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Laos Essential Artistry Archive Page
Saturday, January 31, 2009
 The following is what we've written in our new section where we're selling Vientiane Fashion Silk Sinhs for weddings and celebrations. "Wouldn't it be great to have a selection of sinhs like this (referring to the above photo) easily available in the states!? Since our online store opened four months ago there has been a demand for more fashionable silk sinhs that can be worn to weddings and celebrations. On our last trip to Laos (Dec 2008) we bought 30 sinhs that we'll be adding slowly to this collection in several price ranges, with some including matching silk scarves. They're gorgeous and selected by Bai and her sister Bouasai, a master weaver with Taykeo Textile Gallery. When we were in Laos in December 2008 we worked out details for custom ordering sinhs from Vientiane for our customers. The process would be that the customer would tell us what color/pattern they wanted in a sinh and then our staff in Vientiane would take photographs of sinhs matching the requirements of the customer and send them to us. We would forward the photos to our customer and cost of the sinh(s), including shipping costs from Laos. The shipping costs would be a minimum of $50, but that's still a bargain compared to flying to Laos! If a customer chose one or more of the sinhs they would make a down payment (approximately 50%) and we would pay for the sinh and have our staff ship it to us where we would inspect it, notify our customer that we received it, and then upon payment of the balance of the order, we would ship the sinh to our customer. We've done this several times all ready and it's worked out perfectly. We understand there can be potential concerns of "trust," but if you check out our FAQ section and read the testimonials of our customers, you will see that the textiles they receive are always more beautiful than they thought they would be. Never has anyone been disappointed. We love all the other types of sinhs we offer on our site, and hope that we can begin a movement of Lao women and girls wearing sinhs on a more regular basis here in the states. Bai wears sinhs about sixty percent of the time here in Sacramento, and we've never seen anyone else wearing a sinh outside the wat. We're told that in other parts of the country Lao women do feel more comfortable wearing sinhs and wouldn't it be nice to see some American women begin wearing sinhs too? They're such a beautiful and artistic expression of Lao culture and we can't think of a better way of promoting Lao culture. Bai gets asked all sorts of questions, and she loves being able to tell people about how the sinhs are handwoven, made out of silk raised in Laos and what some of the motifs mean. We'll be going back to Laos in June and if we buy something for a customer while we're in Laos and bring it back with us, you'll save the substantial shipping charge from Laos! If you have any questions please feel free to contact us." by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments 
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
 We are proud at Laos Essential Artistry that we are promoting two initiatives included within Stay Another Day in Laos, aimed at promoting promoting sustainable tourism. The two initiatives we directly support are Big Brother Mouse through our Giving Back and Lao Mountain Coffee, which we sell when we have the coffee in stock and we're also thinking of how we can support the outstanding work of COPE. In the 80 page booklet that is available free in many locations throughout Laos, they write that "Tourism has grown rapidly in recent years, and is a source of both pride and employment for many Lao people. However, the increasing numbers of visitors can also have negative environmental and social consequences and typically these impact upon the poorest of people. The International Finance Corporation's Mekong Private Sector Development Facility is working in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to promote the development of sustainable or destination friendly tourism. This is tourism that is commercially viable, and at the same time creates broader benefits for society and supports conservation of the natural, historic and cultural asses on which tourism depends." When we led study tours back in 2002 and 2003 we promoted them as being designed explicitly to enable participants to expand their historic and cultural insights while making important connections, such as are encouraged through Stay Another Day Laos. Unfortunately most tours, even other study tours, and tourism in general can become commodified (typical tourist experience) and trivialized – a mere producer of cultural products, such as food, dance, and art, for our consumption. It is our belief that this typical “tourist” approach robs participants of the chance to gain significant cross-cultural understanding and we are extremely glad to help promote the initiatives included within Stay Another Day Laos. by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
 On our Giving Back section in our website we begin with a quote from Oprah Winfrey from a Commencement Address she gave at Stanford in June 2008. "Life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back" To travel in a third world country like Laos, one can't help but see and feel in one's heart that there is so much that can be done to reach out and help in some meaningful way. For us, helping provide access to books, books Lao students can read and enjoy, is our way for helping make a difference. We now support the efforts of Big Brother Mouse, an organization that publishes books often written, and always illustrated, but young Lao people. On our last trip we donated books to two schools, an elementary school in Saphanthongtai, a village just outside the Vientiane city limits and a rural elementary school about four hours northwest of Vientiane. The school in Saphanthongtai is next to a small house we rent so that Bai's sister and brother can study in Vientiane. When we visit we often hear the students reciting their lessons and we thought it would be nice to provide a set of books for their small library. In the video you can see the pre-K students reading out loud from a lesson on a whiteboard. And of course they start with a "Sabaidee" to the guests/us! Aren't they cute? And in the photo you can see a group photo of the students with teacher and principal. In the photo and video, the boy with the blue shirt is named Peter Noy, "Small Peter." His parents live with their mother in a house with attached shop selling noodle soup. This house is catty corner to the house I used to rent and Peter Noy was named after me, Peter Nyai (Big Peter!), so I feel a special connection to him. by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments
Sunday, January 18, 2009
 The Dok Champa, the Sandlewood flower as we know it here in the states, is the national flower of Laos, and rightly so. It's exquisitely beautiful, the shading of yellow is stunning and to walk down a peaceful Lao road at night when the Dok Champa trees are in full bloom is intoxicating. The scent is subtle, but it's a scent that seems to seek into all your pores and lift one heavenward. As do Taykeo's textiles, some of our favorites. We've known Taykeo Sayavongkhamdy for over five years ago and in fact rented a house fairly close to her gallery and it was always fun for Bai and I to stop by and watch the weavers and marvel at the beautiful designs Taykeo was recreating from antique masterpieces. We purchased a selection of one of our favorite designs on this last trip, sumptuous silk scarves featuring four techniques of Lao weaving. They're very difficult to weave, but the completed silk scarves are true works of art. Beautiful to look at, like stained glass, and the exclusive use of Lao silk makes them incredibly soft to wear. We love them. We were taking photos of them today to post on our website (over the next several weeks) and wanted to include two photos in our blog today. The first one above shows several of the four technique silk scarves draped over ikat silk scarves with Dok Champa Flowers pinned in the middle. Bai was arranging the scarves and I think she captured the magic of Taykeo's silk scarves in this arrangement, don't you? And the photo belows shows three of the four technique silk scarves draped over a wooden screen. Aren't they gorgeous!? They will be for sale soon on our website and for the first time in three years we will have two booths at the Asian Heritage Street Fair in San Francisco in May and look forward to showcasing the Taykeo textiles we have. 
by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments
Saturday, January 17, 2009
 What we discovered after opening our online store in September that there was a demand for silk sinhs that could be worn to weddings and ceremonies. We had some, with corresponding silk scarves, but not a lot, nor could we afford to carry the number of sinhs a shop in the Morning Market in Vientiane might carry. So what we did on this last trip, was to purchase a selection of more fashionable sinhs from a shop where we also worked out details for being able to custom order sinhs which will explain in more detail in a later post and on our website. The photo above shows you some of the selection in the shop. Pretty amazing, huh? And wait until you see the sinhs we did buy...gorgeous! by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments
Friday, January 16, 2009
 As we were leaving our guest house to be taken to the airport we saw this little girl bundled up, nestled within an overturned bamboo stool, common in most Lao homes. She is the granddaughter of the owner of the Khaem Xam Guest House where we usually stay in Sam Neua. She was so cute, I couldn't pass taking a couple of shots and really like this one. Perhaps she will be the future "queen" of Sam Neua! by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments
Thursday, January 15, 2009
 At Laos Essential Artistry we're not only selling handwoven silk textiles and hand-embroidered Hmong and Mien handicrafts, we're very, very interested in helping people learn more about Laos. You could say it's our passion... Ever since they unveiled Sam Neua's city pillar on May 17, 2008, we've been eager to go back and see what it looks like ourselves. I've searched on the Internet and there aren't a lot of photos, so I feel we're doing a service here by including four photos of the city pillar, two take from the air, and two from the ground. The first photo above shows the city pillar within the context of "downtown" Sam Neua. As you can see Sam Neua is not very big and the city pillar is located at the intersection of two main roads, the road to Vieng Xai (coming from the lower left-hand corner) T's into the road which takes one back to Xieng Khuang heading out towards the upper left-hand corner of the photo. The road going right extends to the outskirts of Sam Neua and is the road we take to get to the Nuaykeo galleries. The first line of text points toward the Khaem Xam Guest House where we usually stay. Sam Neua is named after the Xam River which you can see in the foreground of the photo and the Khaem in "Khaem Xam" means on the banks of the Xam River, which you can see is quite true. The other line of text points toward a new guest house being built by our friend, Phonchit, who owns a restaurant that was on the site of the new guest house, but is now located temporarily behind where the new guesthouse is being built. He is also our driver and someone we rely and count on when we're traveling and researching through Huaphan Province. His guesthouse may be open when we go in June, but probably not. It should be very nice and will include the first Internet Café in Sam Neua!  The photo above is a close-up of the city pillar from the air.  This photo was taken at about 1:00 p.m. and when one sees the sparkling glass ball they can better understand as was written in the Vientiane Times newspaper "This crystal ball symbolizes a popular folk song, Xamneua Pennuaykeo , describing Xamneua as being rich in natural beauty and comparing it to a glittering ball, like the one created especially for the province. The song goes on to tell how the people of the province enjoy strong friendships among all ethnic groups, and how in their various colorful costumes they resemble a jeweled ball." We bought two VCD's in Vientiane the commemorate the unveiling of the city pillar. One shows all the ceremonies connected with the unveling and one contains songs about Sam Neua. Very interesting.  This bottom photo was taken at night right before 10:00 p.m. As I wrote in the previous post we were extremely rushed in our one day in Sam Neua and getting photos of the city pillar was a priority. But we didn't have any free time in the evening until right before 10:00 p.m. and luckily our guest house is just a very short ways away from the city pillar (as you can see in the first photo) and I stopped, having forgot my tripod and took a few shots with the camera on the roof of a truck (two luckily came out ok) and then as we walked toward the city pillar for more shots, the city pillar went dark!!! We looked at our watches, saw it was 10:00 p.m. and figured out this must be the time when the turn off the lights illuminating the pillar, so we'll have to wait until we return in June to get some more evening shots... by: Laos Essential Artistry 2 Comments
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
 We have given the name Nuaykeo to the galleries we work with in Sam Neua and this time when we flew up to Sam Neua the Sam Neua City Pillar, representing Nuaykeo with a huge glass ball had been completed. As we write on our Nuaykeo Gallery page, "The name Nuaykeo has special meaning to the Lao. In fact, on May 17, 2008, Huaphan province in the north of Laos hosted an official celebration for the dedication of a city pillar in Xamneua district which represents Nuaykeo, because at the top of the pillar is a multi-colored crystal ball. This crystal ball symbolizes a popular folk song, Xamneua Pennuaykeo , describing Xamneua as being rich in natural beauty and comparing it to a glittering ball, like the one created especially for the province. The song goes on to tell how the people of the province enjoy strong friendships among all ethnic groups, and how in their various colorful costumes they resemble a jeweled ball." In the next post I will display four photos taken of the City Pillar, two aerial shots, and two taken from the ground, one during the day and one at night. We had an amazing trip to Laos. It's not often when most everything goes as plan, and when it doesn't, the breaks go your way. But happily we can report all went well. And even when our flight to Sam Neua was canceled, and we thought we were going to have to cancel flying to Sam Neua because we only had two days to fly up and back, the pilots decided to fly the next day on a Sunday, when a flight wasn't even scheduled. That is very unusual and it ended up there were only five of us on the plane flying up the next morning. So after we flew up the next morning, we checked into our guest house (the Khaem Xam), ate a quick lunch and then drove up to Muang Vaen (about a 2 and one half hour drive, and back that afternoon/evening. The next morning before the plane took off at 11:00 a.m. we hurriedly walked up (about a mile) to the Nuaykeo Gallery where we had ordered some silk ikat textiles and browsed through a selection of some new silk scarf designs, bought a few and then luckily the owner called for a tuk tuk to take us back to the guest house. And then we quickly went to the market as Bai wanted to get some bitter bamboo that comes just from this area and bought quite a few kilos to bring back to various people in Vientiane. In Sam Neua in the winter, and sometimes in the summer, the fog tends to settle in the small valley Sam Neua is located in. Normally the fog will lift by 10:00 or 11:00 and planes are able to land and take off. Normally the flights are scheduled to take off from Vientiane around 9:00 and what they do at the Wattay Airport in Vientiane is to start calling Sam Neua around 8:00 to find out how the weather is. If Sam Neau is fogged in they will delay the flight and keep delaying the flight until either the fog clears or they cancel the flight. Last December when we were in Sam Neua wanting to fly back there had been some rain and low level clouds and although the skies seemed to be clearing by 10:00 they canceled the flight, I think primarily because there were only five passengers at Sam Neua to pick up (the plane holds 17 passengers). This time the fog began clearing right around 7:00 a.m. so we knew we weren't going to have any problems flying back. And a bonus for me was the weather was clear as we passed just to the east of Long Cheng and I got some great photos to add to my collection. It was too rushed of a trip, but we were able to pick up some nice textiles and most importantly place some orders in Muang Vaen. Visiting Muang Vaen in person is essential, well, because they have no phone access! No landline nor cell phone service, they're that remote. And this way we can pick up the textiles when we return to Laos in June when we're guiding a professor/friend of ours who is finishing up the research for a book she's writing. I'll write a post shortly about what we wanted to order and what it was like when we were there. An interesting story. by: Laos Essential Artistry 0 Comments
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