Friday, December 28, 2007

Working and witchy Time - October 07



The cat had an annoying habit for a while of scrabbling on the hatch (from our side or from above us) at dawn as birds were greeting the sun from our mast.
She never caught the tiny birds but was luckily too scared to go chase the huge kites so usually woke US up to hold her at a safe position in the hatch where she could chitter at them but duck if they moved.....


The first big gig I had was the Dream Catcher workshops for HK’s Youth Arts Foundation.
(The one that inspired my face for the World Face Awards this summer). A corporate sponsor raises money & PR for itself and Orbis (the eye charity) by giving YAF money to create a crafty event all HK schools can enter for a token amount (which also goes to the charity). I wrote, resourced & researched the teaching pack (not the Cantonese translation though!) and gave training sessions over several weeks to up to 50 teachers at a time. This was in one of YAFs wherehouse workshops. I'd had a day going round all the factories outlet stalls (that area I love with 1000/s of shops of beads, ribbon, etc) collecting samples of the right sort of stuff.

Rainbow dreamcatcher for YAF
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

The teachers were given starter packs with specially made plastic rings already wrapped in suede, (and beads and feathers) as luckily YAF realised displaying up to 20,000 hand-made wire rings would be too heavy/ difficult to maintain minimum sizes, and got a factory to do the right size & weight rings instead! Some of the teachers were amazingly good, and the final display which was exhibited around various HK malls, looked fab!
Would NOT have wanted the job of sorting out all the (hoepfully labelled) rings to post back to the kids though!


The houses I mainly work in just seem to be too grand for anyone to afford. One I was at for a lovely Indian family on the Peak had the most amazing views (over their pool) to our catamaran!


Another party I did was arranged by an Event Organiser and was themed on a Venetian Ball. He had decorated the (HUGE & AMAZING) house on that theme, and given us all gorgeous costumes to wear.
As well as me painting, staff were making crafts with the kids (crowns, etc), a mermaid in their pool helped them do jewellery, there was a clown, balloon twisting, a jester, and the food was amazing.

(The mermaid made me laugh, she had a 6 month old baby and said being in that costume was the best rest she’d had since it was born as she couldn’t walk at all for the entire party!) I think the twins were 4….

Often I paint in the 'function rooms' or club houses many of the apartment blocks have. One at the Bel Air development in Pokfulam was interesting. The whole place seemed to have bits of sculpture or useable art all over it, and we were in a princessy room.

Talk about fiddly decorations - and with loads of kids running riot with icecreams in it!
Luckily the chendeleirs survived, no idea how long it took to get the balloons out of them though.
. Scariest was the kids/ adults on the indoor bouncy castle - the ceilings were fairly low and the chandeleirs got hit a few times!


Another party was in a valley on the Peak Park, lovely but a bit full of mosquitoes.

View from Victoria peak park
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

Hard to find - my taxi dropped me off at the top of the park and after worrying for nearly an hour as there was no sign of a party and the host wasn't answering her phone, she finally turned up to drive me to a secret valley for the party.


I tried out the alternative market’s new extra venue over on Discovery Bay (on Lantau Island where the airport is but the side facing HK) as well. Bit hellish getting there as the Middle Island ferry doesn’t start early enough (usually I can wait till it does as the market venue is closer in Pokfulam). So Pete had to drop me off - luckily he was teaching sailing early so had a rib ready.
Then a taxi to the Central catamaran ferry, then drag gear to set up in a baking ‘square’. Seemed like a very family area – I understand no cars are allowed there, etc. I was painted off my feet in boiling sun, and wanted to go early as my paints melted, but had been specifically asked to go by the market team as a TV crew were filming there that Sunday. I was asked to paint a nice young Chinese man and persuaded them to let me do something better than the crappy cheek art most people want/ expect (as that seems to be all other painters offer – and they use felt-tip pens or acrylics!!!!). So, I was trying to do a nice talking dinosaur on him but as I couldn’t follow the crews Cantonese instructions, kept reaching in front of the lens just when he started talking, etc. Shame I won’t see it but we don’t have a TV!

Two weeks later, the organiser who did the Ventian party, Robert, arranged for me to fly to Shanghai for a bodypainting gig. It was all a bit fraught as the weird lump on my back swelled up, got horrible and turned into an abcess so on Tuesday night I had to get it cut out under local anesthetic. And at the same time arrange a Chinese passport visa, and paint supplies. Yuk. Rather painful getting home but I had a day to lie in our berth and after that the pills they gave me were great, hardly felt it! So at 6 a.m. that Thurs, I met Rick (actor currently touring China as a human glitter ball hosting parties for JB whiskey) and Ada (ex businesswoman form London back home in HK to teach yoga, belly dancing and perform fusion dancing in clubs). Getting to our seats on the plane we were heading towards a woman who had the last 3 rows of 1st Class to herself, and I knew I recognised her. I’m rubbish at names so was about to stop & say hi & try to work out how we knew each other when I realised it was the actress Kristen Scott Thomas (from the Uk – was in the English Patient, 4 Weddings & a Funeral, etc). Whoops! Rick is an extra in a film she will be doung in HK soon. She was whisked off the plane before us but collected by a chauffeur with a huge indiscreet sign – apparently there was a big Mont Blanc thing going on in Shanghai.
We arrived late, and waited for the Maglev closer to where we were to work. It went at over 341 km/h! Quite scarey!
Then into a taxi (with TV screens in the back of the headrests showing adverts, tourist info (in Chinese only) and games. Lots of traffic jams and we drove through the city. Unlike HK it kept a lot of its old colonial buildings, so parts looked like Paris or London. There were some amazing modern structures (tripods piercing huge spheres) but generally it seemed far less developed than HK which was a nice change. I even saw people on bikes and in rickshaws! The Hyatt on the Bund, where we were to work, was stunning – brand new and absolutely massive with HUGE atriums.
Our rooms were equipped with evey possible thing we could need, and decorated in solid wood and stone. Sadly as we were hours later than expected, I immediately began painting Ada in Robert’s room. Due to Shanghai rules, she had to be in a skin-tight bodysuit so I painted over it, and her hands & face, to match the dryad/ tree hat and podium she would be in.

Then I did a very quick easy watermelon face on Scottish John (lives on Lamma when not singing in an Irish pub in Shanghai).
He had a helmet that matched and was fitted with his head poking through the fruit buffet as a sort of animated cannibal display.
Lastly I did a bit of ageing on Rick who was a living table. Not a naked, crawling on all 4’s table as I saw years ago on Rapido, but a sort of kingly fancy dress table…. Odd but the Bank of Paris loved it!
By the time everyone was de-painted and ready to go it was nearly 10pm, but we went to Times Square Shanghai on an errand and then started looking for food. John & Rob were on a mission to find a place they went to drunk last visit, so I ended up hypo-ing as we walked through quaint walled housed- streets.
Eventually we arrived, just as the all-you-can-eat Sushi & Sake bar was closing – but they let us in. Rick the actor mistakenly ordered just about the entire menu which was mainly amazing (all cooked in front of us) but too much AND totally lacking in carb.
Fighting through really insistent beggars (1 almost got her babies head stuck in the taxi door – she would NOT leave). I crashed for all of 3 hours in my luxury room before getting a taxi back to the airport at 5am. I noticed all the lights on their big buildings were switched off before midnight, unlike HK which is almost as bright as day all night!


Despite the plane reaching HK late, I would have been on time except the client gave me the wrong address! The other girl from YAF was trying to direct me in by phone when she finally found it, but it all went well. I was doing a training session for YAF – corporate sponsors also ask staff to volunteer to learn to do some skill to amuse the public at YAF’s big Art in the Plaza event. I did 2 (very short!) sessions for 2 companies on basic face-painting and glitter tattoos.
Sadly its not really enough time to teach them much at all!
The Stanley plaza event that Sunday went well, with 100’s of volunteers running everything from puppet-making to balloon modelling stalls, whils dozens of assorted youth dance groups put on ance show after dance show in the arena. I just painted!

Halloween is quite big here. Ocean Park puts on a spooky spectacular for weeks beforehand (their cablecar was still running at midnight quite often), many adults get dressed up to wander the streets of the Lang Kwai Fong bar area, and lots of kids parties go on. After seeing signs I was wondering who the Aberdeen Marina Club (very posh boat club) were using as they advertised face painting. Turns out it was me they just booked very late and luckily I was free that night! Also luckily, I bumped into Caroline as I was leaving Middle Island to get ready for that gig, and she offered me a lift. Not in a car parked at Deep Water Bay as I expected, but on their ‘little’ yacht, which they motored round to Aberdeen Marina Club where she moors and lives on the luxury one I painted her at before.
I had bought a cheap witch dress, ripped it up and added my own skirt etc, as a change from being a face-painting fairy.
Bliss - nice easy trip, and the Marina Club was decorated fantastically, even the bread was bone shaped!
All very Day of the Dead and rather atmospheric, around the club’s big swimming pool. I painted in the pool house with a guy making decorated pumpkin bags, and there were lots of other activities going on too. On Halloween itself, I had a kids party then 3 housecalls (to decorate party-going adults). In the middle of that I also had to go to the hospital for the doctor to see how my back was healing (fine) which caused much amusement amongst the nuns and nurses there!

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