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People of Burma

I don't have a telephoto lens and in addition, I hate to be intrusive with the camera—always thinking that I would not like having a tourist take my picture while doing my laundry or walking down the street. So the following photos aren't necessarily unposed but I think they do convey something about the nature of the wonderful Burmese people we saw.

Buddhist Celebration, Mandalay

Many Burmese boys and girls spend a period of time in a monastery. It could be for several months or several years, with some of them eventually becoming monks. These children are preparing to take their vows and as you can see, this is a momentous event for them and their families.

Yangon (Rangoon)

Businessman walking down the street wearing the traditional longhi wrap. It was so hot there that I resorted to carrying an umbrella and it really did help. Check out this YouTube video on tying the longhi and in the background you'll see the marvelous area of Bagan. This man appears to be a guide.

Streetside betel nut vendor, Yangon

You can always tell a Betel nut chewer because they have red lips and teeth. These stands are everywhere and the results of the chewing are too...red stains all over the streets.

Sugar cane juice street merchant, Yangon

Books of every sort, sort of. Yangon.

Books for sale are only those not blacklisted. Don't expect to find George Orwell's 1984, a book that some believe is based on the repressive Burmese military regime. Book and their currency is recycled to the point of no return.

Lunchtime, Mandalay

Taken during the serving of lunch at a monastery. This little guy is with his mom. Families consider it good merit to contribute food to these Buddhist centers of learning. These centers provide education to many young men and women.

Street urchin, Yangon

 Cute little guy who really wanted his picture taken. This was taken along the waterfront where much of the business of Yangon takes place.

Laborer, Yangon

The loads these people carry is unbelievable. We saw huge TV's being loaded onto the boats at the end of this walkway, along with people and goods of all kinds. 

Street Food, Yangon

 Look at this clever, compact, and portable food stall. This is the real fast food. It looks like he can put everything into the basket and head home at day's end.

Cloth merchant, Bagan

This is SO posed but I loved this lady. I was walking through the local market and she put a silk garment in front of me. I'm sure she knew I was a fabric lover the minute she saw me. Well, I hate bargaining. Turkey and Mexico drove me nuts—to the point where I refused to buy anything. But I decided to "get over it" and started negotiating for a silk outfit and ended up laughing because she was persistent without being too aggressive and I ended up with a beautiful silk skirt, top, and shawl. This lady is going places.

Peanut farmer, outside of Mandalay

 Talking to this woman and her husband was the highlight of the Burma trip for many of us. I've never met such happy and friendly people. They told us all about their village and children, showed us how they farmed with their oxen, put out their luncheon display so that we could see what they eat, and this women untied her headpiece revealing waist length hair. She is just over fifty and although her skin is wrinkled from exposure to the sun her abdominal muscles were like rock from racking peanut plants day in and out. They work very hard so that they can provide education for their children and they also take care of their parents.

Mother and child outside Mandalay

 Mother and daughter have Thanaka bark sunscreen on their faces. Using water the stem of the plant is rubbed on stone and this paste results. It has the added advantage of being cool on the skin.

Cheroot cigar, outside Mandalay

 This cigar, a Burmese stogie, is big, long, and smoked by women. It's easy to make because it isn't rolled at the ends. She is holding a coconut shell underneath to catch the ashes.

Village girls across the river from Bagan

 These young girls were quite the entrepreneurs. They met us at the boat and continued to follow us throughout the afternoon; they were selling bracelets. They are both wearing the thanaka bark sunscreen. This photo was taken from the back of a moving cart pulled by a horse. I admired their persistence and physical endurance and ended up buying five bracelets.

Laundry on the Irrawaddy River

 This woman is not young and she squatted like this for several hours doing her laundry on the banks of the river across from Bagan. I can get down in the position, even get back up, but to stay there for hours is more than I'm able to do.

Husband and monk sightseeing, Mandalay

 I am very fond of this picture. We drove outside of Mandalay and took an escalator (barefoot! Yikes) to the top of the hill to visit this monastery with a wonderful view of the plains.

Children playing, outside Bagan

This child is one of the most active I've ever seen. When we arrived at the temple grounds he was climbing the intricate metal enclosures. Then these two older children gave me a ride on what appears to be a discarded monk's robe. The little guy was screaming in delight as he tumbled off and climbed back on again.

Next: Books of Burma

Burma: First Look

I cannot get my recent trip to Burma out of my mind. I want to savor everything I saw, everything I did, and keep this wonderful, tragic country close to my heart. The wonderful Burmese people manage to live in a country run by brutal and controlling dictators (over 40 generals) because they have HOPE. Please take a few minutes to refresh your memory about Burma (renamed "Myanmar" by the military government) in this article by Canadian Friends of Burma.

Our hotel in Rangoon. 

We were surprised that our hotel in Rangoon wasn't the one listed on our itinerary. We were told that the original hotel was purchased by a son-in-law of one of the generals and therefore was blacklisted by the American Embassy.

Street in downtown Rangoon.

This is one of my favorite photos—an old British colonial building reflected in a modern structure that is most likely a shopping mall funded by the Chinese. The sidewalks are broken and uneven making it very difficult to walk and look at the same time. Vendors selling food and supplies cover most of the sidewalk anyway.

Apartment dwellings. Many do not have elevators.

Read about Burma before arriving. Books sold are well worn and controversial books are banned,

Phones for the average Burmese resident.

Typist for hire: letters home or help with endless government forms?

And yet, we see these satellite dishes on some apartments.

Only the very wealthy could afford these satellite dishes and the hefty government fees that would accompany their installation. People can go to tea shops that have these dishes and listen to international stations—the best from Thailand where signals are good. On the street in Mandalay I met a poor but dignified elderly gentlemen. He asked,

"Where are you from?"

"California, you know of California?"

"Yes. Obama."

"You've heard of President Obama!"

"Yes, He number one."

I was amazed. I could not remember the name of their head general (Than Shwe) and had a really hard time pronouncing the name of The Opposition Lady (Aung San Suu Kyi) and I realized that he might know more about America than I know about Burma. I'm working on that. But this isn't the end of the story. I repeated the conversation to my husband when we got on the bus. A fellow traveler remarked that "We don't all feel that way". She missed the point but isn't it nice that Americans feel free to speak their mind?

Moat around the last Royal Palace of the Last Burmese monarch, Mandalay. Now a military compound.

 Mandalay is considered the economic and cultural heart of Burma. The Chinese can buy Burmese citizenship and the influx of Chinese into Mandalay (30-40%) has pushed the Burmese population to the outskirts of the city.

Rangoon. Young worker sandblasts alabaster statues all day with no mask. Working conditions are heart-breaking.

Bagan. General's House (I surmised) in the midst of thousands of sacred stupas. The palace and grounds are vast.

The area of Bagan was my favorite in Burma. Nestled on the banks of the Irrawaddy River this complex of thousands of stupas built from the 11th to 13th century are unlike anything I've ever seen. UNESCO was prepared to designate the area as a World Heritage Site but the military junta was randomly carrying on restorations with no regard for authenticity and the golf courses, major highways, and modern structures (see photo above) must have been the final straw. These stupas are falling apart and much of the beautiful artwork is not being preserved.

Walking to the noon meal. Mandalay.

Universities were shut down most of the 1990's because of fear of another uprising. To prevent students from congregating, the government has dispersed the existing institutions and departments that make up Yangon University into separate learning institutions scattered throughout the city. The university is also closed at irregular intervals by the government. Monasteries are still able to manage educating younger girls and boys.
NEXT POST: People of Burma

VALENTINES FOR YOU

Our local guild, North Redwoods Book Arts Guild, had our valentine card exchange today and members made the most fabulous cards. My card is actually a comedy of errors. I got the idea for making the folded hearts from Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord's blog. She used tomato can labels and I thought it would be fun to use newspaper ads from two of our local (chain) craft stores. So, I folded away and snipped words from the ads to create some kind of greeting. I had planned on making a 4-page book from a single sheet of paper, but with the same size of pages. Too lazy to look up the exact fold, I created a card that ended up with different sized pages. So, never one to start over, I cut out coupons from the craft store ads and attached pull tabs so that one could pull them out of the little pocket I created. I seem to have the most fun with projects when they don't go as planned. 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Weathering the Storm

Inspired by the Facebook post of Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord, "...and the gift I gave myself--a week of calm and methodical cleaning and sorting in the studio...", I did the same. After months of avoiding my studio, it paid off with this little book I made on Weather. I guess I cannot work in a chaotic place!

Our guild members created many wonderful exchange books with Songs About Weather, Rainbows, Fog, etc. It should be no surprise that the first thing that  came to my mind were the beautiful weather maps, loads of data beautifully displayed, and math symbols. So, I surveyed public weather sites and picked my favorite images. Some of these came from the National Weather Service here on Woodley Island. I like to audition the images by printing the "contact sheet" from Bridge/Photoshop; then I cut them out and move them around so I can decide what to crop and where to place things. All images are sewn onto a specially folded manila folder file (!), the spine is denim sewn to handmade paper.

There are tags for each of the four pockets. The tags are made of semi-logarithmic paper and the backs are local weather graphs.

The tags can be removed exposing more beautiful data!

Don't you just love the NUMBERS! The pencil was an "alteration", sewn on at the last minute over the manila folder tab. So, yes, my studio is clean and I am trying to clean it up after each project. I like being able to find things.

Bats In My Belfry

A friend has saved me from a long creative slump. The last couple of months have been filled with busyness that has not included artistic efforts on my part, or work on this blog for that matter. Much travel, absence of routine, family health issues, and a loss of interest in doing anything in the way of quilting or book arts had left me feeling like I needed to take up something else like....well, I couldn't think of anything. Anyway, my friend suggested we work together on small weekly Art Adventures; we decided to meet over breakfast to figure out how we might make this work. We ended up at Luke's Joint, a new restaurant on the Arcata Plaza, and a serendipitous choice as the walls were covered with local art and the food itself was a work of art.

Not only that, the waiter was very interested in what we were doing, asked me about the book earrings I made (giving me the incentive to get my website back up again—I "forgot" to pay the hosting fees) and suggested we think about a little show at Luke's Joint for some future Arts Arcata. We determined that we wanted to work on small pieces (5" x 7") that involve multiple layers, eventually trying collaborative pieces where one person does a layer and hands it on to the other who adds another layer and hands it back....This is a technique we learned from the wonderfully creative book artist, Julie Chen.
However, I still had to go to the studio and face the blank page. The first thing that came to mind were the bats we found hanging from screens when we arrived at our cabin in Nebraska for our annual Fall stay. 

I was fascinated by these little creatures and read everything I could about them while in Nebraska. I ended up collecting interesting words from articles describing their life cycles. Using words that sounded good when read aloud I created the text for my 5"x7" artwork then used acrylic inks for the washes and black Gesso for the handcut stencils. So, my little bats help me fly out of the dark into a more creative light! What next?

 

Dumpster Diving

A book artist always has to be on the lookout for interesting items to use for handmade books. Rusted nails found on Mad River beach were used as part of a wooden structure to hold a small case bound book. A broken wooden spatula—rescued from my mom's cutlery drawer—serves as a brayer and burnisher for heat transfer images. Plastic netting from bags of onion create great designs on gelatin prints. While walking with my dog last week I happened to see these plastic Pepsi trays in a dumpster. I thought the openwork pattern might be handy to create patterns on sun-dyed paper or fabric, for embossing handmade paper, or for creating patterns on gelatin prints. I had to have one. It wasn't easy because the dumpster came up to my shoulders but I was able to wrestle one out without falling into the dumpster.

The possibilities are endless. My son, an accomplished dumpster diver himself, created this lovely design. Why didn't I think of that? The mathematics is probably what attracted me to it in the first place. If all else fails, it would make a nice breakfast tray.