I’m staying in Bang Pu Mai at the moment, just outside Bangkok, visiting a loved one. There’s not a lot of art out here as it’s a big industrial area. We drive along Sukhumvit Road each day and pass billboards with big photos of the King’s daughter taking photos of seagulls. We pass a few massage places and people eating and working out on the street, and we are passed by huge buses spray-painted with anime designs transporting factory workers to and fro. We go for a jog in the evenings down at the mangrove waterfront about a kilometre from Nok’s (the loved one) house where there are some nice oversized seagull sculptures. But every day I’ve been thrilled to watch Nok’s neighbour, Wang, sculpting these bright tree trunk functional things in his driveway. Nok thinks he has a commission for a local temple because he’s really gone into overdrive making tree trunk tables and chairs. I was so thrilled that I bought one for Nok’s mum, just before being told the guy’s brother had a fling with Nok’s mum’s sister that went sour, so neighbourly chit chat has been avoided for a while. Anyway, I paid 400 baht ($12 Aussie) and lugged it home and tropical Persian cat quickly became fond of it so the air cleared. It now sits in the front yard filled with some lovely orchids. Wang sculpts the shape in chicken wire, mixes up cement in the wheelbarrow and moulds it with his hands into the shape of a cartoony tree trunk. He then waits a week for it to dry before whipping out the weather-shield house paint and giving it very bright outlandish colours. I can’t tell you how great they look out the front of houses in the surrounding streets, as other neighbours have purchased them to jazz up the ‘burb a little.
