Not Busy, Just Thai'd Up

            There comes a time when the purity of the white wall becomes tainted by overabundance of white, and stains.  So, a brave hero must step in, mighty paintbrush in hand, and decimate the dull evil eating away at the moods of anyone who passes.  That hero…is me.

            Nah, nah, nah.  If I were a hero, I would have put an awesome theme song and 3D features of my face on this blog page, along with a fantastic logo.  I’m just a girl with a vision and a hankering for putting colors everywhere.

            I’ve mentioned this Community Mural at least twice in this blog, but have not yet elaborated. It is now time to do so!  It started much like the beginning of this blog- my own soul was being eaten away by the dullness of the back room in PIH that I walked through every day to get to the cafeteria, and by the classrooms which sported flaking chips of paint.  There was nothing I could do about the classrooms, but doing nothing about the back room was inexcusable- there is a ping pong table there! That’s supposed to be the fun room! But, it’s ridden with dusty broken chairs and blank, colorless walls.

            I thought back to my previous year at St. Mary’s, when someone amazing by the name of Koko, led community-based art projects.  She brought a bunch of people together to create a community quilt, in which each individual made their own square visually defining “family”, and the community mural that served to summarize what St. Mary’s is all about.  I love these ideas…so much… especially since community development has become very important to me.  So, I decided to bring a little St. Mary’s, color, and community development to Payap.

            First, I asked Adam about the mural, and he pointed me to Ozzie.  Then, I asked Ozzie, the Head of the International Campus Life, who told me that I needed to talk to Khun Prapai, the manager of PIH.  I figured that putting the mural in the back room of PIH would be a safe start- asking to put the mural in a much more public place would be hard to approve, and I honestly didn’t know how this would turn out- it was my first time leading a group art project.  Khun Prapai accepted the idea, and rather quickly! I wasn’t expecting to be able to get the idea approved of so quickly.  It had seemed that the Thais particularly enjoy their white walls, and just by seeing Payap, it seems that public art is not very popular in Thailand (all art geeks should go check out Chiang Mai University though).  But! I got lucky.  I slaved over a project proposal and budget proposal in order to give the objective, goals, timeline, and expected expenses of the project; both were approved of by Esther Wakeman, the Assistant to the President and Head of Spiritual and Community Life, and I was given 6000 baht to complete the project.

            The boring part of the project ended, and then the hard work began! With the help of Ajan Gai, I was able to make an instruction sheet for both English and Thai speakers: I wanted everyone to visually represent their idea of what community means.  It could be a terrible drawing because I was only going to use these ideas to combine them into a cohesive art piece that I would draw on the wall as an outline for everyone to paint.  I knew that drawing was intimidating; I just didn’t know how that drawing would be so intimidating as to only collect four visual definitions.  I was disheartened at this point- only four out of at least 80 sheets of paper were returned to me.  My project idea did not work.  Why?

            Well, I have a few theories.  Drawing is intimidating.  Defining ‘community’ is difficult with words because it is rather self-explanatory.  Combine the difficulty of these two, and the task becomes even MORE difficult.  I could not effectively further elaborate the task to the Thai students.  I was not pushy in asking for the sheets of paper back because the year was beginning to become busy with impending finals, and because I was still nervous and shy about it. 

            Despite my disappointment, though, I could not let the project die.  I used all four ideas within the drawing, and added some imagery of my own.  The tree was Owen’s idea- nature is part of our community too, and the beauty of nature often brings people together.  The guitar represents Emily’s idea for bringing people together through music.  Kristina defined communities as coming together to help people- this was shown with the ‘pillars of community’ (cheesy, I know); community is built by the warmth, togetherness, etc. of different people.  Maria said that food is a main factor in bringing people together, and she couldn’t be more right, so a picnic was added to the design.

            Now, for everything else.  Sports bring people together, duh.  There is the overused image of people holding hands around the globe- but the diversity is shown by the fact that each person on that globe is different, and they were painted by different people on campus.  There is the Payap logo- I have known the community of school since I was five years old.  There is the circle in which the word ‘community’ is written in several different languages- we are connected despite our diversity.  There is the circle of five people interlocked- that’s pretty self-explanatory. The circle of names- this made me the most proud because everyone who signed their names added their own bit of flare.  It was also a great outlet for people who felt uncomfortable picking up a paintbrush.

            The overriding design of the mural came from a motif that I’ve used in a couple of my previous works.  The series of overlapping and interlocking circles and lines is meant to represent the connectivity and diversity of a society- that every group of people is interdependent.  I figured it would be a great way to connect all of these random ideas into one cohesive and organized idea.  The first time I used this motif was for Koko’s community quilt.

            I must comment on the little dumpling faces on the left.  During the last few weeks of school, I became obsessed with the anime Clannad.  These dumpling things, which are called dango, appear in the show, and the main character draws them all over her posters advertising for events at school even though dango have nothing to do with the event.  I thought it would be hilarious to draw them all over the posters advertising for the mural painting event.  It became meaningful after I realized that these dango are very much related to the idea of the community mural.  Clannad features a fake anime called The Big Dango Family, and if you read the English subtitles for its theme song, it’s about these dango coming together to form a loving, happy COMMUNITY!

            Okay, now that the design has been explained…the project was advertised with my dango posters, and I watched as people started passing by my painting form and asking to join.  It was really funny because there would be a lot of people who would just pass by, looking on curiously, and they would not join the painting party for days.  I did my best to make people feel comfortable, but they would fear ‘messing it up.’ There’s no way anyone could mess it up because it’s a project meant to be made by the people for the people, and I wasn’t about to schold anyone for participating in a project meant for them.  Sure, some of the lines aren’t exactly straight- who cares if it was their work?

            There was one way that the mural was messed up though.  While I was away in Cambodia, something very disheartening happened. Someone vandalized the mural.  I cried when I found out, and then I spent the day dreaming about how I could take my revenge on this person.  I trusted the community with the materials for four days, and someone abused my trust.  After I calmed down, and regained my head, I realized that it didn’t matter who did it, and that this is just a small example of the larger idea of life situations.

            I knew that there would always be the possibility that someone would vandalize the mural- I just didn’t think it would be so soon. Reality just slapped me in the face with a big insult attached. Communities will always be built with goodness and fun, but there are always those who will try to destroy that.  We can’t attain peace in this world because of that.  But, it’s what we do about that delinquency that defines how our communities will move on.  I decided to cover up the mess because the images were small enough to be erased.  But Ozzie said something that was profound- we can choose to cover up the evil, or we can transform it.  Trying to ignore or erase the darkness in the world is not effective because it is something real and very present.  Trying to change it, or twist it into something conducive to the positivity of the world is better.  I could go write an entire flowery essay on this metaphor, but I have already written a butt ton. 

            So, it’s time to wrap this up.  First, I’d just like to ask that you watch the video about the mural at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23m-uv6eDlo. By not adding pictures to this post, I am forcing you to watch it (if you’ve even read this far) so that you can see what it looks like.  This entire project really warmed my heart- it was amazing to see how many people came out to participate in it, and to see how many people immensely enjoyed seeing it.  Every day, the staff lady who sits at the front of PIH would excitingly point out what progress had been made in the mural.  I met a lot of great people through the project (which was the point of the project- to bring people together), and made a few new friends!

I also got to view some really wonderful avenues for self-expression.  Katy drew two figures in matching green ponchos to commemorate the beginning of her friendship with Liz, Yuki drew a snowman next to her name because her name in Japanese means ‘snow’, and Jyotsna painted a woman in a saree to recognize her Indian heritage.  Even some of the graffiti-like ways that people wrote their names serve as a creative expression of self. 

To finally finalize this almost final post, the community mural is amazing- it was built and created by amazing people, and therefore it is beautiful.  I hope everyone enjoys it and that it inspires others in the future.  Now, watch the video!