I remember every second lived in Samrit, because it was the most magical time of my life. I had never felt so alive, I had never been so full, I had never been so happy.

When I landed at Suvarnabhumi International Airport my heart was pounding, was beginning my life experience, it was real. When I entered the terminal was lost, but we must recognize that all airports are alike, you walk ... you walk ... you walk ... you walk ... and there is a huge queue waiting for me at the passport control. .. I finally picked up my backpack and I met with Em in the meeting point. I was exhausted and I only speak Spanish out, Em did not understand anything ...

I'm fascinated, but I feel a deep exhaustion, because I could not sleep in the 10 hours of flight, as my seatmate was moving like a snake in his seat ...

Upon leaving the terminal I have great heat stroke, with high humidity, but then my body adapts. I look at everything with wonder and marveled to be there. After leaving the airport, I meet a landscape not unlike that you can see outside the airport of Madrid-Barajas, albeit with a difference, it was all green! He had arrived in rainy season.

I am impressed taxis, cars with strong and vivid colors, greens and yellows, pinks.

We stop at a gas station and laughter I can see a KFC ... A little later we stop at a fruit market at the foot of the road, BRUTAL! Mountains many fruits of different colors, shapes and textures ... makes you want to eat them all. Maingostan and taste the kind of Chirimoya ... are like explosions of flavor in my mouth, I love it.

We continue on the road, and I see the first monks all I could see during my stay in Thailand. A middle-aged man with a very bright orange robes, walking by the side of the road with a slight limp.

It is amazing how green the landscape, and even with the cloudy day, plain to a multitude of green and more green. As we move into the destination country Samrit, the landscape is leaving me perplexed ... is truly wonderful.

I can not help it, I fall asleep ... I wake up with a start arriving at the residence in awe ... And I can see large tracts of rice, a few cloaks of green grasses that look like clouds ... The excitement I feel when opened the door of the residence is indescribable, I look around me ... no words ...

Soon to arrive, I have visit, Lindsay and On, have come to meet me, my family Thai, people with a heart of gold. They teach me Samrit, and the first stop is at Jin´s Restaurant, Jin was and is my sister, my friend, my support, which I spent most of my time there, with the largest and most beautiful heart that anyone could imagine . We went through the Noe´s workshop and his wife's small restaurant, we saw rice fields, we went through the hairsalon, the temple ...

From the first moment I felt an inhabitant of Samrit ... I never felt so much adrenaline and union with a place and a people. There, everything is magical.

​Community cohesion exists in this little haven of humanity is amazing. All are one.

There, you can learn the true values of humanity, which in the occidental world have long since disappeared. People are generous, cheerful, helpful, collaborative, friendly, they give a smile without expecting anything in return ... they have the largest and hearts full of passion and love ...

I remember family gatherings at home Em and good family, where the main course was a good beer with ice, many conversations around a rectangular table, joy and tranquility ...

Birthday, weekday meetings, conversations on the boat race after training for it ...

They are people who celebrate the gift of life wherever they can. It was nice to be there listening to their conversations in Thai language, and although it does not understand anything, you felt belonging to them ...

Besides me is very important to share the residence with other artists, I was lucky enough to meet Katie and Jordan, from the United States and, with Vinicius, Brazil.

Along with Katie can do a mural inspired by a wonderful day of fishing on the family farm, fishing snake fish. It was a lovely day, tucked into the pond and plastic baskets catching fish ...

The walks along the roads of Samrit, religious parties, funeral ceremonies, training for the boat race, the wonderful chats with Jin On, Lindsay, Katie, Jordan, Vinicius, Art ..., collecting rice, Loy Krathong day, a visit to the University of Art, traditional dances, indescribable rainy days, visiting Phimai, its markets, its ancient tree, its massage, Thai delicious coffee, traditional costumes, music, the weekend of the boat race, whisky, beer, smells, the flavors, the sunsets, the smiles, the bikes, the market in the morning at the entrance to Samrit, moon, lights and leftovers, the various insects and other animals, ...

Being able to work in the store-restaurant with Jin and his family, both cooking as serving food, collecting or washing dishes, cleaning and sorting the store, singing in Thai, unaware Thai ... Share for days with her and her family, learn, teach, speak ...

The friendship with Katie, a great artist full of experience and love, rides, coconut water ... and laughs with her boyfriend Jordan.

Talks with Vinicius in English, Portuguese and Spanish ...

On hugs, my Thai mother ...

Lindsay wisdom, my Thai father ...

The traveling and learning new cultures, new people creating new people, with an inner strength that is not describable. The experience, the months Samrit are to be experienced, it is very difficult to put into words what I lived, dreamed, experienced, felt, seen ... Samrit is home, is union, is family, is love, is learning ...

I feel a deep joy and satisfaction of being a member of this experience, the opportunity to be part of it has been a gift in my life ... when I close my eyes it's like to be there again, my skin stand on end, feel chills, my eyes weep with joy and melancholy feelings.

I can only say thank you, and say I will come back.

Enjoy the experience, feel it in you, let yourself be impressed by Samrit life, for the life of Thailand.

Samrit is so cool, I mean it's hot, but chill. Jordan and I made a daily routine of walking around the countryside and I spend the rest of my time sketching and taking photos. We are fast friends with Jin, the woman who owns the shop across the street where we eat our meals, Art, the program director at Samrit, and Alba, the other resident artist from Madrid. Art and Jin generously invite us to do all sorts of things and are open, curious and I enjoy their sense of humor. Alba has a very tender heart and shared with me some of the community projects she works on in Spain, including mural collaborations with inmates at the prison in Madrid, and feet paintings with the students at the art school for adults with special needs, where she teaches. 
We had a memorable trip to the market in Phimai and dinner with Art's large family, including an observation of 36 people training for a village on village paddling race at the end of the month. They train three months in advance for two hours every evening (in the dark as the sun sets around 5:30-6:00 p.m.). Jin took us to explore her rice paddy this morning as she and her husband flooded the field from the nearby river. We eat her rice everyday at the shop and this particular crop will be ready to harvest in November.
The pace of life here is slow and peaceful. 

The village of Samrit was enriching for me both personally and artistically. I took a roll of paper along with some walnut ink and charcoal (for ease and because I'm trying to break my love affair with oil paint...toxicity, environment). I was immediately struck by the plant life and foliage there...of course. It was so lush and verdant wherever you looked. Even a plant in the concrete jungle of Bangkok looked like the healthiest plant you could imagine. Also, I couldn't get enough of the patterns and attention to detail in the tile work found in the cities and villages, the variety of fences and gates (everyone had one), and the colors and overwhelming amount of advertising.

I can't read or speak the Thai language and thus could more easily overlook the nefarious nature of advertising and labeling. Or at least view it with humor. The images on billboards, signs and packaging became these visceral paintings comprised of complex symbols and shapes to me. I mostly played around with documenting plants and ornamentation while at Samrit and worked on a couple of murals - one with the other resident, Alba, from Madrid. Yet, I find myself wanting to dive in to a big palette of juicy oil paints to create some "advertisements" of my own now that I'm back home.

One of the many reasons I'm hooked on travel is because it changes the way you look at your world when you get back - at least for a while. It helps me be more within the moment with family, friends and outside. Even mundane tasks like cleaning the house and doing laundry have a fresh feel. The people of Samrit gave me a deeper view on what I'm grateful for in particular.

It's true that where we were visiting is the poorest part of Thailand and that there were not many luxuries. You can't flush toilet paper down the toilet (there's a hose instead), the water is unsafe for drinking and there are bugs and lizards and rats running around in and above your accommodations. But you quickly get used to those differences, maybe find some tourist-like endearment in them... then finally realize it's like red squirrels or hard water back home. I did not have a big revelation that the people of Samrit have so much less than we do. But I did find myself thinking that they have more in a way- a strength and resilience. 

Now it's true that I was seeing everything with the starry-eyed vision of someone experiencing trouncing around in the mud to catch catfish or the exhilaration of paddling in unison with 30 others in a very long, skinny and tippy boat on a foreign continent, for the first time. I'm certain the people of Samrit do not feel their lives as naively as I did. I think they probably live very hard lives. They're mostly rice farmers in an industry that's now losing the competition to export with Vietnam, another impoverished country. They're facing the challenges of a land soured by fertilizer due to a western solution to growing more food faster. The Chinese have come in and created shell corporations under Thai names and have taken over many businesses. It's very difficult to get a bank loan there, so people are forced to buy them on the black market, etc. Yet the Thai people smile a lot and are a very generous, collaborative and accepting people. Which I will remember and take with me

Within a surprisingly short amount of time, Jordan and I felt like we were part of the community of Samrit village. Art, the Program Manager at the Artist Residency, was a great host - leading us around to authentic and interesting places, answering our endless questions, and joking around with us. We fell in love with Jin, the woman who owns the shop across the street where we ate meals, her mother, Cheun, and their family. They'd take us to their plot of land where they grow the rice we ate. And without a lot of verbal exchange I learned some things about rice farming, including that my head is certainly too oblong for the hat Jin lent me. I enjoyed getting to know Art's large group of family and friends- his fabulous mom, On and her husband Lindsay, the founders of Samrit, his brother, his wife & adorable son, the boat team, the beautiful girls who taught us some traditional Thai dancing, Paddy the dog who we're now trying to bring back here, and on and on. 
​
It was a beautiful experience and I am thankful to all the people who made it so. I'd highly recommend the residency stay for any artist who likes adventure, a different pace of life and respectfully learning about new cultures.

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