Our journey began at midnight, zooming past a blur of the city lights in Bangkok. After an interesting flight full of Indians working in the States, we finally landed in Seattle.
It looked a lot like Bhutan, however, without the strong hot Himalayan sun beating down from bright blue skies in winter. Seattle was beautiful but its weak winter sun didn't emit much heat, let alone light.
Eddie and his family welcomed us into their home and like in good Filipino fashion, their warmth and kindness overflowed to the point where we were overfed, over pampered and over cared for and felt like we had been part of the family for many years.
We celebrated a traditional American Christmas with a Christmas tree, family dinner with THREE kinds of meat at the table, which even by Bhutanese standards was a lot of meat!! Then my daughter Tashi and I attended our very first and very fascinating Catholic Christmas mass; while New Year's eve was spent at Emily's home, with delicious Italian homemade pasta.
After this kind period of grace to adjust to the American lifestyle and also to get over our jet lag(14 hours worth of time difference!),and also when my poor brain and body were able to understand some kind of comprehensive education, Eddie imparted his many years of experience with Asian Art Conservation.
Keeping up with Eddie is like trying to keep up with a very high speed race car, I am 30 and he is 30 years older than I am and here I was feeling a little ashamed and embarrassed that a supposedly tough and youthful Bhutanese mountain person couldn't keep up with this 'old man.'
If you ever meet him, don't believe it when he tells you that his eyes cant see as well as they used to and his hands shake, because what I saw during the time I spent with him in his studio, I would say that at times its pretty scary that his eyes are sharper than mine and his hands are so steady that the slightest wobble of mine would garner an "Aiiya!!! What are you doing? That's too much paste!!!"
Us 'young ones' who work with him know that he makes conservation look like Japanese tea drinking, very simple, fluid and easy and yet when you try it, its the most difficult thing because the amount of concentration, self awareness and focus that is needed(a steady hand and firm mind helps) really makes you sweat. And to have Eddie boring holes in the back of your head as you work just makes me break out into an even greater sweat!!
In between the sweating and profuse amounts of concentration (very good practice for my meditation) was also Eddie's typical sense of humor and bright hearty laugh that is signature to his joie de vivre character as well as great his sense of style, making every lesson very memorable. I was worried that I would not be able to remember everything and kept notes the first few days, but after the 3rd day and the past few months, my notebook is sitting in the dark corner of my suitcase as mental notes on conservation techniques are vividly etched into my brain (along with witty and wicked humorous comments from Eddie).
Along with these lessons came travel and people-we drove and flew up and down the West Coast and visited so many museums that by the end of it, my daughter Tashi(who had no interest in art) has now taken up drawing and her face lit up as we saw The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer by Edgar Degas in the Norton Simon Museum in Los Angeles.
We met so many wonderful, highly talented yet humble and kind individuals who loved and cared about the art they cared for as much as I loved my own cultural heritage in Bhutan. And ofcourse I was, to my great delight, able to meet many familiar and old family friends including Terese Bartholomew and her family.
I was also able to meet with another of my grandmother's close friends, His Holiness Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche, his wife Dagmo Kushola and their family at their Sakya Monastery in Seattle. Experiencing one's own spiritual belief in another cultural setting was a novel experience for both my daughter and I as we looked on, very amused and at the same time in great admiration at the sight of westerners performing Buddhist ceremonies using the cymbals, drums and blowing conch shells just as skillfully as the Bhutanese or Tibetan monks.
Here, with the kind initiative of Tulku Yeshay and Heydi and the most heartfelt support of His Holiness's family and the spiritual family of the Sakya Monastery; I was also able to share a little of what we were trying to achieve in conserving back home. I was met with overwhelming warm affection and support as well as many good wishes and prayers from both familiar and new faces.
The transatlantic Skype conservations and emails between ourselves and the young talented and unswerving Tobias Reeuwijk led to a very entertaining time, with many laughs and remarkable moments working on the first cut of a documentary on the Thangka conservation efforts with the Bhutanese monk conservators.
In an unexpected turn of events, I even found out that my great-grandmother had visited a friend in Santa Barbara many many years ago. The Santa Barbara Museum held a collection of Tibetan artworks that were of Billy Vanderhoef and Wilbur Cummings during their travels to Tibet. I saw the collection and looking at their route into Tibet, just passingly mentioning to Susan Tai(the Museum's curator of Asian Art) and Susan mentioned that someone from there visited him and we left it at that.
Susan(being the wonderful curious person that she is) found a picture of this very 'person' and brought it to me; as soon as I opened the file, there was my great-grandmother's beautiful face looking back at me and behind it was another paper mentioning her name and her 'wonderful and beautiful home' in Kalimpong(India). For a moment I was lost for words-to find my grandmother, my family, had come to the same place as I had so many years ago and here we were finding out about it!
My great-grandmother was the very first Asian woman to travel(alone!!) around the world on Pan Am and this included Santa Barbara to visit Billy!! She took back avocado seeds that Billy told her might grow but would possibly not fruit; those seeds are now filling the whole mountain-side in central Bhutan and is exported to Bangladesh as cash crop. I was totally floored and it amazes me how across the oceans, friendships were found and this small gesture of their friendship grew into creating something that benefitted so many individuals. Santa Barbara avocados growing in the remote Himalayan mountains of Bhutan- friendships do indeed cross oceans, mountains, people and it seems even time itself.
This little personal incident inspired me, and as I write this on my very last day in the States, sitting in Eddie's studio looking out at the last vestiges of colour on the slow moving Buddhist prayer flags against the now dark Seattle woods at twilight; I think that I too have made many memorable friendships that perhaps will last a lifetime and hopefully, out of these friendships, like my great-grandmother before me, come to benefit many people far into the future for many generations. And that one day, like me, one of my great great grandchildren will find a little mark of their family left behind that crossed the ocean and continents, that crossed cultures and people and that crossed time and generations.
It looked a lot like Bhutan, however, without the strong hot Himalayan sun beating down from bright blue skies in winter. Seattle was beautiful but its weak winter sun didn't emit much heat, let alone light.
Eddie and his family welcomed us into their home and like in good Filipino fashion, their warmth and kindness overflowed to the point where we were overfed, over pampered and over cared for and felt like we had been part of the family for many years.
We celebrated a traditional American Christmas with a Christmas tree, family dinner with THREE kinds of meat at the table, which even by Bhutanese standards was a lot of meat!! Then my daughter Tashi and I attended our very first and very fascinating Catholic Christmas mass; while New Year's eve was spent at Emily's home, with delicious Italian homemade pasta.
After this kind period of grace to adjust to the American lifestyle and also to get over our jet lag(14 hours worth of time difference!),and also when my poor brain and body were able to understand some kind of comprehensive education, Eddie imparted his many years of experience with Asian Art Conservation.
Keeping up with Eddie is like trying to keep up with a very high speed race car, I am 30 and he is 30 years older than I am and here I was feeling a little ashamed and embarrassed that a supposedly tough and youthful Bhutanese mountain person couldn't keep up with this 'old man.'
If you ever meet him, don't believe it when he tells you that his eyes cant see as well as they used to and his hands shake, because what I saw during the time I spent with him in his studio, I would say that at times its pretty scary that his eyes are sharper than mine and his hands are so steady that the slightest wobble of mine would garner an "Aiiya!!! What are you doing? That's too much paste!!!"
Us 'young ones' who work with him know that he makes conservation look like Japanese tea drinking, very simple, fluid and easy and yet when you try it, its the most difficult thing because the amount of concentration, self awareness and focus that is needed(a steady hand and firm mind helps) really makes you sweat. And to have Eddie boring holes in the back of your head as you work just makes me break out into an even greater sweat!!
In between the sweating and profuse amounts of concentration (very good practice for my meditation) was also Eddie's typical sense of humor and bright hearty laugh that is signature to his joie de vivre character as well as great his sense of style, making every lesson very memorable. I was worried that I would not be able to remember everything and kept notes the first few days, but after the 3rd day and the past few months, my notebook is sitting in the dark corner of my suitcase as mental notes on conservation techniques are vividly etched into my brain (along with witty and wicked humorous comments from Eddie).
Along with these lessons came travel and people-we drove and flew up and down the West Coast and visited so many museums that by the end of it, my daughter Tashi(who had no interest in art) has now taken up drawing and her face lit up as we saw The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer by Edgar Degas in the Norton Simon Museum in Los Angeles.
We met so many wonderful, highly talented yet humble and kind individuals who loved and cared about the art they cared for as much as I loved my own cultural heritage in Bhutan. And ofcourse I was, to my great delight, able to meet many familiar and old family friends including Terese Bartholomew and her family.
I was also able to meet with another of my grandmother's close friends, His Holiness Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche, his wife Dagmo Kushola and their family at their Sakya Monastery in Seattle. Experiencing one's own spiritual belief in another cultural setting was a novel experience for both my daughter and I as we looked on, very amused and at the same time in great admiration at the sight of westerners performing Buddhist ceremonies using the cymbals, drums and blowing conch shells just as skillfully as the Bhutanese or Tibetan monks.
Here, with the kind initiative of Tulku Yeshay and Heydi and the most heartfelt support of His Holiness's family and the spiritual family of the Sakya Monastery; I was also able to share a little of what we were trying to achieve in conserving back home. I was met with overwhelming warm affection and support as well as many good wishes and prayers from both familiar and new faces.
The transatlantic Skype conservations and emails between ourselves and the young talented and unswerving Tobias Reeuwijk led to a very entertaining time, with many laughs and remarkable moments working on the first cut of a documentary on the Thangka conservation efforts with the Bhutanese monk conservators.
In an unexpected turn of events, I even found out that my great-grandmother had visited a friend in Santa Barbara many many years ago. The Santa Barbara Museum held a collection of Tibetan artworks that were of Billy Vanderhoef and Wilbur Cummings during their travels to Tibet. I saw the collection and looking at their route into Tibet, just passingly mentioning to Susan Tai(the Museum's curator of Asian Art) and Susan mentioned that someone from there visited him and we left it at that.
Susan(being the wonderful curious person that she is) found a picture of this very 'person' and brought it to me; as soon as I opened the file, there was my great-grandmother's beautiful face looking back at me and behind it was another paper mentioning her name and her 'wonderful and beautiful home' in Kalimpong(India). For a moment I was lost for words-to find my grandmother, my family, had come to the same place as I had so many years ago and here we were finding out about it!
My great-grandmother was the very first Asian woman to travel(alone!!) around the world on Pan Am and this included Santa Barbara to visit Billy!! She took back avocado seeds that Billy told her might grow but would possibly not fruit; those seeds are now filling the whole mountain-side in central Bhutan and is exported to Bangladesh as cash crop. I was totally floored and it amazes me how across the oceans, friendships were found and this small gesture of their friendship grew into creating something that benefitted so many individuals. Santa Barbara avocados growing in the remote Himalayan mountains of Bhutan- friendships do indeed cross oceans, mountains, people and it seems even time itself.
This little personal incident inspired me, and as I write this on my very last day in the States, sitting in Eddie's studio looking out at the last vestiges of colour on the slow moving Buddhist prayer flags against the now dark Seattle woods at twilight; I think that I too have made many memorable friendships that perhaps will last a lifetime and hopefully, out of these friendships, like my great-grandmother before me, come to benefit many people far into the future for many generations. And that one day, like me, one of my great great grandchildren will find a little mark of their family left behind that crossed the ocean and continents, that crossed cultures and people and that crossed time and generations.
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