student blog: maisie broome

Maisie Broome is a second semester sophomore at Maine College of Art.

She is spending 2006-2007 abroad, studying sculpture at the La Salle-Sia College of Art and Design in Singapore. She is the first American to study there. This monthly blog follows her studies and travels in Asia.

April 2007

I am surprised to find that school is nearly over. I can’t believe a year has almost gone by already. I have been busily preparing for our group diploma show, which is in just a few weeks. I am submitting a few pieces I have been working on, fabric sculptures focusing on the themes of memory and travel. The piece pictured is titled “Flying Home,” a self-portrait. Even with finals looming ahead I managed a short vacation over the weekend to the oldest rainforest in the world, in Eastern Malaysia. I was greatly inspired by the amazing plant and wildlife I encountered there. I trekked for hours, swam in the lazy brown river, and ate dinners on the floating houseboats. As time continues to flow by I am sensing an urgency to explore more before I return to Maine, and have decided to extend my stay here for a few more months. As my portfolio grows, so does my bank of memories, and I want to collect a few more from South East Asia before I head back to my own country.

February 2007

I have just returned back to Singapore after spending most of my vacation backpacking around Thailand. Back home now, (it's really starting to feel like home), school has started again. I am joining a new etching class, and have met with the new contemporary arts lecturer, a young woman from India named Shubigi. Her first lecture was really interesting, with many aspects of Indian art, and I have a very good feeling for this class. The new year always brings feelings of refreshed motivation, and also, thoughts on the quickness of time. Both push me forward to create more, see more, and do more. This photo is from an ancient buddhist temple in Ayuthaya, a small city north of Bankok, which we visited by train. A huge twisting tree has grown around the statue, embracing it in an immortal shrine of nature.

December 2006

I am now on my so-called “winter break”. With school out I am working more, at the scuba diving club where I bartend at night and do secretarial work during the day. My classmates and I are preparing for a big group show next semester, and as soon as we have decided on a theme I will start working on some pieces. I am also preparing myself and brainstorming for a gallery show that my teacher Ahmad has asked me to do next year. I went cycling on one of the local islands called Pulau Ubin, where there is a secluded Buddhist monastery. I received a blessing from one of the monks for good fortune, and then tried the famous local fruit “durian”, which smells so strong it is illegal to bring it on any public transport. I don’t think I will be trying it again; it tastes exactly how it smells!

October 2006

My huge assesment will be taking place soon. I have a few more weeks to get everything together, so I think it will be OK, but I still don't really know what to expect. For presentations and critiques here you always have to show a lot of research, and all of your trial and error pieces as well, which is a little different than what I'm used to. I asked my teachers, what if you have no trial and error pieces? What if research isn't neccesary because it's all done on pure intuition? But they insist, and I suppose in the long run it has been making my work a lot more substantial. It is really great to have so much time to explore one idea so thoroughly.

I cleaned out an old storage room in our apartment and have made it into a little studio so i can crank out work at all hours, even after the metro stops running. It feels good to have my own space which I can get messy and hide away in for hours. There isn't much room, so already almost every inch of the floor and walls are covered. I'm working on some models for a big welded steel monster I am planning on starting soon. It looks a little bit like a strange taxidermy shop in here at the moment, and a small cemetery of empty tea cups are piling up on every surface.

September 2006

So here I find myself, on the opposite side of the world from Maine. After 3 airplanes, 30 hours of travelling, and 1 ocean crossing later, I am in Singapore. It is a new feeling, being the minority, unlike back home in Maine. Here it is impossible to hide, my blonde hair is a dead give away that I am not from here. Singapore is not quite what I expected, but parts of it are. The long race forwards is very apparent here, the old culture being pushed aside to make way for the modern. There are still small areas preserved, such as my favourite Little India, and Chinatown, tiny colourful houses, delicious cheap restaurants, vegetable markets full of bizarre fruits and fragrant flowers, and flea markets full of stolen bicycles and Buddhist statues.

School is going well so far. It is a very open curriculum, you come up with your own ideas, write a proposal, and then have an entire year to complete it. I'm finding that this system makes it very important to have a lot of self-motivation. When I'm not in the welding workshop, I am in my life drawing class, drawing to a soundtrack of blaring aboriginal music which my teacher Joo loves, with sticks of bamboo and charcoal or brushes with Chinese ink, or in my contemporary arts lecture, watching short independent Asian films and discussing them. I find I am learning a lot about Asian art. My other classes are ten-minute meetings with my professors, and then a lot of time spent outside the classroom doing your own work. In my sculpture class, there is only me, and three guys who I rarely see as we have our own personal schedules. It gives the illusion of a small school, but in actuality it is very big, with departments for music, acting, dance, design, fine arts, architecture, the list goes on. It makes for a lot of interesting visiting artists, performances, lectures, and collaborations. However it is hard to find events outside of the school. Singapore has an interesting relationship with its artists. The scene is growing, but it is in the shadow of the industrial Singapore business world. I didn't realize, where I am studying, that I am the only American to be here, and the only one to have ever come here. I'm happy to be here with my boyfriend, although not American, he is a familiar face so far from home, someone I can share all these experiences with, and in a way it makes it more real. It is a little hard to understand my teachers, but I am slowly getting used to their accents and slang, which they call "singlish". Even with all the excitement and happiness and freedom I feel by moving here, I can't help but pine for home. There is something about Maine that is irreplaceable, and when I am away from it, I recognize it more than ever.