One of the great pleasures of having a community art practice is hearing from people about how it feels to participate in a project and have the opportunity to make art again.
I wanted to share the story behind the making of Ras Tanura, one of the first images I made for Play Passages.
I met Raymond Shih with his wife Aya Nomura at the EarthDay Canada Pop-Up Adventure Playground in Toronto in late May. While his two children played, I approached him and asked him if he wanted to share a play memory and make a map. At first he demurred, saying he was a terrible painter, but I was able to convince him.
He sat down at my table, and quickly was immersed in writing his story:
“I remember going to the beach in Ras Tanura, in Saudi Arabia. I was probably 12 or 13 years old, and had just moved across the world from Toronto (where I had spent my entire life) to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I didn’t have any friends there and even getting reacquainted with my parents felt strange; they had moved six months earlier and left me behind with my brother, uncle and grandmother so I wouldn’t need to interrupt a school year.
I felt alone before, during, and after the move and now found myself living in the middle of a desert!
Going to the beach made me feel like everything might turn out well after all. There is an intrinsic comfort about sand between toes, salty air, and the white noise of waves washing up on shore. We didn’t do much except build sandcastles and splash in the Persian Gulf but we worked up a serious appetite. I remember the beach snack bar serving up one of the most satisfying helpings of French fries, even if it did come with Libby’s ketchup instead of Heinz."
Then he drew and painted his play memory map:
Raymond Shih, 2017
After he was done, we used my iPhone to visit Ras Tanura beach in Saudi Arabia through Google Earth. It was amazing to see how much the map from his memory reflected the shoreline and bright colors of the real Ras Tanura beach.
At home that week, I pulled up the images of the beach on my ipad, found just the right angle, and photographed it with my macro lens, lining it up and blurring it just so to evoke the map and the feeling of freedom and relief in his story.
Mindy Stricke, 2017
After sending Raymond the image, I asked him how the whole experience had been for him, and this is what he wrote:
“The instruction to draw with my eyes closed was frightening but the experience was liberating. Not being burdened by the immediate feedback of my progress freed up my mind to search out memories that felt rusty and needed a little polish. Amongst the daily pressures of work and family, it was strangely refreshing to engage in an activity where there was no right or wrong answer.
Since I have zero background (or skill) at painting, I just had to make sure the colours reflected my memories and then let the brush go where it wanted. Painting was pure fun - there is really no other way to describe it. The experience made me feel great all afternoon and I couldn’t stop thinking and talking about the project.”
How great is that? This is the experience I hope for everyone to have, to just be able to let go and have fun, to reach back into their memories and make it come to life.
And the funniest part? As I take my postcard rack with many of the stories and maps around to different events, inevitably many people pick up Raymond’s watercolor and say, “This one is amazing, I could never do that. I’m a terrible painter. This guy really knows what he’s doing.”
And I say, “Just give it a try.”