Meow Wolf

Humans are weird and wonderful creatures. Meow Wolf art collective’s House of Eternal Return is a unique, creative, interactive embodiment of just that.

Built in a former Santa Fe bowling alley and funded in part by George R. R. Martin, the massive 20,000 square-foot exhibit has been visited by tens of thousands of people in the two months since it opened.

The permanent installation is incredible in its scale and variety. Centered around a Victorian-style home, full of relics and documents that beg visitors to uncover a story, hundreds of interactive spaces sprawl in all directions. Crawl through the fireplace, walk through the fridge, exit through the closet, and one enters other worlds.

From squatting baobabs covered with luminescent fungi to a musical mastodon skeleton and futuristic creatures, from LED light instruments in fog-filled rooms to a cartoon kitchen, Meow Wolf embraces an impressive array of visual, auditory, and sensory mediums. The interpretation and meaning are sure to be as varied as the visitors who roam the spaces, free to touch, move, and explore everything around them.

The collective also embraces other aspects of the New Mexico community. The neon shantytown doubles as a performance space. The collective puts on workshops for children. Food trucks ply the parking lot.

After a visit to such a unique space, I was left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and wonder. Kudos to artists who can collaborate to bring such variety of experience and expression to one place, and to those who can get so many people interested in going to see it. 

Haveli Heaven

In touristy Rajasthan, the Shekhawati region is seldom visited, bypassed for the grand forts and palaces of the other desert cities. The few visitors who do head to the towns of the dusty, arid Shekhawati typically go for one reason – the havelis.

In the intense heat of the summer months, we were the only visitors. There wasn’t another white face to be seen in the town of Nawalgarh, and most hotels were partially or fully closed. In overcrowded India, it felt like being in the middle of nowhere.

The havelis, extraordinarily painted homes, reaching often grand proportions, were the attempts of 18th and 19th century Mawari merchants, who often lived far from home for long periods of time, to show their neighbors how successful they were.  The murals often cover the mansion-like havelis from baseboards to rafters, depicting everything from everyday scenes to Hindu gods to family portraits.

Compared to the massive forts and temples available in other parts of India, the havelis represent an understated grandeur. Of course, many of the havelis are in need of some restoration and TLC. For most tourists, it probably doesn’t seem worth the fight and jostle of almost four hours on a local bus to see some rundown mansions. However, there is beauty in the understated, splendor in the dilapidated.

Skin and Bones

Chiang Rai’s Baan Dum Museum, alternately known as the Black House or Black Temple, falls well outside the norm of Thai beauty and art. Though often touted as the counterpoint to the White Temple, typically while citing a heaven-hell motif, the connection between the two is based more on color and the student-teacher relationship of the artists behind the two structures than it is on any intentional artistic correlation.

Baan Dum is a fairly unique project. Black House creator Thawan Duchanee has painted black numerous houses of varying sizes and filled them with a hodgepodge of religious paraphernalia from different Southeast Asian cultures. These adopted images and architecture -- which come from as Far afield as Sri Lanka and Bali, as well as from neighboring Burma and Cambodia -- are interspersed with the artist’s own creations, crafted from animal bones, shells, and skins.

The presence of massive throne-style chairs made from animal hides and horns, rows of skulls and shells arranged in geometric patterns, the black-painted roofs and buddhas, the strange and uncomfortable rocks sculptures and odd buildings, all contribute to the Black House’s ability to give an eerie, unsettling, or downright disturbing impression. 

A Church of a Different Color

Ethiopia has a rich religious tradition. While there is a smattering of Muslims throughout the country, many of the country’s inhabitants subscribe to Coptic Christianity. In addition to their belief that they possess the Ark of the Covenant, Ethiopia’s Coptic Christian tradition is one of rich and colorful art and elaborately decorated churches.

Some of the most vibrant examples, as well as some of the world’s oldest churches and monasteries, can be found on Lake Tana, just outside the city of Bahir Dar.

Round structures with massive thatch roofs, the monasteries are impressive even from an outside perspective. However, once you remove your shoes and enter the outer ring of the building, you are greeted by a vast array of artwork.

Depicting various scenes from the Bible, the floor-to-ceiling murals are full of life. Characters with huge almond-shaped eyes, elaborate animals, and intricate interpretations of stories, these paintings speak of a culture with religious passion.

A Grand Opening

Had you asked me mere months ago where I thought we would be at the start of 2013, Rwanda would not have been my first answer. Nor would it have appeared in a probable top ten list. Yet, life being unpredictable as it is, here we are.

Beautiful circumstances have conspired to land us in this tiny African country, working for newly-launched (opened on January 7^th) City Arts Kigali. Springing from the overwhelming success of Ballet Rwanda, the country’s first classical ballet school, City Arts fills a vacuum in Kigali: offering a dizzyingly expansive selection of classes for children and adults.

Win and I have been brought on to dedicate our time to teaching art and yoga, respectively; the other teachers, expats and Rwandans alike, teach classes and workshops once or twice a week, as they have real jobs to attend to.

With such an exciting job prospect, we did a very basic research rundown of Rwanda --- Is it safe? Check. Is it affordable relative to pay? Yep. Is it somewhere new from which we can launch explorations of other African countries? You bet. --- and left the rest up to chance. Beyond the basics, no amount of research will tell you whether or not you will like a place. Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet. So, that's just what we did.

Rwanda’s reputation among the western world is based almost solely on the genocide of 1994. It is understandable; what we know of a place is based on what is in the media. Since the early 90s, however, Rwanda has become an incredibly safe country, especially when compared to some of its neighbors. People walk around at night. The streets, though only about ten percent paved, are virtually spotless. Grass is kept trimmed, hedges squared. I even hear that the police pride themselves on being helpful.

Not only is Kigali clean, but it is breathtakingly beautiful. Known as the ‘land of a thousand hills’, the city is a mass of rolling green, highlighted by the orange of roofs and the red of the dirt, all under a huge, expressive sky. And by night, the cityscape sparkles with breadth and depth. Roads snake around and over it all, making for some of the most impressive mototaxi rides I have yet to experience.

Most importantly, people are friendly and helpful. Smiles are wide and bright. And food, though a bit bland, is plentiful. We have eaten a decent amount of goat in the past week and a half, along with a ton of rice, beans, potatoes, and other starches. But local produce is cheap, as is local beer. We have what we need, and with a little exploring, we are sure to find more to eat, experience, and enjoy.

Contrasting Colors

Though teeming with tourists, Antigua is one of Guatemala’s more picturesque towns. Once a grand capital of Spanish colonialism in Central America, today Antigua’s restored glory mostly benefits the tourism sector and the tourists it serves.

That being said, it is a wonderful place to while away a day or two, and hunker down under a blanket or two at night. Ringed with volcanoes, crisscrossed with cobblestone streets, and smattered with churches and cathedrals, Antigua is brimming with photo opportunities and steeped in history.

Massive ruins of once great churches destroyed by earthquakes punctuate Antigua, a glimpse into the Spaniards’ reasoning behind abandoning the city and moving the capital to modern-day Guatemala City. Ruins rest alongside newer cathedrals, past and present hand in hand.

Throughout the city, local indigenous Mayans in native dress, colorful and hand-woven, pedal goods to tourists. Baskets effortlessly balanced atop their heads, they offer everything from fruit to jewelry, stopping here and there in the shade to rest.

And, as in many towns across the world, the real commerce takes place not in stores, shops, or through street vendors, but in the local market. A sweaty, hectic labyrinth, aisles of the market weave and intersect, leading one onward. From shoes, live chickens, and fake flowers to shampoo, produce, or raw meat, all necessities are available at a price. Hawkers call out their wares, voices mingling repetitive calls like so many birds.

The market sits in stark contrast to Antigua’s artesian market, with its wide, clean aisles of stall upon stall of similar goods. The artesian market is a place of tranquility, a sudden silence, shut off from the chaos of the market next door. Souvenirs and trinkets in vibrant hues are pushed at tourists, t-shirts and purses, hammocks and toys.

It is this that strikes me most about Antigua: its contradictory natures coexisting side by side. It is Burger King in a colonial-style building, an ancient church facade in front of a modern structure. The old and the new mingle. The genuine and the artificial mix. In Antigua, the modern dress and the indigenous garb walk down the same streets, harmonizing beautifully. 

Ratchafitti

Thailand must be a dream come true for graffiti artists. Blank cinderblock walls line every street, empty canvases just waiting for some color.

Back in Ratchaburi for the remainder of our time in the Land of Smiles, we have been utterly captivated by some of the street art around town. It greets you as you cross the river into the city, it's outside the mall, in empty lots and down side streets. With bold, eye-catching hues and unique images, the art stands out.

And it all seems to be done by someone named Pluto. Whoever this Pluto is, I admire the quality of the work and the depth of creativity. It makes me consider adding “learn my way around a can of spray paint” to my bucket list. 

White Temple

After spending a year in a Buddhist country, we are used to seeing temples everywhere, with very little variation in appearance. They come in different sizes, some with a chedi, some are perched atop a hill, they feature Buddha-themed murals or statues in a variety of positions. But, for the most part, the variations are slight. The White Temple, however, is in a category of its own.

Designed and built by Thai artist Chaloemchai Khositphiphat, Chiang Rai’s White Temple (Wat Rong Khun) is a standout in a city, and a country, saturated with Buddhist temples. A quick motorbike ride outside of town, only thirteen kilometers or so, the White Temple is easy to see on a weekend afternoon. Not to mention, easy to spot.

Construction on the White Temple began in 1998, and is expected to continue for the next fifty or so years in order to complete Khositphiphat’s vision. Donations to the temple help to fund further construction.

The temple design is based on the artist’s interpretation of Buddhist Enlightenment, hence its pure white façade. Covered top to bottom in stark white stucco and glittering mirror fragments, the temple was stunning, in the early evening sunlight.

Surrounding the temple is a pit filled with writhing, demonic-looking figures reaching up toward visitors, also all white. These statues are meant to depict the struggles and trials involved in reaching Enlightenment. It’s hard to be a Buddhist.

A white Naga-topped bridge arches over the pool of misery and anguish, leading to the main hall. 

While foreigners are forbidden to enter the temple without a Thai guide present, we went in anyhow. In typical Thai fashion, the walls were floor to ceiling murals of scenes of the Buddha’s life (one of which inexplicably had a little painted Doraemon whizzing by with a jet pack on).

Thus far, the main hall is all that has been constructed, aside from a gift shop/art gallery and an extremely elaborate bathroom, decked out in glittering gold mirrors, rather than white. Wouldn’t want to confuse the temple and the toilet. Even incomplete, the White Temple is majestic and dazzling.