angstfest

We patronise them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth
Henry Beston, circa 1925

The rest of the world seems to be wallowing in what Paul Conner calls an ‘angstfest.’ He left the UK almost two decades ago, falling in love with Thailand and Sumpoaw, with whom he runs an artist’s studio in Phuket. Located on the waterfront, they lost 4,500 paintings as waves rushed in on December 26. Inside were artworks commissioned by galleries from across the globe, painted by local artists. Those artists come to the Conners and Phuket from all over Thailand, fine-tuning their skills and settling upon different styles of painting. They’re given accommodation and earn many times the Thai average income, a new middle class that might be the island’s brightest strokes. After the tsunami, the Conners moved shop further inland, to the heart of Phuket’s lively Patong quarter.

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