Yellow & Black
Friday, August 22, 2008
Yellow & Black
I flew through three episodes of House this afternoon and my father probably watched the same talk show on television twice. I didn't mind, but the lack of phone calls from my father was beginning to bug him endlessly. You see, he has an office down the road from this house, but he still prefers to be based at home, with his clients calling his cellphone and then dealing business from the front of the television, not to mention the fact that he is five steps from the kitchen stove too. This afternoon, the phone calls trickled through the radio waves, the television was excruciatingly boring, and I wasn't paying any particular attention to anything other than the fact that a bunch of characters were vomiting on the plane during an episode of House. So my father's vast dark shadow appeared in the doorway halfway through one of the episodes, distress was obvious from the look on his face, and he jumped onto my bed and asked what I wanted to do for the afternoon. I had plans, plans to meet Sarah downstairs at Starbucks and later for dinner, but there was still quite a bit of time before that was supposed to happen. So, in view of the fact that my father wanted to meet the interior designer who designed this house to discuss about the other penthouse that he bought last year, he asked if I wanted to go with him to the design studio as well. A peek at the clock and a sip of water later, I was out of the front door.
I flew through three episodes of House this afternoon and my father probably watched the same talk show on television twice. I didn't mind, but the lack of phone calls from my father was beginning to bug him endlessly. You see, he has an office down the road from this house, but he still prefers to be based at home, with his clients calling his cellphone and then dealing business from the front of the television, not to mention the fact that he is five steps from the kitchen stove too. This afternoon, the phone calls trickled through the radio waves, the television was excruciatingly boring, and I wasn't paying any particular attention to anything other than the fact that a bunch of characters were vomiting on the plane during an episode of House. So my father's vast dark shadow appeared in the doorway halfway through one of the episodes, distress was obvious from the look on his face, and he jumped onto my bed and asked what I wanted to do for the afternoon. I had plans, plans to meet Sarah downstairs at Starbucks and later for dinner, but there was still quite a bit of time before that was supposed to happen. So, in view of the fact that my father wanted to meet the interior designer who designed this house to discuss about the other penthouse that he bought last year, he asked if I wanted to go with him to the design studio as well. A peek at the clock and a sip of water later, I was out of the front door.
林口 (LinKou) is a very interesting place in Taiwan. It is located on the outskirts of Taipei, right on the very edge of things. In fact, I live about five minutes away from the bridge that separates Taipei and TaoYuan. This is the suburbs, and new housing and condominiums have been popping up like mushrooms after a storm around this area, and my parents have taken advantage of that fact and invested in a few real estates over the past couple of months - without me knowing it. My father sped down the straight roads and beat the red lights through the empty streets and to a place called 八里 (BaLi) - think the edge of the edge. From my house, it was a straight drive for about ten minutes, and then a left turn into a secluded forested area with an empty golf course to the right of the road. Trucks and vans squeezed into the narrow two-lane road along with my father's Volkswagen. By the time we were five minutes away from the design studio, all the vans and the trucks have already turned off into even smaller roads along the way into warehouses and factories, and that was when I started to have my suspicions about this supposed "designing studio" thing. Then, it happened.
To our right, the top of a glassy semicircle peeked over the canopy, like a hidden planetarium somehow. The rows of broken walls and roadside shrubs dissolved abruptly into a stretch of wall made up of cobble stones, and the rest of the building came into view at last, with trees reaching inwards towards the studio like an embrace. The car pulled up towards the side of the road, and the silence outside the car was deafening. The sky was already growing darker at five in the afternoon, but there was not a sound in the vicinity, not even birds or insects in the trees. It felt a little creepy, and yet peaceful for some reason. It reminded me of those days when I lived in the middle of an industrial park before I moved, tucked away from everybody else in the city for a peace of mind. No wonder the designing studio was located there, it was the perfect place to run away and be at yourself, I suppose. My father and I stood at the front of the wooden gate, with the edges surrounded by a thick metal frame and a carved wooden dragon at the top. A stray dog came along and smelled my father and I, its tail wagged and its tongue hung out from the side of its mouth as if it just humped a leg somewhere. It waited at the gate with the both of us as my father, and the gate slowly opened automatically and we were inside - with the stray dog.
The garden was obviously well tended to on either side of the stone pavement, with the bushes carefully trimmed and the sound of water trickled down somewhere in the shadows and into our eardrums. The front door of the studio opened, and a woman popped her head out to greet my father by his first name while he introduced me to her. She was a young woman, probably the designer's secretary, in her late twenties perhaps. She smiled at me, and she became the first person to say that I had a vibe that was completely different from my father - at last, someone! The first floor was relatively empty, with sculptures of animals made in wood around every corner and a corner of the studio showing off various upcoming projects by the designer. Little models made from styrofoam and wood, my sister really should have been here, I thought to myself. The secretary led us up the wooden stairs, the kind made up of pieces of wood, and we were at the top floor of the studio by the time we heard the sound of cello over the speakers.
The top floor of the studio was a giant open space, the roof rose about six meters off the ground, and the working desk of the designer was located right in the middle of the floor. He was working on something on the laptop when my father greeted him, and he came around the table to shake hands with the both of us. His shoulder length hair was combed neatly behind his ears, dressed in a golfing polo t-shirt and his watch glittered in the lamp from the table. His handshake was firm, and I returned with the firmest grip I could manage without being pretentious. The three of us settled down in big armchairs around the table, with the designer, let's call him Z, seated with giant spreads of blueprints on the table before him. He started going through the original floor plans, and then went on to give the both of us an overview of what he intends to do with the interior designs. It was the first time I was being exposed to the art of interior design, and I must say that I was wholly impressed by the man's knowledge, his vision, and his creativity. He was slow and patient with his words, not rushing his thoughts despite his packed schedule, and he carefully explained every changes to the original floor plan in his own time, in his own words.
He would then stray to other topics every once in a while, and at one point he told my father that he should have brought him to a cello concert he attended last night that made him weep, something which would have been an utter disaster. Music and my father are like ice-cream and peas, you just don't have them together anywhere at anytime. Anyway, he continued to speak of everything but his own designs, still taking his time with the choice of his words. My mother has raved about him in the past, how they sat down and talked for an entire afternoon this one time, something which I saw as a possibility with my own eyes. I mean, he looked like the kind of person with a lot of control and comprehension in regards to his thoughts. He was very confident, very assuring, and certainly very proud of his own talents and abilities. For the most part, my father and I just sat there and listened to him, because we didn't feel like we were in league with this person at all in this field of work. I mean, he was speaking of how furniture are the soul of a house, the usage of organic materials and colors for his designs, and the kind of things that we've never actually considered while shopping through IKEA. It was fascinating, and yet the man was approachable and friendly, and so was his cute secretary who went out of the way to prepare cold tea especially for me.
He asked if I am ever going to move back to Taiwan, as if the dilemma of leaving or staying was written on my forehead somehow. I told him of the possibilities, and he mentioned how most of these kids that grew up overseas find it difficult to fit back into the society in Taiwan, unless they already have some position to fill in their family business. That wasn't encouraging at all, but at the same time I wondered if the same can be said about returning to any country after a long time away. It was still interesting, though, to hear what he had to say in regards to that. Then we started speaking of the nature of art, in which I became a lot more involved than my father. I mean, my father was the man with the money, the one who pays the designer after all. He has the very last say as to what happens and what doesn't, so his vocabulary that day was limited very much to just "yes" and "no" for the most part. And as for me, however, I was eager to share some of my ideas with him, in which he was very interested to know as well. I told him about my love for space and height, and said that it'd be great to have a room with a tall ceiling like the room we were in. I also mentioned about studio apartments in SoHo, in which he immediately understood because he seems to love New York a lot.
We shared our thoughts on our fascination with ancient buildings in New York, and he mentioned a friend who paints in New York, and he lives in an apartment building that used to be a shopping mall of sorts. They had those old school elevators with metal gates and the rope to pull just to activate the elevator, and we both became very excited about our common grounds. Still, what nailed my respect for this man was when we discussed the differences between an interior designer and a painter. He paints every once in a while, in fact the giant calligraphy in my living room now was painted by him for my family. Still, he doesn't consider painting to be his work, but rather a side hobby he does every once in a while. He spoke of how he'd never be able to be like his friend, the painter in New York, the way he weaves his thoughts into pieces of art. I, however, thought that what he does is a form of art as well, in which he begged to differ. He said that the art in interior designing is very much trained, and that everything an interior designer do is to, ultimately, please his employer. It doesn't matter if you like your design, it matters if he likes the design. Every ounce of creativity is very much controlled and stifled by the will of others. The amount of "true art", he said, then becomes minimal and artificial.
"No one can tell a painter whether to use yellow paint or black paint", he said. "The entire painting is his, it's all him". Which is really true, and I guess I haven't saw things like that before. It is probably much easier to train an amateur into an actual interior designer, but much harder for a painter. It is much easier to churn out interior designs like iPods on a conveyor belt than for a true painter to be born. I was glad that I shared some of the interests with architecture, although I was clearly not in the same sport as he was. I liked his use of organic materials like wood and stones, and then the usage of non-primary colors like brown and grey. You can see his signature everywhere around my current house and his own office, tucked away in a small corner of the city and away from the bustling town. I suppose most people out there don't want to be told whether to use yellow or black paint either, but we don't have the luxury of that most of the time. The powers at be dictate what colors we use, what brush we use, what canvas we use, what frames we use, and what to draw. Everything has to be in favor of somebody else now, and we have little to none of ourselves in any work now.
He bit us goodbye at the front door as my father and I drove away. I was very impressed by the man, the way he carried himself and his passion for designing. My father asked what I thought of him on the way home, and I really had nothing but good things to say. I don't suppose people like that come along all the time, but I am very proud that my family own a piece of his work right now. You know, it's kind of like buying a painting somehow, only it is really made up of wood and concrete for the most part. This visit really is making me think twice, again, in regards to whether or not to move back here. And the dilemma was certainly not eased out after meeting with Sarah later at night either. More details on that in the next entry, but here's a great shout out to Z, a man I truly, truly respect.
mo ke pan nuo
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on Friday, August 22, 2008 at 1:31 AM.
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