ARTISTS TALKING

# 4 [28 July 2008]

Tuesday June 24 2008On a slightly different note – the three main backgrounds here are Malay Malaysians, Chinese Malaysians and Indian Malaysians.  Get this wrong or call everyone risk offending or worse still insulting your new friends.  The way of life here is laid back, friendly and certainly cheaper to eat out than in GB.  An amazing fresh Indian, Malay or Chinese meal will cost as little as 10 – 15 Malaysian Ringitt for 3 people including drinks.  Speaking of ‘drinks’ I tried ‘Lye Chee Kang’ last night....  Picture this..An open air road side restaurant with flaming ovens cooking tandoori and naan breads.  Elfin like stools to sit on colourfully cartoon like in bright red and traffic light green.  Small circular tables with a hole in the middles for an umbrella for when it chucks it down, another exciting electric storm for me another way of cooling down for locals.Rini tells me I have to try this drink with a chuckle.  It looks like good old fashioned Coca Cola to me mmm safe.  As i begin scooping and stirring the plastic ice-cream bowl I see bits floating around..  Ok be brave Hannah – Rini and Hana both assure me they are not alive nor even remotely animate at any point.  Unless you count the gelatine in the jelly they use to make the things in the first place.   I think on a scale of one to ten I have a fairly vivid imagination and in particular I have some cracking nightmares - so when i scoop the coke only to see brown small flat leechy looking things bumping into what can only be described as baby frog spawn – I nearly died.  Not wanting to offend I really tried to drink it but just couldn’t as I was picturing myself in my studio being attacked and eaten alive by man – no human-eating slippery leeches and frog spawn which melts away your skin exposing your organs.  Ok perhaps I am exaggerating but honestly it did look suspicious – taking me back to a time in Portugal on a jeep riding day out where we stopped at a water hole and I went for a refreshing swim and dug my feet in the lovely soft sand.  Then I stuck my toes out of the water with a wriggling and realised my skin was moving with hundreds of small ish leeches!  Apoplexy set in at this point and I zoomed off to get back to dry land over the other side as quickly as possible.PS what is really great here is that 1pm means 1.45pm – soon means half an hour and I am on my way means I haven’t left yet.Malaysian PromiseI like it -> I am always on time ->

# 3 [28 July 2008]

Monday 23 June 2008At 5ft 10in tall, well just under if we are going to nitpick, I am taller than most people here by quite a lot.  I am currently pretty much the only (incredibly) white, tall, blonde, very english looking (so I have been told) person in what used to be a fairly sizeable Malaysian village:  Bukit Keramat.  It is now still classed as a village but hosts the busiest 2 lane road and one way loop I have ever seen in my entire life.  One benefit of been tall here, so Rini tells me, is that I can indeed see over the traffic to cross the road safely.Rini works at Gallerie Taksu where I am having my exhibition and where I will be living for over 2 months and is currently holding my hand making sure I settle in nicely.  Zahid – Rini’s boyfriend is incredibly knowledgeable about KL & Malaysian politics I suppose it helps when you work as a journalist for the only independent Malaysian newspaper – www.malaysiakini.com.  Zahid was originally a political activist collaborating with the UNHCR.  He worked for a local hr ngo called Suaram recognised by the UN.  Zahid was also involved with amnesty itl and other human rights groups.  Zahid had survived tracking by the secret police who he actually ended up making friends with–it honestly sounded like a scene out of an American film.  Apparently the secret police and the political activists really don’t dislike one another at the end of the day they just respect the fact that everyone has a job to do.  Zahid even got arrested at one point all in the name of work!  Zahid and Malaysiakini were credited for exposing corruption, child trafficking and drug trafficking deals amongst many other things.

# 2 [28 July 2008]

Sunday June 22 2008

It is my first real day in Kuala Lumpur so unpacking the mess has to be the start of things for me.  I got here at 5pm yesterday feeling terrible losing a whole night’s sleep and spending 15 hours on aeroplane then a few more in the air conditioned Dubai airport.  That was an interesting experience in itself – going from Manchester airport with football fans everywhere drinking lager in the pubs (yes I am being serious and no I am not vastly generalising or exaggerating) to a very interesting but never the less bit of a culture shock in Dubai with the men wearing Ghutrah and Bishts (men’s traditional head dress and clothing).  I stumbled in a sleepy state over to the lounge I was due to wait in where there were thousands of ladies waiting to fly to Thailand and doing a great job of enclosing the desk I needed to go too.  Emirates called my flight and it was pretty amusing trying to make it through the sea of ladies, with my one Thai word "khorb khun ka" (Thanks) I got an awful lot of smiles!

Back to the packing – only to discover Marks and Spencer’s sticking a large label on a vest saying “new improved fit secret support vest” does anyone else find the irony amusing?  I wasn’t sure if the sniggering was just down to the delirium of major jetlag..

I spent a great deal of time last Friday which happened to be Friday 13^th June talking to Artist William Tillyer as part of my AN mentoring.  He believes artists should think of themselves as visual philosophers and I have to say I immediately warmed to that thought and to him – what an incredibly articulate and challenging man.   

In the words of Bryan Appleyard:

# 1 [13 June 2008]

Wednesday 11 June 2008

Having deliberately brought on a cold on Friday by visualising it and thinking about just how busy and stressed I am.  Sure enough – it arrived safely on Saturday morning.  I spent the day feeling sorry for myself, quickly got fed up and by Monday morning I was back in business and swimming.

That was the first relatively minor blip on the build up to leaving for Kuala Lumpur and my exhibition/leaving do.  Probably a little more important was getting my flight details wrong – not just the time I hasten to add.  I managed to tattoo in my mind that I was leaving Monday 23rd June – which is when my residency begins, the logic of an artist wins out.  My flight however leaves Friday 20th June to make sure I arrive on the 21st ready to start something fresh on Monday morning, which was the original me being organised.

 I am not sure I have managed to make such a humdinger of a mistake like this before.  Except maybe the time when I went to meet the lovely Emma Keating from the Arts Council where I saw myself arriving at 1pm, which I did.  The meeting unfortunately was scheduled 11am – 1pm.  I really gave myself some stick about that and have never made the mistake again and felt dreadfully guilty - almost like the post drinking alcohol guilt complex?

Well onwards and upwards today I have booked some paintings in to get finished with Paul Atkinson and I am in the studio up to my eyes in paint.

 Happy Days

Days left to go? 8!!!