Currystrumpet, a certified artiste

yes, that's artiste with an e – the singaporean way. i've mentioned how vastly irritated i am with this term, which is applied to just about everyone in singapore's puny elite entertainment industry. well, last weekend i came upon quite a conundrum.

i find the label 'artiste' infuriating
people call me an artiste
do i then infuriate myself?

haha. i'm exaggerating, although i did spend one sunday afternoon being called an 'artiste' by scores of passersby. as part of the singapore arts festival, the arts house opened up the parliament promenade on boat quay (a kind of glorified sidewalk along the singapore river, opposite a whole bank of touristy restos) to anyone who wanted to draw on it with chalk.

the event, dubbed chalk art by the river (the sheer creativity just kills me), drew mostly primary school kids, a couple of tourists, and two art-starved stragglers.

two art-starved stragglers

so there we were, scratching on the cement sidewalk with chalk alongside little singaporeans. there was a competition being held for the best chalk art, which we decided to sign up for just so we could get the set of soft chalk pastels that were handed out to the entrants. (non-competitive artists were given large chunks of plain colored chalk instead.) the theme of the competition was 'my story.' did i already mention that the sheer creativity just kills me?

cynicism aside, it was quite fun. we chose a patch of sidewalk where we could draw beside each other, with him in the shade and me in the sun (naturally). we set to work, each wrapped up in our own world -- which was, for the next four hours, four squares of a rough cement sidewalk, slowly filling up with color.

woh don't disturb lah! artiste at work!

i have always loved rolling up my sleeves (figuratively) and getting all messy when i draw. my high school friends would call me 'dugyot' when they saw me working on the classroom bulletin board in my paint-stained t-shirt or sando, school skirt and bare feet, lying on my stomach on the cement tile floor of our classroom. during this sunday afternoon, my knees were gray from the dust on the sidewalk and my hands black from the pastels. but i didn't really care.

marlon and i both love to draw, although we prefer different media. he mostly does oil, pencil sketches (really good ones too!) and pastels, while i like to do watercolors, collages and ink drawings. and of course our styles are very different too. although in this particular instance, our drawings actually complemented each other. most of the passersby remarked on this. (yes, the same passersby who said things like, "woh lah! a real artiste lah!")

we decided to scrap the theme and just draw whatever.

my mushy finishing touch


yessiree he cooks, cleans, does laundry, solves math problems in his head, writes and spoils his girlfriend. all that and he draws too!

art-starved stragglers, appeased

met a couple of interesting people while we were getting all dirty on the sidewalk. a pair of photographers who wanted to take our photos with our works, a young dad who employed a filipina yaya, and one man who asked if we were professional artists. we almost snorted (would we be this fat if we were starving artists?). the man was so shocked when he found out we just drew as a hobby.

the event was hp-sponsored, meaning we each got a nice digital printout of our works on photo paper. we washed off the grime in the arts house, had some lemon sorbet at nearby cafe society. afterwards, being the type a competitive couple that we are, marlon and i checked out the 'competition' and patrolled our little masterpieces, guarding them zealously against bikers and pedestrians. i don't think some people knew how closely they came that afternoon to complete and utter vivisection.

my favorite among the 'competition.' hee hee


ending the day with a beautiful sunset -- the first of its kind marlon and i have seen in singapore

p.s. i won second prize in the competition. i wonder what i won. cash would sure come in handy as i am extending my stay to july 11 -- yes, a full month.

--

random tidbits:

hey people from slovenia. statcounter tells me a bunch of you visited my blog. if you're from the stroj, i think you rock (as you can see from my entry about you). and i think your country rocks too. so be friendly and leave me a comment. :-)

i saw war of the worlds. it is indeed very spielbergian, but the ending was just too abrupt. i hope dakota fanning grows up to be very ugly, and that tom cruise discovers other forms of emotion apart from revealing his forehead veins.

i had lunch with he-who-must-not-be-named (term borrowed from g). it was fun, if a bit overwhelming and confusing. here i go being made to think about my life again. tip: the easiest way to make me do something is to tell me i could be extremely good at it. then watch me turn myself inside out as i convince myself that it's really what i want.

the other he-who-must-not-be-named, who faced my hot pink powers, has left a trail of hate all over asia as proof of his dementia. absolutely fascinating. i just met one very influential person who has plenty in common with me and the first he-who-must-be-named (and whom i was totally unprepared to meet).