Pat's apprentice
| Extra long Nagas destined for a mansion. |
The day I worked for Pee Pombul at Watt Indra he suggested since I was interested in cement sculpting I should visit a work shop he dealt with that makes all kinds of sculpture for both Watts and homes. He described the place but I already knew it. The shop is on the route of my one day death railway tour and I've actually stopped there on occasion to point it out to my tourists, 'So that's how Buddhas are born' a Belgian once commented seeing a row of them in various states of completion.
Thailand could be called the Land of Cement instead of the land of smiles, or concrete any way. Everything seems to be made of concrete here. Houses, stores, shops, roads, bridges, telephone poles; they even make boats out of concrete as much as an oxymoron as that sounds. The ubiquitous three story concrete shop houses are what makes all small Thai towns and cities look the same. One of the biggest companies in the country is Siam Cement. There are of course still some old wooden and bamboo houses left around, but not many and not for long.
It was already late morning already when I arrived at the workshop, I hadn’t ever talked to any one here so didn’t know how they would feel about me showing up and asking to work with them. It little mattered what happened though, if they told me to beat it, its a nice ride up and over the mountains and not all that far away either.
| One of the sculptors who refused to speak. |
As I pulled up to the front of the open plan shop the place looked fairly deserted with just a selection of Concrete figures in various states of completion, not even a dog came out to menace me. I entered the shop all the same figuring I would just have a look around when I noticed someone squatting between three life sized concrete wise men in various seated positions.
I greeted him but he barely looked up from his work. He was troweling Cement along one of the statues lower arm, giving it width by defining the forearm as it tapered into the wrist. I stood over him waiting for some response, a long minute went by until finally he nodded his head and flicked the tip of his trowel towards some broken down motorcycles towards the back of the shop and continued to work.
This is a pretty typical response from working class Thais who aren't used to dealing with foreigners. A combination of shyness, embarrassment and disdain which manifests its self as simply ignoring you and hoping you go away. Thai apologists will say it's not meant to be out-rightly rude but I don’t have another name for it.
I mooched around the place for a few minutes examining the molds and sections of re-bar that made up the armatures of the concrete figures. Currently in progress there were two twenty plus foot long Naga serpents resting atop a series of work tables, though their bodies just taking form in rough concrete with rusted bits of wire still sticking through, their necks and heads were already full formed and attached.
While I looked over these two massive serpents the rear door opened and shut with a clang as a shirtless man with a handful of tools emerged from the shadowy rear looking me over with a puzzled expression and so I greeted him as well, which changed his speculation to a smile. I explained what I was doing there as he nodded and grinned and exclaimed with his hands all of the different projects that were under way. I could smell the booze leaching out of him immediately.
It's true that he was pretty drunk but it was nearly 11 am and that isn't unusual up country. Besides it loosened his tongue and extended his patience and since I was without an interpreter on this one I needed whatever help I could get.
| A seven headed Naga still in the rough state. |
His name is Pat and as the owner was away with 4 of the 6 people who work at the shop delivering a set of 9 Buddhas he was in charge, so he told me. He has only been at the shop for 6 months but has been casting, shaping and sculpting cement for more than 20 years in his home town of Chai Nat, about 150 kilometers from where we were. Work had dried up where he lived but since Kanchanaburi is going through a building boom thanks to the newly opened border to Myanmar there's plenty to do here.
His main job is to shape cement over the re-bar and mesh armatures that are formed and welded by two of the missing staff. The Naga's that occupy the center of the shop are his current ongoing project but that day he was working on a rush job. A fourteen foot long Fish banquet table/float. Ordered for a wedding in four days. They had made a metal table with protruding bars along each side so it can be picked up by bearers and marched around when finished. A top the table there is to be a hollowed out fish that will contain both bride, flowers, two Buddhas and food. The fish body, which is just a basic wooden box is finished and today pat is gluing sheets of Styrofoam to the sides and building up large blocks at both ends to sculpt into the tail and head.
The way he talks about this job I can tell he finds it beneath him, a school boys job and so I ask him about the Nagas. This perks him up. He describes the process of layering the cement along the mesh in layers thin enough to hold together but not to heavy to collapse of their own weight, and how the mixture must be the right consistency neither too wet or dry. He does his shaping in the relative cool of the early morning and then spends the rest of the day casting small details with molds while monitoring the drying process of his larger hollow creations, using damp clothes to keep the concrete from drying too quickly during the scorching afternoons and cracking.
The two monsters taking form here were commissioned by a rich home owner as bannisters for the entrance to the house he's building. The bodies are hollow and will be covered by 3” x1” scales cast in concrete and hand painted. The heads are cast in two parts and fixed to the bodies and then the whole thing is detailed and painted. They're 23 feet long and weigh 3 tons apiece and will take the five people in the shop a month or so to complete. Total cost for the pair about $ 4,000.
| A finished Buddha looking very un-concrete. |
I offer to help for awhile and he shrugs. We sit side by side at the big fish and adhere styro to styro forming a large hank that Pat can later roughly shape using a dry wall saw and a box cutter and then finely finish with a thin fishing knife and sand paper. But for now its just sticking hunks of white foam together with a brown toxic smelling pre-mixed epoxy that Pat takes a huff of every few minutes. Though the shop is surrounded by beautiful hills there’s not much else around and as he and probably every one who works here lives in a squandery of rooms behind the shop some whereI don’t much blame him for getting high when he can.
He offers me sips from the label-less bottle of booze he keeps in the back pocket of his cut off jeans and though I'm a little sick and its not quite noon I can't with any good grace refuse. The stuff is the color of kerosene so its not imitation brand name Thai whiskey, its good old Lao dong, moonshine, white lighting. One pull off the bottle and my stomach quivers, the stuff tastes like going blind.
| Pat, half in the bag shows off some small casts. |
We finish building up the block that will be the fish's head but as Pet picks up the saw to make the first few rough cuts his body lurches sideways and he loses his footing. He shakes his head and has another go stabbing the saw straight into the styro. He turns his head and with a lop sided grin waves towards where a make shift hammock swings between two of the buildings pillars and walks away leaving the saw where he buried it.
It's about that time anyway, getting hot, time for lunch and a snooze and so I leave thinking to come back in few days and see how the fish comes out.
As it turns out I wait too long to return and by the time I stop again the fish has been finished and delivered to the wedding. Pat seems to have only a very vague memory of me, and the owners wife who sits at an unruly desk in a nook that functions as an office is suspicious and glares at me. Only the kid who refused to talk on my first visit remembers me and acknowledges my greeting with a nod. The shop is full of workers today and busy, the relaxed atmosphere I found the first time was obviously the result of the owner being away and so I take my leave quietly. No one pays attention when I start my bike and drive away into the hills.
