Original Photo: New Orleans 2002, Printed 2003. Cyanotype on cold press paper
Light filters through an apothecary’s window display of abandoned medical panaceas

There are few sensations as exhilarating as a clean slate. Beginnings are fumbles in the dark, full of possibilities and pitfalls. Whether we’re a middle-aged man falling for an ingenue, a traveler landing in a brand new city, or a woman besotted with babies, we’re all attracted to the same thing: a fresh start.

Artists fall for new materials in the same way.

While sorting through boxes from the past, I rediscovered my first cyanotypes from 2003, made shortly before I moved to Asia. As I sifted through these prints on French, English and Indian cotton papers, memories come flooding back:

* Late nights printing with halogen and other lights, experimenting with angles and distance, melting negatives, reversing others, and overexposing most of the prints that made it that far.

* Entire afternoons spent at Kinko’s making transparent negatives: enlarging, inverting and adjusting contrast on their copy machines.

* Days devoted to printing in Boston’s feeble spring sunlight.

The images are from my travels through the UK, Cuba, Haiti, Morocco and more. Most of my experiments I destroyed, and some sold to casual collectors.

Click here to see the few early cyanotypes that made the final cut.

A brand new bridge at the Trang An caves, Vietnam

August 2008, Ninh Binh:

It’s my first time in Vietnam and I’m on a mission to talk to as many artists and galleries as I can for the website Gallery Cyclo [still a work in progress]. But I’m tired. I’ve been hassled in Saigon, hustled in Hoi An, and had a moto driver try to mug me on a beautiful night in the ex-DMZ city of Danang. My knees and palms are still covered in scabs from jumping off his motorbike to keep my camera – and everything else – out of his hands.

Looking for a respite from the big cities, I take a few days off from artists and focus on a new photo series. I climb limestone karsts and pant my way into pagodas at the top. Visit a Chinese-style Catholic cathedral made famous by one of my favorite writers. A hotel receptionist hands me a map and says, “You should see these caves at Trang An, they’re not in the Lonely Planet.” Always a recommendation to follow.

My guide and I hop into a rickety wooden boat and are soon dodging stalactites in a massive inland lagoon. The caves are truly spectacular, and are unlike anywhere else I’ve been before or since.

More photos and descriptions over at ThingsAsian.

Image Used With Permission From Beauty And The Bath Geisha Hair Gallery

This geisha’s photo could have been printed on postcards or sold to a private client. She was taken by a professional studio photographer. Cyanotypes were an affordable way for photographers to test the density of their negatives, and were rarely preserved. But  this beautiful picture was kept and chemically toned to a more neutral sapphire blue.

The final image would have been a more traditional black-and-white or sepia-toned print, probably hand-tinted with color.

Thanks to Beauty and the Bath for the use of this image.

I’ve just backed up my laptop and rediscovered forgotten images.

Some Thai boxing photos from a week in Hua Hin, 2005:

Low light photos with no flash turn a brutal scene into a beautiful one.

Colors and highlights are painted onto a dark background.

The effect is rich like pastel on sandpaper.

Movements sketched onto the lens by slow exposures.

I looked at the fight through my lens, one round at a time.

The camera didn’t leave my eyes till the boxers had finished fighting.

There were boys who’d taken steroids then stopped, and men at their prime who still took them.

Any accomplishment demands intense physical and mental power.

Psych out your opponent and you’re halfway to victory.

Each win means there are more who wait to fight you.

And one day you’ll stop winning. What then?

If you’ve ever wondered how I make the blue cyanotype prints that saturate my website, have a look at the pictures below.

Whether you’re printing on silk, wood, plaster or paper, all you need are:

1. Chemicals and water,

2. a Surface for printing

3. a Design, and

4. Sunlight

1. First, mix these powdered chemicals with 100cc of water each:

* Ammonium iron(III) citrate (‘green’ variety) 25g
* Potassium ferricyanide K3[Fe(CN)6] 10g

The chemical names might sound toxic but they’re not – unless you eat them with your lunch.

Supplies are available from Photo Formulary, or just Google “Cyanotype” to find one near you.

2. Paint the silk – or paper, or wood, or whatever you’ve got – with a brush or roller. Avoid brushes with metal surfaces; they’ll react with the iron-based chemicals.

Dry in a dark room.

3. Set up your image in a semi-dark room. Your design could be leaves like this, or a digital negative printed on acetate for photos, or any objects that block light in an interesting way. Take a look at my portfolio for examples.

4. Expose your image outside in direct sunlight. Developing time will vary depending on climate, strength of chemicals, and the objects you use, anywhere from 10-80 minutes. You know the print is finished when it’s darkened to Prussian blue then lightened again.

Final step: Rinse the print for up to 10 minutes. Add some vinegar/citric acid to the rinse water.

Your final impression is the unique combination of light, water, and chemistry of a particular day. Every printing session has unexpected variables depending on your water acidity, the pollution or cloud cover, and where in the world you are.

And most of all, it depends on your creativity.

This picture’s baroque lighting is as velvety as The Denial of St Peter, a painting I grew up with in Minneapolis

Sapa, Vietnam: We stumble off our motorbikes after a long day scouring the hills for papermakers.

“What would you like to do tomorrow?” my guide asks.

“Learn how to work with silver,” I say. I’d worked with silver molds before while a sculpture apprentice, and had made simple silver wedding rings in Thailand, but hilltribe silversmithing is something else entirely. Much of the silver in southeast Asia [ex-Indochina] is from French piastres that were later melted into wearable wealth.

“Ok, I’ll take you to a Red Dao hilltribe village and they’ll teach you how to make something with silver,” she says. But what she doesn’t know is that I won’t be allowed to touch the tools. Why? Because I could curse them. Hilltribes believe everything has a spirit inside it, and a foreigner could send the spirits away. Literally freak them out. Or even worse, piss them off.

["Foreigner" includes westerners like me, or lowland Vietnamese, or anyone not from the Red Dao or related groups.]

Sure, this Mr. Red Dao Smith doesn’t come out and say “You’ll piss off my tool-spirits.” He’s too polite for that, my guide tells me later. “Nope,” he says, “the tools could break.” They’re much sturdier than tools I’ve used in the past. I could pay for new ones – it would just be a few dollars from a local market – but this is his toolbox in a way that goes beyond physical ownership. His spirit has worked with those in the tools for awhile, and they get along just fine without a foreigner putting her grubby hands all over them, thank you very much.

So it was a hands-off experience, but a fascinating one. Here everyone in the family’s gathered around the silversmith to watch his final polish on my earrings with a torch.

Paper’s a worldwide obsession: Japanese paper dangles delicately from racks in Darlinghurst, Sydney

I wonder who uses paper these days, and why?

* Are you using paper for anything today? [toilet paper excepted]

* Do you use it often? What do you use it for?

* Is there a particular kind you prefer? i.e. handmade or machine-made, a certain thickness or color, plain or lined or gridded

* Has your paper consumption changed over the last 10 years? How?

And speaking of paper, here’s a tale of trickery and toilet paper:

Trading Toilet Paper for Treasure

From the memoirs of a British physician at the 19th century court of Siam

One day he was attending an antique lady of 65, one of four who remained from the harem of the deceased Second King, in the Wang Na Palace, Bangkok. In one of her drawers there was newspaper, all carefully torn into pieces of the same size.

’What is that?’ said I.

’Toilet paper,” she replied with a peal of laughter.

She did not of course call it that, for [manufactured toilet paper] was unknown to her…When I explained to her what toilet paper was she became interested.

‘If you bring me some,’ she said, ‘you can have a piece of pottery.’

So on my next visit I took her six fat rolls and came away with a beautiful vase of the K’ang H’su period (circa A.D. 1700) worth at least fifty times as much. Exchange is no robbery, I thought; she will enjoy my paper as much as I shall enjoy having her vase.

p. 100-101, A Physician at the Court of Siam

Read Haiti: Art from the Rubble – Part 1 here.

There’s much more to Haiti than coups and earthquakes. Some of the most prolific artists in the region have called Haiti home. Like the nation’s unique culture, Haitian art reflects a mixture of African, Caribbean, French, and Catholic influences. Here’s some of the art and life I encountered there in 2003.

Drum painting – Music’s a part of daily life – from impromptu jams in the street to Kanaval concerts

At the American embassy a woman hands me a slip of paper with NGOs phone numbers. “Sorry,” she says, “we don’t have any information on artists or local schools with art classes.” I swallow hard, wondering what I’m doing here, and head outside into the midday sun. Doubtless locals wonder what I’m doing too; most foreigners here work with missions or aid organizations. Haiti doesn’t have an Angkor Wat that attracts tourists during its difficult times. But I’m no slum tourist either.

I’d arrived in Port-au-Prince the previous day with luggage full of art supplies to donate and demonstrate to artists, but no idea how or where to meet them; none of the organizations I’d contacted in America or Haiti had responded to me. So I decided to come anyway, and meet artists in the few days I had there. Art gives hope, and while I didn’t have water pumps and bags of rice, I did have some special wax paints.

While art schools in America are up to 60% female, there was just one woman in this class. Art in the developing world attracts more men than women; financial rewards for art only happen after years of work, if ever.

I walk along the Grand Rue of Dessalines. It seethes with a river of people. Some are headed to a market or to school, but many wander around aimlessly. Like me. I pass two other tourists, the only ones I meet. A Swedish couple, they’re curious why I’ve come here alone. “There’s not much to do here,” they say, and shrug their shoulders. They don’t seem to know why they’ve come to Haiti. Maybe I don’t either, but I keep walking along the Grand Rue.

“Hey – are you in the Peace Corps?” shouts an American voice from somewhere in the crowd. With a New York accent.  A skeletal face with huge black eyes pushes out of the crowd. I shake my head no. Who is this guy? What kind of line is that?

“I thought you weren’t – most of the Peace Corps girls are pretty homely. What’re you doing in Haiti?”

I tell him.

“There’s the National Art School a few blocks away – I can take you there, and won’t even charge you for it!” He grins, and I follow him down a steep sloping street. Robert moved to New York as a kid and had spent 20 years there. He’d gotten into crack, shoplifting to support his habit. One day he walked out of a store with 6 leather coats worth $600 each under his arms. He was caught – with a felony-level crime. It’s been fifteen years since he was deported back to Haiti, but he talks about it like it was last week. He still hasn’t kicked his habit.

We meet the Directeur of Haiti’s arts university, the Ecole Nationale des Arts [ENARTS]. Students’ voices filter through windows from neighboring buildings. We sweat in the still afternoon air. The Directeur sits stoically, his hands folded, in front of an empty computer screen. There’s no electricity today. “Qu’est-ce que vous voulez faire avec nos eleves, madame?” he asks. I will show them how to paint with wax like this, I say, and hand him photos from a workshop in Cuba last year. I would like to give painting equipment to the school, have an exchange of art and ideas with the students.

He nods.

Portrait

The next morning Robert picks me up just before seven, and leads me through alleys and side streets and gardens to a small courtyard strewn with dog droppings. Murals climb across the walls, twist under a bower of branches. I walk closer to the murals. “Wait here,” he says, “it looks like Claude’s not awake yet.” Claude’s a voodoo priest, and this bower with scattered plastic chairs is his chill-out spot – and a temple too. The paintings illustrate voodoo rites: a landscape of dark faces with white head coverings, spirits incarnated into painted flesh.

Claude walks out into the early morning sun, rubbing his heavy-lidded eyes. He looks like a huge teddy bear, warm and round, his close-cropped hair tinged with wires of grey. “Bonjour,” he smiles. Soon he’ll take us around town to print handouts for class. But first his mother insists we stay for coffee. [Their taps aren't working so she makes it with rare bottled drinking water] Her French is confident and cosmopolitan. When she was young, she says, Port-au-Prince rarely had blackouts. She tells stories of her childhood in the seaside town of Jacmel, and of how she misses it. Of the good times in Montreal and New York, though she doesn’t miss those cold northern cities. She and Claude could have been part of the Haitian diaspora in Montreal, Paris, and America – often called the 9th province because their remittances are crucial to running the country – but they’ve chosen to stay here. Because Haiti is home. But “l’Haiti n’est pas un jeux d’enfants,” she says.

The students crowd around as I set up the hotplate and ask nonstop questions. We sniff the beeswax paints and they guess what’s inside.  They crowd one another as I explain how I make these encaustic wax paints, curious to get closer to this weird colored wax. They watch me paint, then dive right in.

The Directeur looks on just before everyone gets wild with wax

Soon the dozen colored waxes melt into a viscous grey-brown puddle of swirls and white as they dip their brushes and paint onto plywood. Brushes move fast once they see how quickly the wax freezes. They go wild with the paint. Years of training give painters confidence with new materials.

Two hours escape us and suddenly it’s time to clean up the equipment and donate it to the school.

Few of the students have email addresses, but those that do write them down for me, and we stay in sporadic touch over the years. I have sent emails to them all since the earthquake and hope that they and their loved ones are still alive.

Based on our last communications and Google searches, this is all I know today:

One of them, Dominique Domercant, has found success as an arts journalist, and regularly exhibits his work. He now lives in America.

The lone female artist in the class, Mendes Semerzier, is still painting in Haiti.

Nixon Leger lives in America and is active in the Haitian-American arts community there.

Another, Kevens Prevaris, still lives in Haiti and is a practicing artist.

If you have any information on these artists, please contact me.

——————–
Years ago I lost contact with Claude and Robert, and am searching for their whereabouts now. Claude came to America sometime after we met.

This NGO, Stand With Haiti, has been highly recommended by people I admire. Donate to them if you can; if you can’t, then you can always spread the word. Because it’s going to take a long long time for this flattened city to recover.

Follow @RAMhaiti on Twitter, and watch his amazing band live at Hotel Oloffson. It’s a highlight of any journey to Port-au-Prince:

* Some names changed.

Voodoo sculpture blueprint 2003, 10 x 12 inches – More on the Haitian sculptor below

There’s much more to Haiti than coups and earthquakes. Some of the most prolific artists in the region have called Haiti home. Like the unique culture, Haitian art reflects a mixture of African, Caribbean, French, and Catholic influences. Here’s a two-part series on the art and life I saw there in 2003.

We cross the island of Hispaniola from the Dominican Republic to Haiti inside a rattling bus. I’m happy to have left my mother behind in Santo Domingo. My luggage is full of hope and art supplies to donate and demonstrate to artists, but I’ve no idea how or where I’ll meet them. None of the organizations or embassies I’ve contacted have returned any messages, so I’ve come to the country to see what I can do on my own for a few days.  As we reach the border, the landscape changes from scrubby Dominican bush to a desert: it’s dry, dusty and bare.

Immigration. We pass quickly through pink-barred turnstiles. A local bus drives through with us, painted with carnival colors. These mini-trucks are called tap-taps; they reflect the hopes and dreams of the people who drive them. This one says “Merci Maman!” underneath an American flag – as with other Caribbean nations, the American presence looms large in Haiti. Flames rise over the words, an eye smolders from the center. “Stop” painted on all the tail-lights.

‘

A sculptor  I meet in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince’s biggest slum; he made all these voodoo sculptures including the original for my blueprint. If you have his name or email, please contact me

This country was once the richest and most fertile of the West Indies. Contrast that with the barrenness now, its topsoil washed away by clear-cutting hurricanes and poverty. Goats run about in circles. A black pig snorts at the gutter. A brief respite of green, and now it’s dry again.

“Espoir Fait Vivre” Hope gives life, says another tap-tap. “La Femme Creole – Belle Dresse” sings the praises of The Well-Dressed Creole Dame and another says “La Jalousie Rend un homme Mechant” Jealousy turns a Man into an Arsehole

We jolt across the highway. “They call this a road?!” I wonder [this is before my Cambodia days]. It has more rocks than dirt. Even the cacti are half-brown. Layers of mountains like cut-out silhouettes fade into a pale gold sun. Children sit under trees at the roadside with bowls of mangoes for sale. Goats nibble at patches of green, guarded by an 18-year-old with a gun. Goats, horses, pigs, roosters – all have their heads to the stony ground, pecking for food in the dust.

“Vous Parlez Je Travail”  You Talk while I Work. “The Best Coiffeur Merci Bon Dieu” advertises the Unbeatable Thank God Hairstylists

Boys gesture at me for money through the window, for a shoe shine, for anything. They carry battered boxes of shoeshine supplies, the refuge of a society which – like Cambodia – has few options for most of its kids; school’s too expensive for most.

Two children hold a voodoo sculpture in Cite Soleil. The girl is the sculptor’s daughter.

A man sits in the shade of a shrine to a female saint. Crosses, flowers, votives.

Faith proclaimed from the side of more tap-taps: “Jesus Answer“, “Dieu Devant” shows that God rides in the front seat. “L’amour du Prochain” Love Your Neighbor – or Love What’s Next

Many of them are painted with Haitian women writhing in bright colors, their limbs twisted to embrace the metal curves. Real Haitian women are mesmerizing. They walk with heads held steady on strong necks under bundles to and from the market, their hair wrapped in colorful scarves. Proud. Very African. Remember the Haitian women I worked with in New York. Their dignity. I see that in these women too.

“Sauve Ma Soeur” says a rainbow-colored truck, Save My Sister. Another promises ”La Force Tranquille”  The Quiet Force

We drive past the end of a market – rows of bottles of rum, Aim toothpaste, soap – all brought in directly from america. It looks eerily like home but in a different context – as though supermarkets have been transformed into bare wooden boxes. The Dominican radio station blasts saccharine marimbas. Vendors with wares on their heads, in their hands, between their calves. Young man hands another cash for a huge plastic bag the size of his torso, filled with pink pills. Woman with basket on her head of eggplants, bananas, oranges.

Tap-taps promise  ”Providence Variees” or Guardian Angels,  ”Immaculee” and ”Grace Divine“, reassurance that the divine exists somewhere. But not here.

An overturned car, its wheels gone, undersides exposed.

“St. Joseph-Nouvelle Generation” like an epithet, “Refuge Varites” a prayer of hope, and “Let’s Make Love -> Loving You” a prayer of thanks.

Shattered tires, iron crumbling back into red earth. “Jesus Is My Pilot” Not in this case, apparently.

Dominican radio fades and Haitian music with its African beats takes over. We enter Port-au-Prince. ”Le Paradis” is written on a gutter, “St. Innocent” on a bar. A sign says “Dreams Club” and crumbles off a cement block. Near a gate: “Pa Vivre La” serves as a warning or a farewell. Trash fires flicker on street corners. Evening’s coming soon.

“Vamos con Dios”  God is inescapable in any language. “Mesi Bon Die“, ”Acsepted Christ” [sic], “Dieu Avant Tout Studio Photo” “Beni Soit L’eternel” “Patience“, or simply, “Oh my God!”

So is the political, in a country as fractious as this one: “Aristide Pour 5 Ans” and “V. Aristide” Long Live Aristide

A driver overcharges me in a friendly fashion because I’m staying in the posh part of town, the swanky suburbs of Petionville. He runs out of gas on the treacherous ride uphill, and strangers help us push our cab up to the station. I’m happy that mom decided, last-minute, not to come; she wanted to relax on her week off work, and Haiti’s not quite a holiday destination anymore.  I only see two other tourists while there.

Dinner’s at the bistrot next to my guesthouse. Cats weave their way between our feet and chairs. The waitress’s name is Edelyne, she leaves me her number in case I have any problems in Haiti.

“We try to improve things here,” she says. “We have our problems, but Haiti’s Haiti. It changes slowly.”

Walking at night is treacherous: open manholes and crumbling pavement could break your ankle – or worse. Girls in light blue uniforms with matching ribbons in their hair carry piles of schoolbooks into the street after sunset. Students of all ages crowd the benches and study under the streetlamps’ emergency lights because they have no electricity at home.

I get to bed early because I’ve a lot of doors to knock on the next day. Including one that belongs to a voodoo priest.

Part 2 is here.

“Positions” Handmade Ink and Acrylic on mulberry/bamboo paper, 100 x 70cm, 2010

For this painting I looked at reference photos from Wanchai’s brothel district in the early 20th century. Women worked behind traditional wooden doors like this one. Each door had a big number on it, so they were called “Big Number Brothels”. Symbols painted on the lanterns were for good luck; you can see what looks like the number “8″ on two of them.

Ten years before I moved to Hong Kong I dreamt I lived there. I was standing on a promenade facing a smoggy maritime landscape of rolling islands and slapping sea. It was the ferry pier to my island home. I’d never particularly thought about Hong Kong before. But I had heard about Suzie Wong: the bad girl with a golden heart who’d seduced a lonely artist in a seedy Hong Kong hotel. I’d fondled polyester imitations of the Suzie Wong dress in NYC’s Canal Street. It’s a western fantasy ripe for ridicule by the likes of Margaret Cho and the ladies over at Disgrasian.com.

The story was so popular that it was turned into a film, and the transformations began: an artist changed from British to American for an American audience. The plot simplified. Suzie was played by Nancy Kwan – not a local girl, but a London ballet dancer with an English mother and Chinese father. Today the fantasy lives on, reincarnated worldwide: there’s a Suzie Wong girlie bar in Singapore with pole-dancers from the Philippines, others in Phuket and Beijing and Bangkok’s Soi Cowboy, an events service and bar in New York, even a restaurant in London called Suzie Wong’s.

Plenty of sailors and tourists still come to Hong Kong today and visit girlie bars in Wanchai, the notorious setting for the film. But you won’t find women from Hong Kong working there anymore. You’re more likely to hear accents from Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Hong Kong women have higher levels of education and live longer than American women these days. The most formidable businesswomen I’ve ever met have Hong Kong roots. They’ve moved on up from the Suzie Wong days. Eventually, maybe our western attitudes will too.