Sage's

I used to make cards for X’mas and handed them to every of my classmates, but making cards for profession is another story..

I haven’t been putting my hand on drawing paper for quite a long while, left alone the watercoloring.. however, once I started I wouldn’t want to stop..

All the work below now belong to Fei and her fantastic whiteismycolor.com studio..

Once upon a time, when we punished a crime..

… , apart from execution, there was ” isolation “, which, with this, I heard that the ancestors of Japanese were simply the convicts of crime whom were marooned onto the isolated islands out off the Mainland’s shore.

Same goes for Thailand,it seems,as there’s a Thai phrase “maroon them” which mean to isolate someone as a great punishment.

Well, for now I’m not sure whether that was a punishment or a bless for them, as Koh Tao(Turtle Island) looks just like a great destination for paradiso..

It was all begun with the BawornDecha’s Political Rebel in 1933 which ended up in sending all people involved to Koh TaruTao (now you might have learnt that “Koh” means “island” in Thai, genius ^^), where, decades later still, served as a jail for political convicts.. and then they were later moved to Koh Tao.

And the fact of this makes me wonder if the villagers on the two islands are the lines from those of the convicts, however they were once described as very kind and very generous and peaceful at heart.(Well, they still are, with a bit of commercial tweak)..

But since 1986, Thailand’s traveling’s begun to boom and soon the islands around there have become ones of the top-hit destination for “an escaping summer holiday”..

Soon the rows and lines of coconut trees were replaced with comfy bungalows and commercial places, today both Koh TaruTao and Koh Tao (pls note that the 2 “Tao”s aren’t the same words, TaruTao was a tweaked words from Malaysian “TaroTela”which means “full of bays”, whereas Tao in Koh Tao means “turtle”) have become national parks and full of investment on nice resorts and diving schools. Many concern that the islands would no longer belong to Thai people as many investors and estate purchasers are foreigners..

Now as my holiday is planed and tickets booked, and knowing that I’d land in a comfy resort with diving classes to choose from, and maybe some SPA and massage to try, and of course an internet surfing before I hit my bed each day, yet I keep imagine how it would be in those days, where the sky was deadly dark at nights and the only light was from the torches(if they were ever allowed to be lit) and the ( surely,must have been) bright billions eyes above, and only things the prisoners have ever seen were blueish eternal ocean and sky and lines after lines of coconut trees, have they ever wanted to jailbreak (if that option was ever potential) or have they, alas,  found their peace and haven?

When Gindy Laura was holding a Gala Show at Doland Museum Of Modern Art and I got a message asking whether I’d be interested in joining the event as an artist on a wall, definitely I said yes, although I didn’t have any idea of what to put on a wall yet..(and not long after they assigned the walls for us to be on the second floor, we were decided to move to the first floor, right next to the entrance and with much BIGGER wall to fill in)..

It was only a one night event, but it was all about this artsy atmosphere that has brought me in.. I so loved the feeling of having a big empty space to my own, even for a night..and knowing everyone was gonna walk and stopped by, I knew I had to be different..

But what a silly animator could do, without having a good work in store as I left all in Taipei? So I tried to put in the sketches I’ve made during few months in Shanghai and put some of the idea from my storyboard I have been scheming,.. in one word, I wanted to present who I am,.. an animator, a story telling artist and a visual artist.. the consequence, An Animator’s Mosaic..

Each of the piece was filled with visual arts or sketches, characters and ideas, with little txt  like.. “never be afraid to jump”.. because this’s also who I am, I like writing stuffs like that.. when you take some steps back and semi-squint your eyes, LOL and behold, the bigger image is there..

The day of event started with me going there at 9:30 AM, but being stopped at the front door by an auntie cleaning the windshield, said this is not opened yet, kid, the show is not ready, the artists are preparing,…” exactly”.., I replied, “that’s why I HAVE to go inside and make it ready..”,.. she looked at me in disbelief, well, well, same as usual, people takes me as a losing teen than an expert..(-.-“)

The event turned out very successful, of 500+ guests flowing in within 3 hours (beyond expectation of 200), but I regret now that I myself failed..(-_-“) .. as I have been putting up the work and helping the others with the thunderous BoomBoom sound of the Jap drums in the air ALL THE TIME..!! When the show was about to start and the museum front door opened at 6 PM., I retreated with my assistant to a StarBuck 3 blocks away, closed my eyes in a more quiet atmosphere (the first time I felt StarBuck ever be so quiet).. my head numbed and feet soured from standing on a pair of 8cm heel-boots..(and still in clumsy old jeans and shirt while people started entering the museum in suits and gowns).., so when one of my guest called and asked for my appearance, I said I’d be there soon, but I delayed a little while.. and after being back (walked passed the front door like an uninvited intruder that the girls at the guestbook desk looked at each other), met my guests and be in their cam-shot and all, only minutes later I got a message from colleagues who were also presenting their artwork on some walls, they were asking to meet at the restaurant just across the street, being starving, I walked out the front door (again) and minutes later enjoyed Chinese cuisine..

Maybe I should have spent more time inside, standing at my wall and smile..mmm.. but I suppose it also might be a good curiousity and mystery to see an interesting work without seeing the one who made it.. let they do the search and follow me here then.. besides, artists are hard to be reached.. they float at their will like a fog swirling to haunt you and be gone.. 🙂

Characters by Sage Birden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.sagebirden.net.

Some of sketches from people I’ve seen around the place turned into a stock or characters for my next project.

Alice: the waitress.. I only know her name after she disappeared from Kommune, TianZiFang. I was thinking to include her sketch on the one night exhibition at Doland MOMA and thought that I might asked her name, had a little chat and more sketches, but she was gone and all I could do was to ask from her co-worker there.

The first time I saw her, I felt she was a very animated woman, laughing and smiling broadly and looked attractive in her own way, “a perfect character for a advisive, sophisticated lady at a cafe” I though. I still keep hoping to run into her someday..

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