Chiang Mai and the Northern Style. Art hub meets Lanna Culture…
You know how it is when daily life reaches the point where it sweeps you up in the momentum and you start forgetting to answer e-mails, return phone calls, etc. This has been my experience in Chiang Mai, second city of Thailand and the place where artists go to work when they have finished studying in Bangkok or wherever…Hence, over a week since my last post.
I arrived Monday evening and my last post was Tuesday, describing the events of the previous days in Bangkok. Chiang Mai has been a relief- as Bangkok was getting hot, crowded, polluted, and generally exhausting, to say the least.
Chiang Mai is the center of the Northern (actually, Northwestern) Kingdom of Thailand. Northern Thailand is bordered to the West by Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) and on the North and East by Laos. It is the foothills of the notorious “Golden Triangle,” where poppy/opium production has long been centered. It is a huge tourist center for many reasons—not only that it is cool and near the mountains, but also because based in Chaing Mai, one may trek- for one day or many- into the “hill tribe” villages nearby, experiencing an indigenous culture that has little to do with the rest of Thailand. This is Lanna Country- where the “Lanna Hill Tribes” are the native people, where elephants thrive (in fact, there is an elephant rehabilitation center that I hope to visit just south of here), and where (mostly) European and some American cultural and eco-tourists can’t wait to reach. One friend who had traveled here two years ago mentioned that she couldn’t wait to leave because the emphasis on trekking into indigenous villages seemed so exploitive to her. Admittedly, there are a lot of distastefully worded “come see the long-necked and big-ear women” advertisements around. But there are also a lot of artists- and good ones- living here. It is a city close to nature, and with the kind of cultural awareness that you might expect from a center of hill tribe handicrafts, and at the meeting point of Thai and Lanna culture. The village life of this region also has a big impact on the art style- the “Northern Style” in Thai art.
Arriving in Chaing Mai on Monday evening, I took a stroll from the “Safe House” guesthouse (ironically named only if you have a fear of ants!) where I am staying and immediately felt part of the flow of the city (it is a city- approximately 1.5 million people, but with a much less frenetic pace than Bangkok, or Singapore for that matter). Spending the evening with a Frenchman and later joining two hotel and restaurant students- one Austrian and one German- who were in town from Bangkok reporting on the hospitality scene. In short, I felt immediately at home in Chaing Mai- as a traveler, at least.
Tuesday was spent finding my way around…renting a moped, finding Internet access, and setting appointments for the next day. Just after meeting a monk who was enthusiastic to pose for a picture, I met a group of firey women from New York at a coffeeshop who posed for some portraits- they were fun & I hope we connect again (both the ladies and the monk!).
On Wednesday, I rode the scooter about 40 km South of Chiang Mai to the Dhamma Park Gallery in Pasang, where I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon hosted by English sculptor and peace activist Venetia Walkey and her partner, Kuhn Inson Wongsam, a Thai “National Artist” (an honorific title given to Thailand’s finest). Also visiting that afternoon were Oliver Hargrave, a Chiang Mai-based English writer and photographer, and Chadwick Gray and Laura Spector, Ameircan artists and partners who are also based in Chiang Mai, and Roz Keep, an English painter and art teacher who has lived in Chiang Mai for two years, but who is returning to Hong Kong with her husband to resume their antiques business shortly.
Venetia served us an excellent lunch and toured us around the Dhamma Park Gallery, where she and Inson have developed a garden of Buddhist Dhamma- (truth, and/or “teaching”). The park’s mission revolves around using art as a vehicle for communicating Buddhist teachings—particularly around the teachings of causal/conditioned existence and the noble eightfold path. In one small indoor-outdoor space (gallery), Venetia’s sculptural works are exhibited, while in the Gallery itself, a series of 12 sculptures depicting the “law of twelve causes” (of conditioned existence)- ignorance, craving, etc., are displayed around the edges of the building containing a floor-to-ceiling Fountain of Wisdom. The picture here is of ‘craving,’ with a concept-sketch of an incinerator that is part of the gallery’s long-term concept- a place where people can incinerate an effigy of the cravings they would like to leave behind.
A born teacher, Venetia was led to Buddhism after coming to Thailand, and has produced small- and large-scale sculpture works on a wide variety of themes. The Dhamma Park Gallery is a peaceful oasis of art and Buddhist practice, and was a pleasure to visit. I plan to return this week to photograph more extensively.
Venetia sits for a portrait by American artist Laura Spector, as Oliver Hargrave looks on...
Later, Kuhn Inson gave us a gallery and studio tour and shared the woodcuts he is currently working on. Inson’s woodcuts are widely collected, and his acclaim rose significantly after 1962 when he rode from Thailand to Italy on a Lambretta scooter, carrying on his back a roll of woodcut prints which he exhibited on the way. He spent several years in New York and New Jersey as a working artist, and returned to Thailand in the 1970s after an illness. He began working in large-scale woodcarving, eventually returning to the woodcuts for which he is most famous in Thailand. This picture shows one of his woodcuts and the reflections of several more in his studio.
He is now preparing for an exhibition in Mexico later this year, after a successful exhibition in New York last year benefiting the Dhamma Park Gallery. Kuhn Inson embodies the ferocious independence of a renowned artist who has traveled the world by his own creative power.
I’m going to finish this post now in order to get this out to all of you. More work is coming- I’m still catching up from a very eventful last week.
I arrived Monday evening and my last post was Tuesday, describing the events of the previous days in Bangkok. Chiang Mai has been a relief- as Bangkok was getting hot, crowded, polluted, and generally exhausting, to say the least.
Chiang Mai is the center of the Northern (actually, Northwestern) Kingdom of Thailand. Northern Thailand is bordered to the West by Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) and on the North and East by Laos. It is the foothills of the notorious “Golden Triangle,” where poppy/opium production has long been centered. It is a huge tourist center for many reasons—not only that it is cool and near the mountains, but also because based in Chaing Mai, one may trek- for one day or many- into the “hill tribe” villages nearby, experiencing an indigenous culture that has little to do with the rest of Thailand. This is Lanna Country- where the “Lanna Hill Tribes” are the native people, where elephants thrive (in fact, there is an elephant rehabilitation center that I hope to visit just south of here), and where (mostly) European and some American cultural and eco-tourists can’t wait to reach. One friend who had traveled here two years ago mentioned that she couldn’t wait to leave because the emphasis on trekking into indigenous villages seemed so exploitive to her. Admittedly, there are a lot of distastefully worded “come see the long-necked and big-ear women” advertisements around. But there are also a lot of artists- and good ones- living here. It is a city close to nature, and with the kind of cultural awareness that you might expect from a center of hill tribe handicrafts, and at the meeting point of Thai and Lanna culture. The village life of this region also has a big impact on the art style- the “Northern Style” in Thai art.
Arriving in Chaing Mai on Monday evening, I took a stroll from the “Safe House” guesthouse (ironically named only if you have a fear of ants!) where I am staying and immediately felt part of the flow of the city (it is a city- approximately 1.5 million people, but with a much less frenetic pace than Bangkok, or Singapore for that matter). Spending the evening with a Frenchman and later joining two hotel and restaurant students- one Austrian and one German- who were in town from Bangkok reporting on the hospitality scene. In short, I felt immediately at home in Chaing Mai- as a traveler, at least. 
Tuesday was spent finding my way around…renting a moped, finding Internet access, and setting appointments for the next day. Just after meeting a monk who was enthusiastic to pose for a picture, I met a group of firey women from New York at a coffeeshop who posed for some portraits- they were fun & I hope we connect again (both the ladies and the monk!). On Wednesday, I rode the scooter about 40 km South of Chiang Mai to the Dhamma Park Gallery in Pasang, where I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon hosted by English sculptor and peace activist Venetia Walkey and her partner, Kuhn Inson Wongsam, a Thai “National Artist” (an honorific title given to Thailand’s finest). Also visiting that afternoon were Oliver Hargrave, a Chiang Mai-based English writer and photographer, and Chadwick Gray and Laura Spector, Ameircan artists and partners who are also based in Chiang Mai, and Roz Keep, an English painter and art teacher who has lived in Chiang Mai for two years, but who is returning to Hong Kong with her husband to resume their antiques business shortly.
Venetia served us an excellent lunch and toured us around the Dhamma Park Gallery, where she and Inson have developed a garden of Buddhist Dhamma- (truth, and/or “teaching”). The park’s mission revolves around using art as a vehicle for communicating Buddhist teachings—particularly around the teachings of causal/conditioned existence and the noble eightfold path. In one small indoor-outdoor space (gallery), Venetia’s sculptural works are exhibited, while in the Gallery itself, a series of 12 sculptures depicting the “law of twelve causes” (of conditioned existence)- ignorance, craving, etc., are displayed around the edges of the building containing a floor-to-ceiling Fountain of Wisdom. The picture here is of ‘craving,’ with a concept-sketch of an incinerator that is part of the gallery’s long-term concept- a place where people can incinerate an effigy of the cravings they would like to leave behind.
A born teacher, Venetia was led to Buddhism after coming to Thailand, and has produced small- and large-scale sculpture works on a wide variety of themes. The Dhamma Park Gallery is a peaceful oasis of art and Buddhist practice, and was a pleasure to visit. I plan to return this week to photograph more extensively.
Venetia sits for a portrait by American artist Laura Spector, as Oliver Hargrave looks on...
Later, Kuhn Inson gave us a gallery and studio tour and shared the woodcuts he is currently working on. Inson’s woodcuts are widely collected, and his acclaim rose significantly after 1962 when he rode from Thailand to Italy on a Lambretta scooter, carrying on his back a roll of woodcut prints which he exhibited on the way. He spent several years in New York and New Jersey as a working artist, and returned to Thailand in the 1970s after an illness. He began working in large-scale woodcarving, eventually returning to the woodcuts for which he is most famous in Thailand. This picture shows one of his woodcuts and the reflections of several more in his studio.
He is now preparing for an exhibition in Mexico later this year, after a successful exhibition in New York last year benefiting the Dhamma Park Gallery. Kuhn Inson embodies the ferocious independence of a renowned artist who has traveled the world by his own creative power.
I’m going to finish this post now in order to get this out to all of you. More work is coming- I’m still catching up from a very eventful last week.
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