Silpa: the Art of Love

Chapter 7
Silpa

I plunge back into the dream at the point I’d left off. Having arrived at
the end of the path, he now has her body in front of a funeral pyre,
setting the kindling wood alight and placing her amongst the shooting
flames. His face is still hidden, and I look around, discovering we’re alone.
I’m the only other mourner. My own grief is palpable, though I know not
for whom I cry, nor with whom I grieve. In the blaze I expect to see a
burning body, yet she remains untouched by the conflagration and
peaceful in her repose, arms crossing her chest.

It’s then I feel his warm hand, resting on my shoulder. Looking along the
length of the outstretched arm he is suddenly revealed: a luminous face,
graceful features calm and kind, framed by greying hair shrouding him in
an aureole of enlightenment. Tears of compassion slowly form as syrupy
droplets in the corners of his dark oval eyes. He smiles at me almost
imperceptibly, just enough to let me know he is at peace with the world
in spite of his grief, and somehow discerns my thoughts and fears.

In return I want to touch him only, as I lever my arm, a ringing disturbs
us. There’s a second ring, then a third, and I drop my arm and look
around. A telephone atop a bedside table rings again and I find myself
alone in an unfamiliar bed, answering it with, “Hello, Anna Golden
speaking.” It’s the concierge calling to tell me two men are waiting in the
lobby. It’s half past eight – god, half an hour late already! “Tell them I’ll
be right down.” Before I forget, especially now my stream of
unconsciousness has been broken, I grab my paper and pencil and spend
five minutes sketching first the face of the man as it’s most detailed,
then the body untouched by the fire. Apologising profusely, I meet them
by nine.

“No need to apologise,” replies Tawatchai. “You needed a good night’s
sleep after your flight.”

The drive takes only a few minutes, we simply do a semicircle to the other
side of Sanam Luang. On the way we pass a palace Tawatchai tells me is
the Grand Palace, a gold and multicoloured enchanted castle straight out
of a fairy tale. With spires narrowing to points reaching to the celestial
heavens, tiled temples, and the golden dome of a gigantic stupa squatting
like a bell on the ground behind high white masonry walls surmounted with
crenulated fortifications. The spectacle prompts me to wonder if the
prince of my dreams will appear from this palace, waking me from my
eternal slumber with a single kiss.

Tourists are swarming outside the palace’s main gate, and we pull into a
similar entrance only smaller flanked by similar but shorter fortifications
directly across the road from the palace. “Welcome to Silpakorn,” says
Tawatchai.

“How come Silpakorn is located across the road from the palace?” I ask.

“It used to be the palace of the King’s brother,” he answers matter-of-
factly.

I can’t help but be impressed. “Your university is a palace?”

“Was. Now it’s Thailand’s first art university.”

The campus is a mix of historic European style buildings and newer
utilitarian blocks of a more recognisable educational environment. At its
centre is a courtyard and a raised life-size bronze of a distinguished
looking European man who reminds me of former long-time Australian
Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies. Around the statue are garlands of
flowers, and students wai respectfully towards it as they pass by.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“That’s Silpa Bhirasri, he’s the founder of the university and the father
of modern art in Thailand,” answers Charnwut.

I can’t resist asking another basic question. “He was Thai?”

“He became Thai,” he replies. “Originally, he was from Florence and his
name was Corrado Feroci. He came to Thailand in 1923, and later
changed his name to Silpa Bhirasri when he became naturalised during
World War II.”

They first take me to the faculty offices and introduce the office staff
and some of the other academic staff who happen to be around. Next
they take me on a tour of the campus, starting with my workshop,
which is next to the office on the fourth floor of one of the later
constructions and which has a great view overlooking the palace. After
that they show me to not one, not two, not three, but four galleries, all
either exhibiting work, taking down work, or putting it up.

The last one they take me to they say will be the gallery I’ll be installing
my work in; they must have been saving it because it’s on the ground
floor of the same building as my workshop. We wander around. It’s a
standard gallery space with high, whitewashed walls and a sophisticated
lighting system, balancing ambient and enhanced highlights.

I’m impressed. At UWS we don’t even have one gallery. “Wow, this is
fabulous,” I declare.

Another artist is in middle of the process of dismantling their exhibition,
and I’m as interested in it as I am in the space. The pieces are of the
same genre as my own recent work, installation art, and I’m fascinated
by the materials the artist has used, mostly what appears to be local or
traditional in origin. I get the feeling I’ve seen something similar
somewhere before, maybe I’d come across the artist’s work during my
Internet search. It’s hard to recall. I was so tired during that stage
before coming to Thailand.

“Where’s the artist?” I ask.

Charnwut shrugs. “I don’t know. He’s around somewhere. Would you like
a refreshment?”

Not having had my customary black breakfast this morning, I’m dying for
a cup. Outside the faculty gallery is one of the campus caf?s, open-air
under a mature leafy tree with broad boughs blocking out the sun,
sprinkling the courtyard with twigs and leaves as a breeze ripples through
the branches. Tawatchai must read my mind because he doesn’t ask
before buying a round of coffees. With my caffeine level restored, I
become enthusiastic to jabber about the project ahead with my two
minders.

“That’s an outstanding space, I can’t wait to get involved with the people
on the street. You know it serves two purposes, it demystifies the artistic
process and exposes a new audience to art.”

“Where do you plan on finding these people?” asks Charnwut.

“I was hoping you could help me.”

“You mean take you to the places to meet prostitutes at night, like the
bars at Patpong?” asks Tawatchai.

“Not only there, also community groups, outreach organisations, health
clinics, and so on.”

“Sure,” he says unconvincingly. “If you want to go to the girly bars, we
can take you to the girly bars.”

“Great, I can’t start my work until I find some collaborators to work with.
I don’t have to have many, just four or five women who want to
contribute with the concept and help with the creation. I want them to
feel a strong sense of ownership.”

Charnwut is more obviously negative about the proposal while Tawatchai
is more diplomatically ambivalent. They tell me they have to leave me
alone for an hour and suggest I fill in the time with a tour of the Grand
Palace, until lunch when they will join me.

“We have to go to a meeting,” Tawatchai explains.

“I’ll be fine.”

After they’re gone, I don’t go to the palace, but back to have a closer
look at the artist’s work in the gallery. He uses inverted ceramic pots,
fishing nets, and readymade objects such as wooden wheelbarrows,
fishing and farming implements.

I know it’s a faux pas to touch somebody else’s artwork only I can’t stop
myself from kneeling down, closing my eyes and running my fingers
through the rough strands of the fishing net. I empathise with the person
who used it through touching the object, not as though they had
somehow left a residual part of themselves, just that simply by physical
contact, I come to experience what was an integral part of their everyday
life. Art is generally considered something you look at, but I love to touch
it, even run-of-the-mill oil paint on canvas has the most pleasurable
texture to touch. I feel resolutely that more artists should find ways to
make their output more accessible by encouraging people to come into
direct contact with it.

Running the tip of my index finger around the diamond shapes in the
netting, I take extreme pleasure in the tingling sensation of the coarse
ticklish fibre rubbing against my skin. I can feel every filament bumping
against each ridge of my fingerprint. The delicate sensation elevates my
level of perception above the mundane visual world we mostly dwell in,
which divides more than unites us, to the more physical and tangible
reality of actual contact that synthesises the components. The touch of
the material propels my thoughts on a journey of association, cascading
into a remembrance of the series of dreams of the man and woman that,
for reasons unknown, have been the prevailing current of my unconscious
thoughts, altering me in ways still a mystery. I wonder what change the
dreams foreshadow?

I contemplate my life thus far and the sacrifices I’ve made to get to this
point, reflecting on the satisfaction my progress has brought me, and
whether it has ushered any happiness with it. I realise I’m not happy, far
from the state of bliss shared by the couple in my dreams, whose love is
so great as to breach the terrible barrier of death itself.

No. And I consider if I should change the idea of my exhibition to concern
these two people who, although we’ve never met in the daylight, I’ve
come to know so intimately during our nocturnal encounters. I get an
inkling they have been with me for a long while and it’s only been on a few
occasions, either when I’ve woken or been awaken from the dream, I’ve
managed to crystallise them in my memory. I speculate whether they are
a mirror I’m holding up to myself, or whether I see them through a window
into their world, like the divine vision of a seer, only such nonsense is
impossible. I know their faces and know we’ve never met and, rationally,
I must deny their physical existence. Only I can’t help but feel they have
a tangible existence outside of my imagination.

In the midst of my reverie I’m caught by surprise when I unexpectedly
feel a hand placed on my shoulder. The first thing to cross my mind is I’m
dreaming of the hand as I’d done last night. My eyes open and the world
is exposed once more through the primary sense, diluting the distilled
essence of feeling with the superficial influx of visual information. I turn
to see whose hand is bridging me to them, expecting to find Tawatchai
or Charnwut back from their meeting early, and fall backwards into the
net in shock when confronted by the face of the man in my dream.
Confused and captured like a fish in the mesh, he hauls me up and
untangles me. I’m wordless, blinking at him with my mouth agape,
leaving him to speak first.

“Are you okay?”

“I... I’m okay. Sorry for—” I gesture at the netting strewn on the floor in
a heap.

“Don’t worry, I’m taking it down today anyway. Sawadi khrup, I’m
Phathompong,” he says, waiing me.

I’m too taken aback to return the gesture, and am preoccupied with
coming to terms with the pronunciation of his name, the sound of which
rings a bell. “Sawadi ka, Path-rom-poon,” I try. “I’m Anna Golden from
Australia, I’m here on an exchange from UWS. Tawatchai and Charnwut
are looking after me,” I manage to answer cogently, unable to take my
eyes off him. His every detail is exactly as it had been in the dream, and I
have no idea how to explain it.

“Pleased to meet you, Anna.”

I break off my stare which is perhaps becoming rude and embarrassing,
casting around the room and nodding excessively instead. “I love your
work.”

“Thank you.”

“I can’t help but think I’ve seen it before. What’s your last name?”

“Suwannachot.”

I definitely know that name: this is the Thai artist that’s been making
such an impact internationally the last few years. Still struggling with Thai
names I ask to make sure, “Was it you who had an exhibition at The Asia
Society in New York, right Phat-om-pon?” I tussle again with the
pronunciation of his first name, and again fail miserably to articulate it
anywhere near correctly.

“Yes,” he replies in a quiet, unassuming tone of voice. “It’s pronounced
Pha-thom-pong, but please, my friends call me Silpa.”

“Silpa, that’s much easier.”

“Did you go to my exhibition in New York?”

“I wish. No, I saw one or two pieces on the Web and read up a bit about
you. I think I read an article about your work in an art journal a couple of
years back, too. I don’t know much about Thai art or artists, but hope to
learn more while I’m here.”

“I see. How long are you here for?”

“Not quite three weeks. I’m opening my exhibition in this same gallery in
eighteen days exactly, then I’m flying out the following morning back
home to Australia.”

“I’ll be sure to come to your opening.”

“That would be fantastic. I do installation work as well. Not as renowned
as yours.”

“Please,” he says, lowering his head.

Already our conversation has rushed forward like a torrent and, with the
momentum of some tropical monsoon pouring down on a distant flood plain
driving it from behind, is impossible to obstruct, catching each of us up
and surging us forward with the unstoppable power propelling it, washing
us out into the vast ocean of possibilities that is created when two
unknown quantities collide.

“Can I help you uninstall your work?” I ask, picking up the net, folding it
over my forearm like a fisherman preparing to throw it again. “After all,
I’ve already begun.”

He laughs at my joke. “Surely you must be busy.”

“It’s how I enjoy being busy.”

“Mai pen rai, my students will do it.”

“Mai pen rai?”

“It’s Thai for what you Aussies might call ‘no worries’, or what we’d
usually translate into English as ‘don’t worry’. Can I invite you to lunch
with me instead?”

“That would be great, only I’m waiting for Tawatchai and Charnwut.
They’ve gone to a meeting, and they told me they’d be finished before
twelve.”

“I know the meeting. I was tagged to go too, only I told them I had to
take down my show. They won’t be finished by twelve. Those faculty
meetings can drag on all day.”

“Oh.”

“Come on, I’ll take you to the restaurant the ajarns always go, Ming Lee.
It’s where they would have taken you. If they finish early or break for
lunch, that’s where they’ll go.”

We leave the gallery and stroll along without conversation in an easy
silence, like old friends that don’t have to fill the air with trivialities. I
recall what I’d seen about him on the Internet and I’m fairly sure there
were no photos of the artist. The article I’d read a couple of years before
is a little harder to remember. It was in The Asian Art Society of
Australia’s journal that I think included a photo of the artist, possibly,
which would explain how I knew what he looked like in my dreams. I’m
glad there must be a logical reason for that, otherwise I wouldn’t know
what to think. I try and remember what I’d read but my memory, at least
my conscious memory, isn’t that detailed. There certainly was no
photograph of a woman with him.

Outside the university directly across from the palace’s main gate is a line
of European style terraces, and we step inside the first. Inside, it’s dank
and musty with jaundiced century-old paint peeling off the walls like old
bark, held in place by bandages of photographs, paintings and exhibition
posters covering most of it. Only a couple of the tables are occupied,
and Silpa picks the one closest the door, the one with a reserved sign in
both English and Thai.

“This table’s already reserved,” I say, hesitating.

“Reserved for artists,” he says, pulling a chair out for me.

“What are all these pictures?”

He tells me some are photos of the king, reproduced portraits of previous
monarchs, members of the royal family, some works by Thai artists,
photos of old Bangkok, and of Silpa Bhirasri. “Artists have been coming
here since the early part of the last century. Neither the place nor the
menu has changed in that time.”

“You have the same name as the Italian who founded your university,”
I note.

“Yes, it’s my nickname, all Thais have nicknames.”

“Why’s that?”

“On account of our real names being so long and hard to pronounce,” he
jokes with a laugh, cracking his face along the smile lines indenting his
face. Together with his greying hair, the creases show his age, probably
about mid-forties, only the aging process has refined Silpa’s features and
signify his good-natured character; whereas with so many others, aging
results in stress and worry lines that look nowhere near as pleasing.

An older woman comes out of the kitchen at the back on sight of Silpa,
leans on the table between us, and writes out his order with paper and
pencil. Although she ignores me, I study her closely. In so many ways
she shares similarities with this building, both having absorbed the
character of the other over decades. Her skin is pallid, same as the paint
on the walls. I tentatively lean toward her and silently inhale. Beneath the
spicy perfume I discern the odour of the restaurant too.

Shortly after midday patrons start to arrive, all bowing to each other as
they enter.

“Most of these people are either teachers here or artists,” says Silpa.
“If you were by yourself, the Jays wouldn’t let you eat here.”

Scanning the walls as we speak, I spot a sign and read it out loud,
“Ming Lee Institute.”

“Yes, this restaurant is an institution. King Vajiravudh who ruled about
ninety years ago used to eat here on occasion, and Ajarn Silpa Bhirasri
was a regular.”

“Wow, I feel honoured.”

“Now the Jays have seen you with me you should be okay if you come
alone. They will remember you.”

“What are the Jays?”

Silpa points at the kitchen where the woman who had taken his order is
preparing our lunch with another. “The old sisters, this is their restaurant,
which was passed down to them by their father. Tell me about your
upcoming exhibition.”

“Okay. I want to do something that involves the local women, particularly
sex workers, only Tawatchai and Charnwut aren’t so keen on it.”

“Well, Tawatchai is high society. He has a reputation to protect and
wouldn’t want to be seen anywhere near those places. And Charnwut is
a good man and great artist, but he’s definitely of the opinion that art
should be left to artists, that the people only come to see the work; the
artists make it.”

“That’s elitist, isn’t it?”

“Yes and no. You don’t know about Thai society yet and you don’t have
long to learn. It probably would be better if you stuck to making your
own art.”

“See, that’s the artistic paradigm I want to explode. I want to show that
the art world is inclusive, not exclusive.”

“I can see you’re genuine about what you’re doing. That’s enough to
convince me to help you, that is if you want my help.”

“You would do that for me? I know I really need it if I’m going to pull this
thing off. Otherwise I’m going to look ridiculous.”

“A former student of mine did an exhibition of portraits of bar girls, he has
their confidence and their mobile numbers. I will ask him to ask them, and
I’m sure you will have no problem finding the people you need.”

“That’s great, I don’t know how I can thank you enough. Will it be that
easy, do you think?”

“For you, Anna.” He passes over his card, which has his mobile phone
number. “Call me anytime.”

“Thanks so much, Silpa.” I give him my mobile number. “It’s expensive to
call; it goes all the way to Australia and back though I might be sitting
right beside you.”

“If you can meet me here for lunch tomorrow, I’ll bring him with me.”

“Perfect.”

Food arrives as Tawatchai and Charnwut step through the doorway and
join us. The conversation diverges into areas out of my control and, after
eating his fill of the dishes spread across the table, Silpa makes his
excuses and leaves, leaving me no opportunity to say anything but
goodbye. Tawatchai and Charnwut sit and talk about other things, and I
stay until they leave.

They apologise that they have to return to their meeting, involving some
pressing faculty business, which can’t wait. Secretly, I’m glad to be on
my own. I decide to spend the rest of the day sightseeing, first joining
the line of tourists queuing to visit the Grand Palace. Inside I can see
why it’s Thailand’s number one attraction, with beautiful murals of
traditional Thai motifs and statues of mythical creatures with symbolic
meanings I can only begin to guess at.

Next on the agenda is a visit to the famous Reclining Buddha nearby,
making four laps of the giant statue before leaving. From the outside I
might look to be a typical tourist enjoying the sights, wandering around
almost aimlessly taking holiday snaps same as everybody else, but in my
mind I’m going over every detail of my encounter with Silpa, unable and
unwilling to put him out of my head.