KVT – The Affordables Journal: Part Four – The Blow Ins

KVT contemplates summer blooms and the work of a nguoi tu Nhat Ban, tu Anh, and tu Phan Lan in a final bit about the Manzi/Workroom 4 art frenzy

Riding my bike to the Sao Mai swimming pool on an early summer morning is a colorful jaunt.

Mamils (middle aged men in lycra) swish past as a vivid blur. Emils (elderly men in lycra) swosh past like flowing ribbons, while the rest of the few hundred cyclists who frequently circumference West Lake, all streaming the same way, swush past in anything from brief shorts and bra tops to flowing pajamas and trainers to polyester pants and patterned shirts to Adidas tracksuits to varieties of apparel in between.

It would be a joy to have a bevy of schoolgirls swash past, sitting perfectly straight in pristine white ao dai….but alas, that delightful spectacle seems to disappear a little north of Hue

Arching over these perspiring or puffing or gasping or dawdling or gossiping cyclists is an avenue of flowering trees- bright red and soft purple.

The phuong vi-the royal Poinciana or flame tree or flamboyant- is the subject of many daubed and dotty Vietnamese street paintings and it is recognized as the symbol of Hanoi-an summer

But it’s the less obtrusive bang lang that is my favorite

I’ve been led to believe that around schools and universities the delicate bang lang-or crepe myrtle or lagerstroemia- is nicknamed the student tree because it s in bloom at graduation time

One artist who could get bang lang blooms so perfect that you think that you could reach out and touch them is Asako who had a couple of small, delicate flowery paintings at the Manzi/Workroom 4 Affordable Art bonanza (which closed on Wednesday but I’m sure that if anyone wanted to get one of Asako’s graceful bouquets or see others, then the staff at Manzi will oblige)

Asako’s pieces were fragile orchid flowers but I’m hoping that future exhibits might feature my mauve favorite

Expat artist extraordinaire Simon Redington gave Hanoi one of its most astounding installations way back in the middle ages (well way back at the beginning of the new century) at Art Vietnam.

His masterpiece TEN COURTS OF THE KINGS OF HELL was amazingly breathtaking in scope and grandeur

With other Vietnamese art it was exhibited in London

His series on The SELFISH GIANT were also brilliant

This link to the Bankside gallery says it all eloquently

Redington’s print at the Affordables, from the Giant, was another beauty and enormously collectable

Another long term expat with work at the Affordables was Marita Nurmi who gave up her job as a metallurgist way back last century and decided to study art with the locals at the local Fine Arts University where she became friendly with the first wave of young Vietnamese artists who were beginning to make huge waves that swamped the local scene with new and sometimes officially unacceptable stuff, and flooded onto the international circuit

At the Affordables Marita showed off some of her most recent works on do paper and on plastic mats-using some of her distinctive motifs

She used the same motifs on a new series of wooden stools and tables (the very low kind that used to populate street food stalls before plastic became far too popular) and were so low that many westerners who sat on them almost evacuated their bowels when descending and who needed a heft from the stall holder when ascending

I’m a huge fan of her ceramic stools that were devised after an experimental stint at Bat Trang

My apologies to other Blow Ins who exhibited some nice bits but whom I haven’t included.