Silpa: the Art of Love

Chapter 12
Diametric Proportions

Ever since we’ve met in the flesh, Silpa has had no need to keep coming
to visit me in my sleep. Perhaps being with him in person has discontinued
the need for the nightly appearances in my dreams. This night is no
different, leaving me with a greater sense of expectancy about our
meeting the day.

I enjoy the stroll across the park to uni, taking in the sight of a group of
kites flying high set against a glorious light blue sky. After savouring my
coffee at the caf? outside the faculty, I catch the elevator to my
workshop on the top floor, and enjoy the world-class vista of the palace
across the road every bit as much as the first time I saw it. What an ideal
location for a workshop, so inspiring. I wish I could create my art here
forever and never had to leave. Alas, time is already running short.

The women had said they’d come early today and would start bringing the
materials they’d be using, as much of it is either ready-made, everyday,
or easily accessible objects: same as the significant proportion of
installation art created by ‘professionals.’ And their ideas, although raw,
are ideal. I recall my previous shows and just about every exhibition by
other feminists I’d been to or had read about and how we deal mostly
with similar themes of gender bias and feminine inequality. In my last
exhibition, I dealt with foreign prostitutes working illegally in Australia.
I’d used typically contrived and politically motivated art, laden with
feminist concerns in some fairly blatant sculptural installations, such as
women displayed with their legs apart.

How refreshing it is to have a group of young women without any of the
training deemed as essential by the art establishment, especially women
that suffer most from sexual exploitation and subjugation, to remind us of
the importance of reinforcing the positives of our own femininity. Not in
some male defined mass marketed portrayals that reinforce the typecast
we’re trying to overturn, but which gives a genuine voice to the everyday
concerns of real women.

The women arrive bearing a large ream of plain undyed Thai silk and an
antique manually operated Singer sewing machine. Once their excitement
with the view of the palace subsides, their enthusiasm for which hasn’t
diminished since seeing it from this perspective yesterday, we begin our
day’s work. For me, it’s virtually the same as any practical class held in a
workshop at UWS. Only here, as a participant and exhibitor with only two
weeks to prepare, my guiding hand must develop their ideas rather more
quickly than would be the case with my students engaged in the three
year bachelor degree program.

Initially, we mostly talk about refining the general concepts discussed in
the first meeting, what each of them wants to specifically say, and how
they’re going to say it. I realise that to translate these concepts we’ll
need to be in the gallery itself to get a feel for the space we’ll be
exhibiting in. There, they’ll grasp what’s possible in the three-dimensions
we have to work with.

We sit on the floor in the middle of the gallery with drawing pads until
they’re compelled to get up and walk around its walls, touching them,
coming to terms with the height as well as the length and breadth of the
space we have to work in. The first thing they appreciate is it’s not only
one space, but three sub-spaces, and that given their broad ideas it may
be best to install three individual pieces. I begin documenting the whole
process, taking photos with my digital camera of us working together, and
intend to capture the social side of our mutual experiences from this point
on as well.

We measure the gallery so we know exactly the space we have to fill,
which has a high ceiling. Luckily, there are a few stepladders to reach it.
This exercise also serves the purpose of getting them used to the idea
that they’re going to have to make detailed, precise drawings for each of
the three artworks first. Next, we start to rough out some initial sketches
and soon realise they all want to work with silk. Considering the title of
the exhibition, it’s probably not such a bad idea, only the space is fairly
large and will require much more silk than what they brought with them
this morning, which could be expensive.

The women come up with some visually stunning ideas, it’s only when I
keep on asking them how we’re going to do it that they start to struggle
with the complexities of the seemingly simple concepts. It’s a challenging
task, but the more challenging the task, the higher each of them rises.
Their natural intelligence and creativity impresses me greatly, and I can’t
help but think again what a waste it is that these women are only
appreciated for their bodies. But that’s the point of this exercise, to
demonstrate they are so much more to those who consider them the
lowest females.

Silpa drops in at midday and invites us to lunch, and we head in a cheerful
gaggle to Ming Lee. Tawatchai and Charnwut soon join us and we talk
about the project, how well it’s progressing, and what tools and materials
we might need that they can help with. They invite me to dinner here in
the evening, and I ask Silpa if he’d like to join us. He says he can’t
without explaining why. On the way back to the campus I ask him if we’ll
meet again tomorrow. He says he has classes and might not be able,
waiing me at the gate and heading in a different direction without looking
back, leaving me wondering.

That night is more a drinking session than a dinner. Without Silpa’s
presence to give me the strength to restrain myself, I join in with the
other ajarns as they go through numerous bottles of Heineken beer, then
progress to Johnny Walker scotch whiskey until closing.

Friday arrives with a nasty hangover, which only begins to lose its
ferociousness after I quaff several coffees brought up to the workshop
by the women. By lunchtime when Silpa doesn’t show, I slump into a
depression in diametrically the same proportions as the happiness I’d
experienced in his presence. The dinner by the river has been a constant
on my mind. We were so close and now, unexplainably, he is distant.

I try calling him in the afternoon, but his phone is switched off. I try a
few more times and keep on hoping he’ll show, looking at the doorway
whenever someone enters, leaving me more disappointed when it isn’t
him. After the women have gone at the end of the day, I go to drown my
sorrows with Tawatchai, Charnwut, and a few other ajarns.

By eight o’clock, we’ve moved from Heineken to scotch and I’m halfway
into my third Black Label, when a hand lands on my shoulder. I turn and
look up and, against all expectations, in a blink I ascend through the
canals of Silpa’s eyes, allowing me to permeate inside his soul. Right
away I know he’s come as soon as he could and all my negative
speculations and unfounded worries vanish. Without losing eye contact,
he sits down beside me.

“Where have you been?” I ask unkindly, almost as a knee-jerk reaction.
Before he can reply I say what I meant, knowing I can be totally honest.
“I missed you.”

“I can’t see you now, Anna,” he says evenly.

“Why not?”

“Because you’ve been drinking. I don’t like to see you like this. I’m sorry,
I can only stay a minute.”

I can’t stop myself from saying defensively, “I thought you weren’t
coming, otherwise I wouldn’t have started,” wishing I’d kept my mouth
shut.

“Tomorrow, are you busy?”

“Even us art teachers on exchange get weekends off.” I realise how harsh
my words are and change my tone. “Tawatchai and Wut have asked me
to go to an opening at H Gallery in the evening, would you like to go with
us.” Silpa is right: I am too drunk for him to be around.

“No thanks, I was thinking of returning to my home in Ayuttaya.”

“Were you thinking of asking me to tag along?” I enquire, hoping what I’d
said about going to an exhibition hadn’t put him off asking me to go with
him.

“Would you like to visit my home?”

“That sounds just right. I’m sure I’ll be able to go to this gallery another
time.”

“Then I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow morning.”

He ducks back out of the restaurant as quickly as he’d come in. Deciding
it better not to wake up with another hangover, I take my leave and head
to the hotel.