Author: misschryss

Ejo #62 – Freedom

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Last month I wrote about us choosing to stay in Dubai even though I don’t enjoy living here.  One of my (formerly) loyal readers didn’t like the post and left this comment on 3rd January:

Hello, I had already written to you and I read your posts each time there a new one, but I am so disappointed by your latest one, this will be the last one I read from you as we do not share the same vision of expatriation.

Indeed I am very disappointed by the way you think.  Of course we are all free to express our thoughts and feelings but I experience this everyday in France where I live and that just pisses me off. I keep hearing people living in my country saying they don’t like anything about it (and sometimes anyone).  This is so disrespectful.  I am not saying we should like everybody and everything but at least we shouldn’t be allowed to be so ungrateful towards a country which has accepted you, we shouldn’t stay in a place we don’t respect (although some might say this is not a matter of respect, I do believe that you can’t respect people or a place you have absolutely no positive thought about).

People always endeavour to live in a better world but how will it ever be possible when after years living in a place where you have been given a new start in life your conclusion is that the only thing you like about it is escaping it!!  For sure no place is perfect in this world and we can rightfully talk about the pros and cons objectively but rejecting so many things and all the people as a whole is just unacceptable to me.

You may not understand my post.  You might even be angry at me, telling me not to come back to your ejo if I don’t like it. But I just needed to express myself!  I don’t understand how you can enjoy travelling so much and be so narrow minded. Peace in the world will never happen with such comments, I am not sure you would understand people liking nothing about your country and staying anyway, that is unfair and you talked about racism but do you think such a blog will help?  This is quite sad.

My reaction to this letter was physical.  I felt out of breath, like I’d been punched. I felt sick.  The concept of her statement was nothing new to me.  David and I often argue that if I hate Dubai so much, perhaps we should just leave.  My therapist, Zimmy, always tries her best to help me see Dubai more positively.  But it took the words coming from a complete stranger to have the most impact on me.  I felt gutted.  And I went to bed in tears resolving to change.

After sleeping on it, I woke up seeing a more balanced picture.  On the one hand, I don’t want to be perceived as a horrible, twisted, negative, complaining person.  On the other, I want the freedom to publish exactly how I feel.  I have never set out to sledge Dubai.  I have only attempted to convey my own difficulty at finding a connection and love for the city I live in.  And, as I wrote to Flo (my former loyal reader), “I have always imagined that my ejo rants were written in an entertaining way, tongue-in-cheek”.

Four days after Flo wrote to me telling me she didn’t like the way I was using words to disrespect the city I’ve chosen to live in, the world was shocked by the appalling Charlie Hebdo attacks in which twelve people were killed, ostensibly in an assault against freedom of speech.  I was too stunned by the magnitude and the meaning of what had happened in Paris to make any kind of connection between that and my own freedom to express myself in my ejos.  But it occurs to me now that while it would be foolish to make a comparison between myself and the Parisian publication, parallels can be drawn to any person who elects to express themselves publicly.

Was Charlie Hebdo promoting racism by reprinting supposedly blasphemous cartoons of an Islamic prophet?  Or were they using satire to make a point?  Have I unwittingly been promoting racism by bitching about Dubai?  Or have I been trying to draw attention to a monster problem that exists in this city?  Is Flo’s response to my ejo a charge against my own freedom of speech?  And if so, should I fight back by continuing to publish and voice my opinion?  Or should I fold to her criticism?

I’ve decided that Flo’s comments are simply her freely expressing how she feels.  And that’s OK.  I don’t think she’s trying to tell me to change the way I write.  I think she’s telling me that she just no longer wants to read it.  And that’s OK too.  Am I sad to lose a reader?  Yes.  But I don’t write my ejos in order to collect subscribers.  I write them for me.  I can not, and will not, allow someone else’s opinion of me to change the way I write or what I write about.

Je suis Chryss.

Ejo #61 – Status Quo (Not Coming Home)

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So, I don’t need to tell anyone how I feel about Dubai. We all know. No need to beat that dead horse. So surely, given the opportunity to leave this joint and go back home to Australia, I would jump at the chance, right?? Well, I guess if that had been the case, this ejo would have a very different title. Something along the lines of “Ejo #61 – Escape At Last” or “Ejo #61 – Fuck Off Dubai, We’re Going Home” or similar. You get the gist. As it is, my ejo this month is not about the colossally magnificent news that we’re packing up and moving back to Australia. Nope. It’s about having the opportunity to do so, carefully (oh, so very carefully) considering it and then rejecting it.

For the first time since we’ve moved to Dubai (way, way back in October 2008) Airservices Australia (the country’s only Air Navigation Service Provider – and our previous employer) has opened up recruitment to overseas air traffic controllers. When we first heard about it David and I kind of looked at each other sideways trying to assess how the other felt about the possibility of chucking it in here and finally heading back from whence we came.  Neither of us wanted to ask the question, and neither of us wanted to answer it.  But we both knew what the question was: Are we ready to go home?

Eventually we got around to talking about it.  The conversations would go something like this:

“So, do you want to apply?”

“I’m not sure.  Do you?”

“Not sure”.

In the end we decided that we would write to the recruitment people and ask them a few questions.  Dealbreakers like where we could expect to get placed and whether or not we could expect to get placed in the same city.  If Rockhampton was our only option, the scenario instantly became less palatable.  And if one of us could go to Melbourne but the other would be placed in Sydney, same deal.  I’ve always said that my marriage is more important to me than my career, and I’m not about to start a long distance relationship with David now.

When they got back to us we discovered that Melbourne Tower was not even on the board.  This drastically reduced the attractiveness of the idea of moving back for me.  If I go home, it’s to go home.  And for me, that’s Melbourne.  If I’m living in Sydney or, even worse, Perth then I’m not home and I might as well stay where I am.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against either of those places, but the deal would be made a lot sweeter if we had the chance to move directly to Melbourne.

In case you didn’t know, the main reason that David and I moved to Dubai in the first place was an increasing level of disenchantment with the management style of Airservices Australia.  When we first got to Dubai, our employer was the sharing and caring antidote to that and we were happy.  Unfortunately, over the years our current employers’ management style has rapidly deteriorated to the same level as we were experiencing back home.  I’m talking about deceit, derision and downright hostility towards their air traffic controllers.  Morale here is not good.  People are resigning in droves and returning to their home countries leaving behind radar units and towers that are painfully short staffed.  The company is unable to recruit air traffic controllers from elsewhere because they aren’t offering an attractive enough package.  And we’re not just disenchanted, but also disillusioned and disengaged.  So it ain’t a happy place.

So why do we stay?  Let me make you a list of things I miss from Australia.

* my family

* my friends

* coffee (oh my god, the coffee)

* no smoking in restaurants, bars and cafes

* the weather

* the amazing restaurant scene

* the sound of birds

* the lack of in-your-face racism

* the culture

* our house

* our neighbourhood

* road rules

* clean air

* trees, plants, flowers, the colour green

* jobs done by those who want to do them, rather than jobs determined by nationality

* quality healthcare

* good service

* not being called sir EVER AGAIN

* being able to wear whatever I like

* being able to kiss my husband in public

* being able to swear in public (I’ve started doing this here and think I’d best stop)

* not being afraid to be drunk in public for fear of being arrested

* not being afraid of being thrown in jail for no good reason

* being able to flip people the bird if I feel like it (it’s the principle)

* great fashion

* reliable mail

* no freaking construction

* no sand EVERYWHERE

* Madame Brussels

* cleaning ladies not being terrified that I’m going to beat them

* pornography (again, not something I necessarily want, but give me the choice god damn it)

* freedom of speech

* reading magazines where they call it wine and beer, not grape and hops

* bacon, oh crispy bacon

* being able to log onto Skype, Spotify etc. without having to hide my location using a VPN

* the countryside

* being able to ski within three hours of the city

* OPSM (seriously, I’ve never had a pair of prescription glasses made properly here)

* no in-your-face wasta

* people that turn their headlights on at night (der)

* wineries

* skilled tradespeople

* OH&S

* minimum wage

* human rights (OK, Australia’s record of that isn’t so great either, but at least you aren’t subjected to it on a daily basis)

* recycling

* addresses (there’s no street name/number system here – you navigate using landmarks)

* great live music scene

* people washing their own damn cars

* not needing the aircon on 24/7

* good hairdressers*

 

I really could go on, but I think you get the idea.  Now I’ll list what I would miss about Dubai if we were to move back home.

* the travel.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, maybe the cheap and plentiful taxis too.  And that’s about it.  But that one thing, right now, is worth sacrificing all those other things that I miss about home.  I’m not done travelling yet.  I don’t know if I ever will be.  I’ve got a severe case of wanderlust, and I’ve got it bad.  And living here allows me to regularly, and frequently, scratch that itch in a way that I wouldn’t be able to do from Australia.  So I forfeit my family and my friends and great coffee in exchange for being able to see the world.  I can’t even say if it’s a fair exchange.  I just know that I’m not ready to give it up yet.  And (thank goodness) neither is David.  If one of us wanted to go home, we have agreed that we would go.  But for now we’re staying.

In other news, we are coming home in February for a  couple of weeks so that we can get our fix of all those things we miss about it.  Best of both worlds.

 

 

* If anyone can recommend a GREAT hairdresser in Melbourne, I’d be extremely grateful.

Ejo #60 – The Extraordinary People I Know: Karien Mulder

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What is art?

Well, do you have all day? And several bottles of wine? I bet we still wouldn’t come to a consensus. How do you define something so personal, so illusory? I’ve been to galleries where the exhibits have not only left me cold, but actually perplexed. How is this considered art, I’ve thought to myself? And yet there are people fawning over the work. Gushing over it! By the same token I have stepped in front of a painting and been totally mesmerised, unable to look away. Unable to walk away. Lost in another world, another time. Transfixed.

Leo Tolstoy defined art thus:

“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward the well-being of individuals and of humanity.”

And that’s about as good a definition as I’ve ever heard. I wonder how many bottles of wine he had to drink to come up with that one!

Now let’s get into some deep and meaningful stuff. Is Chryss Stathopoulos an artist? What is an artist? Someone who creates art, right? So, by definition, yes, I am an artist. But honestly, to call myself that feels like a lie. I create art, sure. I write regularly. I paint once in a while. I take photos when something catches my eye. But in my own opinion, that doesn’t make me an artist. A true artist is following a calling. Maybe I have a calling, but I sure as hell don’t follow it. I’m too married to my salary (right now) to give up being an air traffic controller (shackled by what I like to call the “golden handcuffs”). If I was a true artist I would say to hell with the money, to hell with the travel, to hell with the lifestyle and I would sit down and do everything I could to make a living from my “art”. But I don’t. So when I meet people who have done just that, I look at them with great awe and admiration.

One such person is the subject of this month’s ejo. Karien Mulder is a visual artist and designer in Dubai. I know her because our husbands work together. There are a lot of things about Karien that intrigue and inspire me. And most of them have to do with how different we are.

For instance, I didn’t grow up in a war zone. I spent my formative years in the leafy, Melbourne seaside suburb of Elwood, where the most exciting thing that ever happened to me was winning a spelling competition. Karien, on the other hand, grew up in Rundu, a town on the border of Namibia and Angola, during the South African Border War. Her parents were both in the military and her father was sometimes absent for months at a time. I imagine that as a young child she saw and experienced some pretty awful things. And as children do, she would escape the real world by playing. Her favourite memory of that time is spending hours chasing “sand lions”. She would patiently trick them out of the ground using a blade of grass to tickle the side of the sand funnel until they popped up. Only to put them back again. Another pastime she loved was drawing (particularly faces), something her mother taught her to do and something that would become a lifelong passion.

Catching sand lions

Catching sand lions

After they moved to South Africa (once the war was over), Karien’s mother allowed her to use the spare room of their house as a studio – and in a way it was this act of encouragement and support that really gave Karien a chance to flourish and grow and figure out that being an artist was what she really wanted to do. School was never a highlight for her, but the high school she transferred to in South Africa did have a fantastic art department – and so a confluence of opportunity presented itself to her. Art as a life choice.  She took hold of it and still hasn’t let go.

A young Karien hard at work in her studio.

A young Karien hard at work in her studio.

Having a mentor, I believe, is an important part of walking the artist’s path, and Karien has had a few along the way. People that she’s learned from, people who have guided her and inspired her. From the high school teacher with the shaved head and flowing skirts who taught her that actually creating work is more important than talking about it, to her best friend from whom she learned that every decision an artist makes should be towards creating better work. Karien’s most influential mentor though is the man who taught film at The Open Window School for Visual Communications, Pluto Panoussis. He opened her eyes to a whole other, moving, world, a world that she has confidently inhabited since.

But Karien had made a commitment to being an artist long before taking Pluto’s film class. At the tender age of 21 she packed up her car and drove to the South African coastal town of Langebaan with her cousin. She left because her father had just died. She left because she wasn’t enjoying the graphic design course she was three quarters of the way through. She left because it was the right move to make. It was a major step for her and I can’t imagine that she did it with no fear whatsoever. But she did it anyway. And while she was there, not only did she take part in some art exhibitions and work on her painting, developing her technique and skill. It was in Langebaan that Karien met the other love of her life, her husband Nic.

Nic and Karien are one of the most in love couples I’ve ever met. Their relationship is a beautiful thing and I admire them all the more for knowing just how different air traffic controllers are from artists (trust me, I really know). But they make it work – just like any relationship, you get what you put in. And to that effect Karien made a striking comment about it. When I asked her if there was a time when she knew she was going to be an artist she said, “Art is a soul commitment. Being an artist takes way more than being married. You commit to art more than you commit to another person”.

So while Karien keeps her art close to her, closer even than her husband, I keep mine as a mistress. Not even that. More like a booty call. Something I paw at when the urge takes me. Which is not what being an artist is about (though like all relationships, some nurturing and attention could improve things). Karien and I do share a creative spirit.  But I have squirrelled mine away, encasing it in a beautiful crystal box to protect it, only imagining what it must be like to create art as a life venture.  Karien, on the other hand, has taken her spirit, exposed it to the world, turned it over and thrown it up in the air (and probably up against a few walls too).  She made the difficult choice to be an artist.  She didn’t just dream about it.

I remember once taking part in a life drawing class. At the end of the session the instructor walked around checking everyone’s work. When she came to mine she stepped back and tilted her head. “Whose is this?” she asked and my heart skipped a beat. I put my hand up and she nodded. “This is really, really good,” she said. What I did with that compliment was allow it to fluff up my ego a little bit and then I stored it away in that nice little glass box where I could look at it from time to time, and admire it. That’s the difference between me and Karien. And that is why she is extraordinary.

Karien at work!

Karien at work!

You can check out Karien’s work at her WEBSITE.

You can also read an interview she recently did with Gulf Photo Plus HERE.

And here are a few of my favourite of Karien’s works. I hope to one day start a collection.

Karien 7 ‘To Pin a Ghost’ – Digital Image Composite on Paper

 Inspired by a fictional ghost story

Model & Make-up: Yowyn Du Plooy

Styling, Compositing and Photography: Karien Mulder

Wardrobe: Corsets SA http://www.corsetsa.co.za

Assistant: Louise Malan

You can check out the project here:

http://karienmulder.com/2014/07/20/ghosts-and-girls/

 

 

Karien 8 ‘Rouge Pony Logo Design’ – Digital Image Composite on Paper

Inspired by tattoos, headpieces and vintage tattoo design.

Illustration and Model: Karien Mulder

 

 

Karien 6‘Drawing a Day Image 5’ – Pencil on paper, photographed in Instagram.

Inspired by making a drawing every day for 50 days.

Part of a work in progress.

Model: Yowyn Du Plooy

 

Karien 5‘Folk Self-Portrait’ – Mixed media on a found object (book)

A personal visual diary made as part of a project while at The Open Window School.  The idea was to develop your own personal illustration style through the medium of your choice.  Karien chose to work with random objects and explore concepts of South African folk art.

You can view the project here:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/17520957/Drawing-from-Life-A-personal-Visual-Diary

 

 

Karien 4‘Digital Self-Portrait’ – Vector illustration.

“A vector self-portrait based on a portrait I saw of Frida Kahlo some time ago.  I am (like most) a massive fan of her work and I particularly like the placement of her portraits – it sometimes reminds me of a mug shot.

Mug shots also interest me, and I have made a series these self-portraits in different environments. I like the idea of a universal self and how the decorative space is the voice of the personality.  In this way the individual ironically disappears.”

 

Karien 3“Self Portrait with handmade headpiece” – Digital Image Composite

“I made a couple of headpieces and I wanted to take some photos and didn’t have an available model.”

You can check out the project here:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/16888345/THE-MAGIC-OF-THE-INANIMATE

 

Karien 2“Pen Doodle” – Pen on Paper

 

 

Karien 1“Doodle of a Concept for a video” – Watercolour on Paper