to be called Papa Jon because everyone looked up to him. He could put any animals in their place when they were having a hissy fit. He would sort out everyone’s comfort with a passion of an older and wiser sage. So Jonni Lempeng* became Papa Jon. Papa Jon liked his rice, he can’t live without it, having grown up with it all his life, 'rice', he was heard to repeat, 'is the soil of which one grow fastidiously'. Papa Jon has had three heart attacks since he was 50, he smokes cigars and dreams of one day to stop being in a circus. Now at his 6th attempt and sans animals, Papa Jon has to distinguish his circus from the likes of Cirque Du Soleil, and all the other ones without animals. The old times are so much easier, and this is just one reality in life that Papa Jon just could not accept. He wanted to keep things romantic, the hand cranked metal music sheets, the dancing monkeys and the one-eyed piano player balancing on a stilt, the elephant with pink tutus balancing on a ball, the cyclop striper and ofcourse his many romances with Russian transexuals when the Circus were in Irkutsk for 6 months. One of his legendary Russian transexual name Irma was his Bearded Lady for a few years, until she finalized her post-op and couldn't grow any more facial hair. Let's just say Papa Jon is the circus’s Papa Smurf. There is nothing suggestive about that. 

* Lempeng means Rice Crackers in Low Javanese


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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

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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.



I wanted to make their geographic existence ambiguous because traditionally, there is always going to be some kind of ‘cultural bias’. So perhaps in the interest of neutrality, I wanted these characters to have a history that isn’t based on the significance of one culture. They are a mix between Europe and Asia, and perhaps a little South Asia, Eastern Europe, a little unfamiliar, and also quite familiar. Aside from some of their names being based on Indonesian or Malay origin (because it is where I first wrote it). I have no real need to add context to a situation where the reader couldn’t help but make up their own ideas based on the cultural references they know. They will do this anyways, but I would like these cultural references in the character's history to be lose, and be open to many different possibilities, mostly best when undefined. These sketches have one distinct characteristic; they all looked a bit haggard, have lose neck skin, and the bloodshot eyes. 

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Interlude: A Dinner Conversation

20/6/2013

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At dinner, there is only one other table behind me, two Indonesian men on their laptops and ipads, talking audibly to someone on the screen. I couldn’t concentrate on my reading because they are so obliviously and clearly loud. So I decided since I can’t see them, and I can’t shush them, I am going to pay attention with my ears so intently and make this post all about them.

I seem to walk into them discussing details about a new hotel, and one of them was reading off a list of criteria perhaps for an online listing of some kind. He would go ‘ Hotel pool: "no", Massage: “no”, Hotel Gym: “No”, Beach: “yes”, Wifi: “not yet”, Garden: “yes?! I think it’s a yes, what do you think?”, he asked the other guy, and the screen yelled, “yes, what we have count as garden!!”. The person on the other end of the screen sounds like a voice of reason, and also sounds like a woman. They continued their loud waffling totally unaware that I am listening to everything. Suddenly there’s a ringing on the screen and the woman answered what appeared to be her phone, then she started speaking in English. Over the voices of the two men, I could hear her trying to explain tour agent-like what time and what something is, and that there is 70% chance that they will see 'the bird', they have to arrive really early in the morning before the bird arrives. Over her voice, one of the guy seem to be explaining to the other guy that this is a tour to see a beautiful bird of paradise, that tourists would have to take a boat at 4 am and then hike for an hour to where these birds would be. Then they went back to talk about their new hotel, there seem to be some kind of online questionnaire to fill. So the next question seems to be an 'about us' bit question; ‘when was this hotel built’. He said "2012", then screen objected "no, are you sure?!", the guy said "Ok so 2013?", the screen answered with "lets just say 2011 ". There are many inflections I cannot translate from Indonesian to English that actually suggest a lot of ‘lets make shit up as it goes a long so we look good, accuracy isn’t important’. The ways these conversations goes, sounded a lot to me as if they’re playing, even when the topics are serious, banking details etcetera, the tone of their conversation is overly casual, sometimes down right goofing off, especially these two men. Since I agree with most of her points including the bits that is slightly offering inaccurate information for the purpose of good impression, the woman on the screen seem to sound the most serious and the most clued in on how to run a hotel. The tone of this dinner conversations does not indicate that this hotel actually exists and it's all just for fun. It is likely that this hotel does exist, but having heard this conversation, it doesn't make me feel confident that they are 'professional hotelier'. and I don't want to stay there.

Then they carry on talking about what time should check-in and check-out be? The man who sounded most bossy says’ tell them they can check in as early as 10 am, and the screen hissed and said ‘no, that is only for special requests, isn’t it?”, the man retorted; “ no, its fine, if they come in their own motorboat, they will arrive early, and also tell them they can check out as late as 3pm”, the other man added casually  “4 pm”. Bossy man reiterated to the screen with pride “ yeah, they can check out as late as 4 pm even”. Then they discussed banking details again until they said to the screen that they now need to eat their dinner so the lady wished them "Selamat makan" and hung up. Now the two continued a bit more discussing their kids. Then they started the process of ordering and asked what is the speciality, what would the waitress recommend. Then other guests started to arrive. I now can’t hear them that clearly anymore. 

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The Bloodshot Circus came to town.

20/6/2013

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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.

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Does this feel like work?

20/6/2013

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PictureIbu Narsih
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? 

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Racing to the Death with Nature

19/6/2013

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PictureA killing field
Lunch was a beautifully laid out moulded rice, raw cut vegetables that included Kemangi (a type of fragrant leaf that everyone here eats raw), and green miniature eggplant, next to a small bowl of sambal made of Terasi (shrimp paste) and raw chillies. I’ve been longing for the local spinach called Kangkong, so here it all comes, just before 1 pm, even when I said perhaps later, much later. The plate was fully covered in ornate banana leafs. Chilies, my favorite herb, I like it on everything, and the Javanese really knows how to make tasty, sweat inducing chili mix that you just can’t stop eating even though your face is slowly going numb. It’s wonderful.


This porch table is an attraction for many types of little creatures, mostly 3 different sizes of ants, and a few flies. So as I am eating, I feel it becoming a race between how fast I can eat, and how fast these creatures are going to starts to line dance a cha-cha-cha on my plates.

There is nothing better to remind you that you are close to nature then ants doing drivebys on your laptop screen. As I am typing these words, a medium ant was range rover-ing through the rocky black keyboards and a smaller one doing a diagonal road trip cross the screen. 



This is the real deal when it comes to living close to nature because every few moments, there’s a killing happening. I've just witnessed a gruesome killing on the paddy field side of the porch where I suddenly hear a dying frog, maybe it isn’t a frog, I can’t be sure as it’s coming from the bushes just below the paddy bunch, and a golden stripey long, very long thing is weaved in between the green grassy areas near it, an abstract glistening shape of grey patterned animal is screeching in agonizing plea as the slinkiest longest rice field snake I’ve ever seen is waiting for his sorry ass to die. Of course the city girl had to point her device towards the sound and take a picture of it. What kind of proof do I have otherwise for having been living so close to nature? 

There are now ants all over my laptop, my coffee cup, and my color pencils. I thought I might as well leave them there instead of trying to shush them away. Another ant just did a kamikaze into my instant coffee, what is life in nature without sudden death? No, this doesn’t make me think about death, since I can’t possibly appreciate insect death the way they’d deserve to be appreciated. To be honest, I thought I’d have to cover myself in insect juice so as not to slowly be eaten alive last night, but it wasn’t so at all. These animals are used to humans, I assumed, I am a new blood but they’ve probably seen the likes of me , I am not special nor exotic.

It is 1.30 pm, my tummy is full of beautiful kampong food, and the construction is slow but it doesn’t stop, there’s a young skinny worker with hunched square shoulder walking across the front of my hut probably for the 34th time since this morning, carrying a wheelbarrow, carrying nothing, walking along trying not to look at me, sitting at my porch, typing, sweating, drawing, eating. Talk about self-consciousness by both the local and the person who’s supposedly the guest.

All I have to do is just sit and observe life going by, because here everything happens. There are now 200 ants in my coffee, all unable to stop themselves from jumping and dying in the sweet instant coffee, to die in fake caffeine and sugar is glorious.


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Old Patron, Marvin Gaye

18/6/2013

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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 
 

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Pilgrimage, or self-imposed hermitage?

18/6/2013

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Suddenly I am lost in the little village, amongst constructions, amongst chickens clucking and roosters and ducks prancing around on stacks of bamboos. My little wooden Javanese hut is quaint, wonderfully compact, a nice big four poster bed, with its own little fan in its ceiling, the silken white bathtub standing outside is like a beautiful glistening tofu in the garden-like outdoor bathroom, maybe it should be called the Bath Garden. And on the other side of the bed, on the outside is a huge deck with a day bed overlooking a sea of green paddies. Suddenly I am back in this little village, after a year, it hasn’t changed much, I still don’t know my way around the little streets. Ibnu, the guy from the village hotel I used to stay in, remembered me, wondered where I came from as I entered the hotel from the back, in heavy rain. Maybe there’s a magic carpet that landed me in the back of the hotel, he might have thought. The paddy fields looks the same, bright green as ever, evenly distributed like a gigantic carpet.


When looking for pilgrimage station, I tend to focus it on the bathrooms and the existence of it's bath tub. 
I just can't get over this ceramic bathtub and 2 hours of bath time and crying from so much laughing reading some funny shit by David Sedaris makes my first evening memorable. Because the bathtub is outdoors it has beautifully laid out flowery vegetation behind it and once a while a few large black ants would fall in, and drown into their death. When I look at the two, maybe four ants lying at the bottom of the tub, it seems so tragic, the scale of it, the large tub and the tiny ants makes it feel slightly worse. At about 6.30pm there was what sounded like ten different mosque bellowing the dusk prayers, it was an orchestra with crickets at the treble and bullfrogs as the bass.  When I sit in the front porch, I hear trickling water from the water feature right next to the porch. When I sit in the back porch overlooking the vast paddy fields, I see fireflies flying around amidst the blackness. 


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CELEBRATING: Art Making Without Boundaries

6/6/2013

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Art-making Without Boundaries is a post to celebrate the kinds of art-making in Olij Studio since I started in 2006, here are the highlights of the art projects, experimental works and off-center fun projects. 

When reading this, you are encourage to hold a glass of 'something refreshing' to toast us!

CHEERS!!!! 

1.  Printing on Wood
The joy in working with wood cut print is in the presence of the unknown. What do I know about the art of print-making?
I know enough to understand this is not an art exercise for those with lack of patience. The art of cutting wood to shape a reverse image is one that is almost cathartic to some and painful for others. These wood cuts are of a rainy evening in a city square, and there are people walking briskly with umbrellas. 

2. Painting Kites
The new thing, this artwork flies really high and your artwork is on show from a distance highly not recommended by art museums but it is a perfect platform for very bright, very lively kinds of paintings. The kites are made of Nylon Taffeta, pretty strong and yes lightweight and when painted, the quality of the paint is as if back-lit when you see them in the sky. 

3. Painting circular things, like an Umbrella
The umbrellas started blank, white and awaiting. And when it's done, it can be used in super rainy days. 
The strange and interesting challenge with painting an umbrella is the many different planes (exactly eight) that you have to integrate into one. And unlikes painting  a mug, or anything circular, you go all around, and often geometrically symetrical is what is expected, yet you can build a much more interesting compositions. The fun umbrellas we have painted so far are of anything from Ponyo to the one you see here, a victorian feel watercolour of children dancing and holding hands in a circle. Umbrellas can be procured from Art Friend.

4. Painting Bodies.
Loving the body and the face, painting them are a big part of the studio activities , It's been 5 consecutive years, I formed a team of face painters for the Make-A-Wish Foundation Christmas party, painting children's faces. This particular body painting is an experiment to combine the spirit of 'the Bond girl in Gold Finger' with Mondrian famous box painting. There are truly no limits to what you can do and what form your artworks becomes. 

5. Photography of painting with the artist in unusual yet appropriate setting.
These paintings are of one of my all time favourite student and good friend Olive Huang, she produces a series of paintings of feet in different configuration. This Foot is of a china man in Shanghai, a celebration of fake leather and clashing mid-calf socks. The series later on was donated to a cause to combat child and human trafficking, an art auction charity. This artwork was photographed outside the studio after she had finished the painting and with all the construction around Singapore, we thought what a perfect place to stand.

6. Wire hanger sculpture
This was a beautiful idea that is excellent as a gift, The only thing you need is a wire long enough to fold and bend into the shape of the words you want. This ended up being a gift to someone who just started a new job, and the word' Tomorrow' is a beautiful sartorial encouragement for her to think about what she will wear tomorrow and to hang the clothing on. 

7. Rubber mold Casting 
A messy messy endeavour and a tricky, sticky and gloopy exercise this was. There is a lot of technique involved in making a perfect mold, that doesn't harden mid-pour and actually harden once poured. These lego stacks were the last thing one would think is a good piece of object(s) to mold but it was perfect.
With enough practice the mold making can be a community project that involves a few people who can measure with their eyes, and have some muscle to stir the heavy rubber concoction with a large stick just like a witch with her cauldron of hot evil brew. The lego you see here is made of soy-wax, when melted it can be used as massage oil (I buy the beautiful soy-wax from them) , and can also be made into Lego soaps, Lego chocolates, Lego Ice cubes, nuff said!
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