UNCAGED: The Art of Ability

Hello friends and followers,

After nearly a year of working with Nong Mai and Wichai at Baan Piranan, in the last few weeks we have been planning a large-scale exhibition of the amazing work that they have generated, and, on Saturday, November 14^th, all of our planning paid off with UNCAGED: The Art of Ability. UNCAGED was a full, cross-medium retrospective featuring paintings, pastels, umbrellas, lanterns, even some cardboard sculptures! Having gained international recognition (being featured in an Australian newspaper and exhibiting a show at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA) it was time that the artists gained a bit of local prestige! With the generous help of our sponsors, friends, donators, staff and fellow volunteers, Saturday night we held the remarkably successful opening reception for UNCAGED: The Art of Ability right here in Chiang Mai.

As you, kind blog-followers, must know, Mai and Wichai’s stories are not easy to hear. To put it far too simply, the boys have lived a life of neglect and abuse. Childhood was once a word that was unable to find its way into their harrowing pasts. Yet, in the last year, Mai and Wichai have been given not only care and love, but also the power of creation.

To most of us, our first act of creation is not remembered. Our first experience holding a crayon, covering a paintbrush in a sticky mess of paint, or sitting in front of an easel is, in the span of our lives, an insignificant event – a simple and universal experience of childhood. Yet, when Cultural Canvas Thailand visited Baan Piranan for the first time, just eleven short months ago, our volunteers watched as these children – teenagers, really – touched paint to paper for the first time in their lives.

UNCAGED was a success beyond words. Financially, UNCAGED raised more than 45,000 baht in painting sales and donations for the continued support of Baan Piranan and the Canvas Art Program and also led to the sponsorship of over 10 wheelchairs for Freedom Wheelchairs valued at over 100,000 baht. However, perhaps more substantial than any amount of money, was the power that UNCAGED gave Mai and Wichai. Two voiceless boys, once subjugated to treatment worse than most anyone would award to animals, were given a voice too loud to ignore. While all of us at Cultural Canvas were cloaked in compliments at the exhibition, the real praise should be awarded to Mai and Wichai, whom, at fourteen years old, are just starting to understand childhood.

For more photos of UNCAGED and to read more about Mai, Wichai, and the exhibition, visit www.uncaged.yolasite.com.

While UNCAGED was a great success, there is still so much more that needs to be done…

To make a donation to Baan Piranan, visit http://www.baan-piranan.org.

To help Cultural Canvas Thailand’s Canvas Art Program continue to bring voices to minority populations in Northern Thailand through the arts, visit http://www.culturalcanvas.com.

Love from Chiang Mai,

Aimee

Hope Home Goes Into the Wilderness...

November 19^th saw the follow up the incredibly successful under the sea workshops as we drove over to Hope Home with a box full of all kinds of Jungle related bits and bobs. The intention was of course not only to teach the kids a bit more about the wild life not so far away with the aid of a great variety of leaves, rocks, cuddly toys, instruments (including those creepy little frogs the Hill Tribe women are always trying to sell), video clips, songs (the classic Jungle Boogie starring in our ‘jungle playlist’) and games but mostly to have a good laugh exploring, this certainly happened! The kids were all outside, eager for our arrival, Paradon waving with a toothy grin as we walked up the drive. Objects were hardly out of the box before they were being taken away, rattled and swung, hugged and thrown…the reception was simply delightful, all the children seemed to having a great time, and ourselves-the official facilitators-just as much (a cuddly lion previously won at the Loy Krathong celebrations proving to be a firm favourite). The children all of varying abilities were enthralled by the noises, the textures, the colours and movements and hopefully they learned a little too! Cards with both the English and Thai names accompanied everything and although the original structure of the lesson plan was discarded relatively quickly with children and volunteers moving all over the place it was certainly successful. The session ended peacefully as we watched excerpts from the ‘Jungle Book’, Pat having already fallen asleep before the children rushed off to their lunch and we left for ours, content from the mornings work yet strangely not feeling so optimistic about the unavoidable paperwork that follows!

Freedom House - Art for a Clean Environment

On November 10th, Aimee, Christa and I went to Thai Freedom House with a bunch of posters, waste and art supplies to run my Recycling Workshop! First we 'brainstormed' together about "What is Recycling?" and "Why is it important?". The kids weren't very knowledgeable about the theme, but they had a general agreement that a clean environment is important for our health. This is probably a relatively new and different theme for them, because "Recycling" and protecting the environment is only really starting to become a process and an issue to look into in Thailand. To make the theme more visual and more easily understood, we showed them a poster with images about the recycling-logo, clean and dirty environments and the description of how to recycle aluminum. The poster was in Thai and English, so they could learn English keywords as well. In addition to that, we showed them a brief movie from 'Sesame Street' about the recycling process of aluminum. Afterwards, we discussed "What can everyone else do to keep the environment clean?". They wrote their ideas on a sheet of paper (of course, it was scrap paper ;-)) and we added it to a poster to get an overview! The ideas ranged from "Throw your waste in a bin", "Ride a bicycle instead of motorcycle" , "use paper on both sides" and many more! The big variety of ideas showed us that they are quite interested in the theme. But we really got their attention in showing them examples of recycling art. After a short introduction in freestyle recycling art, they gathered the waste and art supplies they needed to realize their creative ideas.

For the next 90 minutes the whole place turned into a lively mess. It seems the kids enjoyed it a lot, to have free decisions in what they create, how they create and which material they use to create. According to this, the results were amazing! Nobody copied the pre-made examples exactly. Nearly everyone created something completely different. They proudly presented each other their results and everywhere you could hear "WOW!!!" and "suay!!!".

As I was planning that workshop, I got confronted with many doubts about the fact that the kids should do freestyle art without rules and guidelines. Because the kids in Thailand always learn to follow rules, to go with the flow and not to have own ideas. But in my opinion that's the important point in doing art: create something new! And I think that workshop showed us, the creativity of Thai kids isn't limited. I am very happy that I had the chance to run this workshop, because the informative and creative aspect is important and it went very well. This workshop is probably one of the last workshops I run here in Chiang Mai, because I will leave next Saturday. I had a wonderful time and many precious experiences with the Canvas Art Program. Thanks to the team for everything!!!

Bye Bye Chiang Mai....Stefanie

Freedom House gets 'Tie-Dyed'.

Last Friday just before Hallowen Eve Stefanie, Emma and I all headed over to freedom house to do my tie dying t-shirt project and also my last project for CCT for now anyway:( Everyone was excited to start tie dying, So we started by explaining the process and the care instructions once the t-shirt was dyed etc. We firstly divided the groups into three with roughly 4-5 people in each. We had three art stations set up, first was the design your own t-shirt design by drawing and colouring in a plain outline image of a t-shirt, secondly the choosing of your t-shirt size and then preparing the t-shirt with rubber bands and pepples for an extra tie-dying effect! When everyone was ready with their t-shirts the various groups headed down under freedom house where the third station was set up to dye your t-shirt. We then started to dip the t-shirts into the dye, nearly everyone wanted two separate colours on their t-shirt so they had to firstly let one side soak in the dye for 30 minutes and then proceed with the next colour the same way!While everyone was waiting for their dye to set they had their snack break, played and sang music and drew some more designs for t-shirts.

When all the tees were dyed they had to be placed into soda ash for 15-20minutes to make sure the dye had set in the fabric. Once this was done all the t-shirts were rinsed and the elastic bands taken off and the works of art appeared before our eyes with lots of colours and plenty of interesting patterns we proceeded to hang up the t-shirts to dry and what a wonderful sight all the tie-dye colours hanging underneath freedom house all along the turquoise coloured wall! This most certainly was a fun workshop and the best bit was watching everyone's face when they saw their finished t-shirt. Although hectic at times and tough when you don't have the helpful Amp to translate, we all had fun and got into the creative process of tie dying and what wonderful results! It may be my last time working with CCT and Freedom House but what a fantastic memory to leave on! Best of luck in the future Kate

"Under the Sea" with Baan Vienping (part two)

Yesterday, myself, Amp, Emma, Wad, Aimee and Stefanie went to Baan Vienping to conduct our second workshop with the theme "Under the Sea." The first time the CAP team went, we worked with the youngest group of kids aged 2-4. They enjoyed the workshop so much we decided to do it again with the slightly older group, aged 4-6. The workshop was lead the same way, with five stations each displaying the theme "Under the Sea." Using this theme, the kids engaged in workshops that incorporated art, tactile learning, memory games, auditory learning and computer visual aids. All workshops were lead the same as last time with the one difference of the movie. This time, instead of "Finding Nemo" we showed a clip from "The Little Mermaid" with Sabastian singing "Under the Sea" in thai, how appropriate!

The older group of kids really enjoyed the workshop. There was a greater number of them, 30 in total and only 6 of us. The kids would eagerly run from one workshop to the next and sometimes they would run back to a station they really liked and wanted to do again. It was sometimes challenging keeping track of all of them but seeing their enthusiam and excitement was well worth the chaos. I lead the "The Little Mermaid" station. The kids loved singing along and I encougaged dancing to "Under the Sea." Every station was a success and the kids seemed to love the different projects andinteracting with us and each other.
Cheers! Christa

Art Making Music

The children of Hope Home have many different abilities - some like to use their feet and others do as much as they can with their hands.

In this workshop Art Making Music the children were encouraged to explore the different textures of beads, rice and beans and to experiment with the different sounds they could make, turning them into musical shakers fashioned from plastic bottles and drinks cans. Hearing the pitter patter of rice being sprinkled sounded like rain and the children looked content as they munched and scrunched the different kinds of beans with their hands – thinking, feeling, seeing, touching... One little boy much preferred to use his feet, digging them deeply into a basin filled full of dried rice, wriggling his toes in-between. Another boy appeared to love overflowing his plastic bottle shaker with rice, beads and beans, repeatedly pouring them onto the floor – healthy child development!!!

Each child engaged in making their art instrument in their own special way and they all seemed to enjoy the different sounds they could make - the rattle of rice in a tin can or the sound of beads bouncing in bottles. Music therapy is definitely appreciated…

Grannies Gone Wild!

This past week we worked with a new organization, Grandma Cares. Grandma Cares is an organization that provides the children of Northern Thailand who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS the chance to lead healthy and successful lives. Many of the children who's parents have passed away have been left in the care of their Grandmothers. Grandma Cares raises necessary funds for the children and their families in order to provide the kids with nutritious meals, send them to school and educational camps, buy school uniforms and supplies, and give quality of life and life skills training.

We met the people of Grandma Cares at the Night Safari after they had spent a day exploring animals and learning about wildlife. In the workshop, we recreated the Safari animals that the kids had seen that day by making the animals out of differing materials and creating a collage. Fabric, magazines, buttons, wool, string, and crepe paper were all used to cover the cut-outs of zebras, elephants, and rhinoceroses. The concept of the workshop was to end the day with some creative fun and relive everyone's safari experience while learning the names and habitats of the animals.

It was a lot of fun working with the kids and watching their creativity with collage and different materials. We presented several examples of what they could do with the material provided but many of them branched out and created inventive designs and patterns for their safari scene. I had just as much fun creating the Safari scene as they did! One of the boys created an elephant jungle scene where he depicted himself riding on the back of the elephant. He was very proud of his artwork. There were a variety of scenes but all came out beautifully. Most importantly there were a lot of smiles and everyone seemed to enjoy the project! ~Christa

Freedom House - Paints their Mural

After we did the 'Brainstorming' session with the kids and young adults from Freedom House, we combined the information and imaginations of the kids, concentrating on the four topics. With Amps great ability in using Photoshop, we came up with a very nice design which contains all the things the kids drew and spoke about. Equipped with paintbrushes, paint, aprons and other materials, we went to Freedom House on Tuesday evening. At first, we drew the outlines of the mural. This was'nt easy, because the wall was very uneven and the sun burned merciless.
The students came at 6 o' clock to Freedom House. We separated them in three groups for a "rotation-system", because the space is not big enough for so many people to paint a mural. The kids at station 1 covered the wall in the courtyard with "freestyle-chalk-art". At station 2,we gave the students images of the mural-design, to colour with crayons. Station 3 was the actual highlight. All of the younger and older artists really enjoyed painting the mural. The students were so quiet and concentrated really well during their painting. After a full rotation, everyone was happy and proud to see such a great result. The next day Kate, Aimee and I went to Freedom House again to complete the mural. It was a very hot day and even though the mural was almost done, it took ages. After another day in the merciless heat, we finished the work. The final result is absolutely amazing and every person who came around the corner was viewing and commenting on the wall.
Thats what we wanted to achieve... to raise awareness for Freedom House and Free Bird Cafe and create a beautiful "eye catching mural". Stefanie

Freedom House 'Brainstorms'

Hi everyone, On Friday evening we all headed over to Freedom House to do a 'Brainstorming' session with the kids and young adults that attend Freedom House. We decided to touch of four different topics:

1) Freedom House- What does freedom house mean to you?
2) Home- What does your ideal home look like?
3) Dreams- What kind of dreams/wishes do you have for the future?
4) Happiness- What makes you happy?

We got everyone to sit down and firstly discuss each topic and contribute their thoughts and feelings on them, then they started to draw some images on each topic. I found the younger children were a lot less shy and self conscious of their drawing and they just jumped right in and started drawing while the young adults were more self conscious at first but they soon got stuck in after some encouragement and i think really enjoyed the Brainstorming session. Everyone came up with some great images and ideas for the mural so now we just need to put it all together to create an image for the wall.

This will be our main project for the week and today we will be preparing the wall for the actual painting of the mural which will be taking place with everyone from freedom house tomorrow evening. Ill be keeping you up to date with the fun ahead and the how the mural painting goes. Kate

Baan Piranan: Uncaged!

Following our Under the Sea lesson from last Friday, today CCT and Baan Piranan took a trip to the Chiang Mai Zoo and Aquarium. Zoos generally elicit a very mixed reaction in me. While I love that these strange and beautiful creatures become so accessible, the condition and care given to the animals within concrete walls often turns my stomach. The beauty of white Bengal tigers and stories-tall giraffes is dwarfed when placed behind metal bars.



Never has this feeling become more apparent than today, being in this space with Joop Jang, Witchai, and Nong Mai. I think there is hardly a person in this whole world that would relate to these creatures more than these three children. While the zebras and sharks and clown fish have very visible cages, Joop Jang, Witchai, and Nong Mai’s cage is nearly as visible.

The lions live in concrete walls while the children of Baan Piranan live with concrete bones and the cages formed by their own physical abilities. Like the caged lions, the “kings” of the jungle, our Baan Piranan beauties face a life within the confines of stiff bodies. As the beauty of tigers is dwarfed behind metal bars, perhaps the beauty of Witchai, Nong Mai, and Joop Jang becomes dwarfed within the metal curves of their wheelchairs, or so it seemed by the stares awarded to us at the zoo today.

Yet, spend even an ounce of your life with these children and no wheelchair or deformity could hide how beautiful they truly are. The sound created when our Nong Mai, face glowing blue from the light of the aquarium walls, breaks into laughter would nearly make you cry. When the mouth of our Witchai, whose careful eyes followed the movements of the fish around him, opens into that perfectly crooked smile, your mouth is forced to follow. And when little Joop Jang, believed to be both blind and deaf, jumps to the sharp sound of the closing van door, your heart jumps for her too.



Contrary to the stares we were given today, the children of Baan Piranan are nothing like the animals that surrounded us. Unlike Nong Mai, Witchai, and Joop Jang, those animals are truly stuck, fully confined to the life they have been handed. This may have once been the destiny that the Baan Piranan children faced, but it is no longer. Even in the four short weeks that I have been working with Baan Piranan, growth can be seen. With physical therapy, massage therapy, and art lessons, with each and every week these kids are growing stronger, moving new muscles, bending limbs once unbendable. These kids are destroying every cage that has been cruelly given them and that makes them more beautiful and more powerful than any creature in the world!



Cheers from Chiang Mai - Aimee.

Swim with Hope Home!

On October 1st, the CAP-Crew headed out to Hope Home, to transport

the kids "under the sea"! As we arrived there, they received us with smiling faces and the expectation to do art and make music. But this day the lesson was different. At first, we tried a new artistic media with them. We gave them a prepared paper (with "fish-stickers" on it!) and a lot of spray-bottles (it contained paint in different colors like blue, green, orange, red...). Paradon really enjoyed it to flood his paper with paint and after this, he sprayed P'Ben and covered him. This was a very funny situation:-)! Sassy was very good in choosing colors and created a beautiful painting. Also Boomrot was surprised of the great effect of the spray-bottles and shot his paper like a little cowboy. After we pulled off the fish-stickers, some very nice "under the sea" paintings appeared. The next thing we did, was to play "catch the fish". It was impressive to see, how Phil caught a fish with a fishing-rod held with his foot. Sassy swung her fishing-rod very enthusiasticly and could catch some fish as well. Afterwards we surprised them with a scene of "Arielle the mermaid" in a Thai version. We watched it approximately eight times and especially Boomrot wanted to watch it again and again. So the kids definitely had a lot of fun "under the sea" and we are thinking about, where we will transport them next!

Stefanie

Baan Piranan- a Home for the (dis)ABLED

With each Friday morning comes the long, bumpy drive to Baan Piranan to visit with Nong Mai, Witchai and Joop Jang. In the past few weeks, the road has seemed even longer and bumpier the boys (Nong Mai and Witchai) have been growing increasingly bored of working with paintbrushes and extenders and the young Joop Jang, raised in a prison and thought to be fully blind and mostly deaf, remains a mystery. We at CCT have racked our brains trying to think of anything new that will fall within the parameters cruelly set by these children’s disabilities. We have used pastels, introduced music, videos, and computer games, worked with stamps made of potatoes, and even tried using corncobs as paint rollers! To think of new activities for the young boys has been frustrating. To find downfalls in even the simplest activities because they do not fall between those thin parameters is angering – anger comes with the fact that this disease exists, anger comes with the realization that Nong Mai was caged for the majority of his life, and anger comes with the fact that six year old Joop Jang only had her first bite of solid food in the last few months. It is anger that, though justifiable, is nonetheless disheartening.

However, the product created this week has made every bit of frustration and anger I have felt in attempting to find activities entirely worthwhile. I must continually remind myself that “disabled” does not mean “unable” and that there exists a whole world of things that these boys are able to do. This week, moving away from colors, we turned to something a bit wilder – exploring life under the sea. Using contact paper, we put clear stencils of fish and coral onto a large piece of white paper. Using watered down acrylic paints in spray bottles, the boys sprayed greens and blues and even some orange and maroons onto this large paper. While the paint spread over the paper and floor and fingers and toes, smiles and laughter spread even quicker. How quickly the anger I feel through the week is able to dissolve in that room! While at Baan Piranan, the word “disabled” hardly ever comes into my head as I am overwhelmed with keeping up with all that the boys are able to do and all of the beauty that are able to create!

As they say, within each artist is a tortured soul. Beethoven could not hear a note, Van Gogh cut off his own ear, and our own Nong Mai lived in a bamboo cage. Perhaps this tortured soul exists more in some than in others. But looking at the painted aquarium that now decorates our office, any history of torture is hidden behind a thick layer of green and blue paint and all I can see is happiness. Sending thousands of smiles from Chiang Mai – Aimee.

Baan ViengPing Goes 'Under the Sea'

Yesterday myself, Amp, Sara, Ben, Aimee and Stefaine all headed out to Baan ViengPing to work with 10 of the youngest kids aged from 2-4year olds. There a wild bunch but lots of fun. We had five different art stations all containing the theme 'Under the Sea', with crayon etching and watercolours off images of the sea and fish where the kids made some wonderful paintings. A memory game with flash cards of different coloured fish where we also wrote the colours in Thai and English on the cards, all the kids were very good at this game. A play-doh area where the kids tried to mainly eat it but had lots of fun making fish shapes and making indents in the play-doh and getting messy. The fishing pond game where the kids tried to catch lots of different types of fish out of the pond, they had a lot of fun with this game and last but not least the video clip of 'Finding Nemo', they enjoyed the music and various colours and sea creatures in this clip. Although chaotic at times the workshop was a great success and I think the kids really enjoyed it and had lots of fun, ourseleves included. Here's to the next fun workshop at Baan ViengPing! Cheers Kate.

Wat Papao thinks about 'Their Future '

"Wat Papao" thinks about their future!

On Wednesday we went to "Wat Papao-School" where we did a workshop with the theme 'To Us in the Future' for over a hundred kids divided into three different classes. Firstly we did the youngest class which contained children from the age of 3-6 year olds! The lesson was based on getting the children to think about themselves in the future. The kids got pre-made "scratch painting" cards and a stick, to draw themselves in the future in an occupation they would like to one day be. Most of them saw themselves as pilots, swordsman or in some other crazy occupations. We showed each child the English and Thai spelling of the occupation that they have drawn for themselves. I think the kids really enjoyed using the new artistic media! The workshop with the middle class with children from age 7-12years old and the older class of 13-16years old was to get the children thinking about conceivable short term goals they can create for the future. The children wrote about the things they would like to accomplish and how they will do it on a postcard. Afterwards they got a "scratch-painting" card to decorate their postcards with a representation of their goals on the front. We will "stamp" them with a special CCT stamp and deliver them back to the students in one month. So they can check, if they were successful. In my opinion, the lessons at "Wat Papao-School" was very successful, because it is important to get children thinking about their future and we achieved that aim in a easy, artistic and interesting way. Stefanie

Baan Piranan Yellow Workshop

On Friday morning Amp, Kristy, Stefanie, Aimee and I all headed over for our weekly art session in Baan Piranan. Well this was my second time to Baan Piranan and much more of a success then last week, as the kids seemed in much better form and not as tired. This was Stefanie's first time to Baan Piranan and I'm sure she was unsure of what to expect or how she would feel upon arrival as Aimee and I were last week. But she settled in with ease and seemed to really enjoy it. We focused on the colour yellow this week, and ensured we had plenty of items that were yellow. We started with potato stamping of various things that are yellow, for example a stamp of a lemon.Wichai really enjoyed this and was very good at doing the stamps, and also enjoyed the texture of the corn and ended up using it to paint with, which was very interesting and so nice to see. Nong Mai was more interested in the musical instruments and the yellow rose we used for him to smell and we also tickled him with it and let him shake it with a bell on it for one of his favourite thing music and noise. Both Wichai and Nong Mai watched a clip from fantasia containing lots of yellow, Which they both enjoyed with Nong Mai in particular enjoying the music. Also something that was wonderful to see was Nong Mai being able to grip with both hands his squeaky duck, a large ball with a bell inside and the tambourine which he also shook a lot, this was so rewarding to see and brought a smile to my face. Joop Jang is getting more alert and seemed to enjoy the attention she was getting and the feel of the rose on her skin. She also listened to some soft music and feel asleep soon afterwards. We meet with Don a wonderful man who helps run Baan Pirinan and raises a lot of awareness and money to support Baan Piranan. He told us lots of information on the whole project and how each child came to Baan Piranan, this in itself was heartbreaking to hear and was upsetting for us all. But the good thing is these kids are now safe and looked after so well and it gives you hope for there future. I'm looking forward to this weeks session already. Kate