Pretty as a picture

Sala @ White Lotus Press, May 2009

I painted the picture above with some brand new art materials - new to me, anyway.

Thai tea is traditionally flavored with tamarind, which gives it an orange color (cheaper versions use a lot of food coloring, but this tea's good quality). A German papermaker I met in Luang Prabang uses it in some of his paper designs, so I'm trying it for my current illustrations. It gives a warm tinge to the image. The blackish ink comes from bamboo charcoal created for Dong Ho woodblock prints in Vietnam. I enhanced the sala's white stucco with a handmade acrylic paste made with ground shellfish from Hai Phong, Vietnam (also used in Dong Ho prints). They give a lustrous iridescent finish.

I gave this image to the director of White Lotus as thanks for his hospitality - he hosted me in his library, office and garden-side diningroom for the past week. From the writings of 15th century Chinese sailors to 21st century French ethnologists, I read of new perspectives and people. An invaluable help to this paper-book project.

The next stage of this paper trail will be 11 days of seclusion on the off-season beaches of Ko Mak, eastern Thailand. There I plan to do two dozen illustrations for the book, and catch up on my notes from recent weeks.

For artists - and creatives - who could use a re-think of their relationship with money, check out Chris Guillebeau's new Art & Money Guide. His co-writer, Zoe, lives in Chiang Mai and is doing some great literary work there, too. When I get back to the online world, I'll join her team of Location Independent Creatives. We are just beginning to explore the possibilities and freedom offered by the internet. Through sites like Exile Lifestyle and Free Pursuits, people are becoming more aware that there's more than one way to live a life and combine it with their career(s).

This awareness couldn't come at a better time than now.

Location Independence Maps

This blog and the community I've met through Twitter are a great resource for a mobile, modern life.

Last week I was working from The Artists Place in Thonburi, the oldest part of Bangkok. Here's a map; the new skytrain stop of Wongwian Yai is just down the street, but prices are the same:



...and this week I'm working from White Lotus Press, staying in the guesthouse and sharing meals with the eccentric, charming publisher. It takes a rare person to discover and publish all these old works on Asia - we've had some delightfully long-winded conversations.

If you're ever in Pattaya, Thailand, feel free to stop by; they're happy to have visitors. It's definitely off the beaten track:



Next week I'll hit the beaches of Eastern Thailand with ink and brushes in hand, ready to finish the illustrations for my new book, The Paper Apprentice.

Split Existence

Hitting the streets with the Man in Seoul, 2004

This year, the Man and I will spend a total of 6 months apart. With visa restrictions & our work/travel schedules, we've only managed to plan a single meetup - next month. When strangers hear this, they do a double-take. They make noises that indicate I'm jeopardizing our relationship with my work, "tsk" and say they could never manage it, hinting that we won't, either [it's usually a man with a "real job" that travels for work, right?].

But those who know us well just sigh & say "Oh they're at it again." This photo album shows a few of the places we've been together - often while one of us visited the other when we lived in different countries.

It's not that we want to be apart all this time, it's just that we've realized what most nomads do after awhile - that you can't "have it all", all the time, in the same place at the same time. That our lives are works-in-progress, together & separately. That our careers require different locations for training and development, and also that we have different levels of tolerance for humidity, hassle, & searing SE Asian chillies.

This isn't a "Long-Distance Relationship"; it's a relationship built while living together, and enhanced & maintained with care over a distance. We met in Korea 6 years ago, and had already planned to move to Cambodia (me) and to China (the Man). Within weeks, we changed our minds and decided to stay in one place long enough - postpone our dreams - to see how it would work with the other person. Over years of online & domestic communication, in the livingrooms, bedrooms & internet cafes of several countries, we've created our own system of what works for us.

For an hour or two every day, we chat online, and use a webcam when we can stick one on top of a dusty computer. We probably look into one another's eyes more now than when we're living together; it's easier to focus on the other person, free from daily distractions. When I can't access a computer, I call him instead: from a night-time boat on the Mekong, from temples and airports and jungles and buses. In tears and with borderline heatstroke and occasionally with elation.

When your partner respects your dreams enough to miss holding you for a few nights, then you know you're spending your time with the right one. Many male writers say with a hint of condescension, "I couldn't have done this without my wife's assistance". My version goes something like this: "The Man knows I would've done this anyway, with or without his approval. Thanks for giving it before I thought to ask."

Choices

Every few months I'm told by someone who barely knows me, "Oh, you can be an artist because you're married. You don't have to worry about money."

It's always a woman who says this to me (though it's likely that plenty of men have thought it, too). She's always over 40, and had children at a young age, with a man she's been happy to leave. Often her teenage daughter's wrestling with career options, and mother wants to be sure that daughter doesn't make the same kind of choices that Mom did. A "respectable, lucrative" career is high on Mom's list for Daughter, and that of Artist is best left to mad geniuses or dilettantes. It's not a real career where a woman can survive, let alone thrive, on her own.

Well what comes to mind when I hear this?


Designer squat toilets at Talat Sao (Morning market) Luang Namtha, Laos

She doesn't know that my partner & I keep our bank accounts separate, which keeps finances simple; she doesn't know that I buy my own international health insurance and pay for my own plane tickets. I've learned how to budget during the past 15 years, living on wages that ranged from paltry to middle-class, in all sorts of economies. I don't need a man to support me, and never have.


It all comes down to choices. Here are some I've made to keep my flexibility high & my financial liabilities low.

Even better, take a look at this famous illustrator, a pioneering Female Nomad. She's still on the move at age 72, after over 20 years on the road. She's living proof that just because people say "You can't do that," they can be wrong. It takes careful planning, budgeting, and research, but we can turn life's obstacles into undreamt-of possibilities. And while it's great to have a man along for the ride, they aren't necessary for the journey in the first place. Sheesh.



Happy Mother's day this weekend. You couldn't ask for a more inspiring Mom than mine: she's been a Catholic nun and a high-school teacher & the driver of a flashy red Corvette, a salon member in France and a student at Oxford. And people wonder where I get it all from. (Dad's history's just as checkered, too.)