Elizabeth is an ‘artist and travel writer with an Asian focus’. Her illustrations can be found in the childrens book ‘H is for Hong Kong‘ and her photography in ‘Lost&Found Hong Kong’, a collaborative work of beautiful images from 5 peoples lives in Hong Kong.
Currently based between Sydney and Asia, Elizabeth’s most recent project is another book, this time about her personal search for the ‘perfect paper’, through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
She has also founded a community gallery in Hong Kong and designed and run a charity project for children in Cambodia.
Read her stories and experience her original art work at http://elizabethbriel.com/blog/
Where are you from and where do you live now?
Most of us have some connection with our birthplace, but while my passport says: “Born in California, USA” I have only vague memories of living there. My US driver’s license says “Minnesota” but it just expired, and I haven’t lived there in ten years. Currently I share a flat with my partner in west Sydney, and we have cockatoos and fellow immigrants for neighbors.
Where do you consider your home to be?
Home is wherever I’ve rested my luggage for awhile. Over the past few years it’s been my art studio in Hong Kong or this one in Lijiang, China: http://elizabethbriel.com/blog/http:/elizabethbriel.com/mobile-art-studio-version-2/,
hotel rooms or beach bungalows in Southeast Asia like this one http://elizabethbriel.com/blog/http:/elizabethbriel.com/sand-in-my-laptop/,
Why?
It could well be an existential discomfort: I have never quite felt at home anywhere, or within any society, so have never defined myself by the place in which I lived. Globalization and contemporary ease of communication impacts every level of our lives, and for some of us that includes our location.
How many addresses have you had?
It’s impossible to remember. My parents are Catholic educators, and our ever-growing family moved around a lot when I was young: from California to France to Kansas to many different houses in the ultra-Protestant American state of Minnesota, a landlocked flat terrain with long winters. Dotted with rivers and lakes and small towns, wild rice and mosquitoes. Our family’s transience taught me self-reliance. Gave me a desire for a broader set of experiences than the assumptions with which I was raised. I always knew there had to be more to life than what I saw in the streets every day.
What jobs/careers have you had throughout your travels? Can you tell me about them?
First I travelled to get more hands-on art training and experiences in the art world, for example my sculpture apprenticeship in Tuscany with Jerome Cox at the Art and Culture Center in Vicchio, and working with professional artists for the first Liverpool Biennial Fringe. These gave me vastly different perspectives on what is simplistically referred to as the Art World.
To fund those short-term experiences, I worked in the US: on art projects with a designer; painting huge props for museums and events; at an art store selling 2,000 kinds of paper from around the world – an experience which eventually led to the book I’m currently writing about the papermakers of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
I then made the transition from student to teacher. In Asia I’ve had a series of home bases from which I’ve worked and travelled for a year or two. While in Cambodia I taught photography to children with the Angkor Photo Festival; worked as a radio DJ at the now-defunct LOVE fm, a local English language station; and did some travel writing for print and online publications. During my time in Busan and Seoul, Korea I taught English through Art classes, a program I designed. In Hong Kong I gave painting and art workshops at an art center and from my studio, and freelanced as a scenic painter at the magnificently kitsch Macau Venetian.
Now I am a full-time artist and writer. This is the dream, right? It’s what I envisioned every time I opened a book as a child, before reality said it was impossible. I ignored reality and just kept writing and making images. In this age of specialization, most people feel it’s impossible to do both art and writing professionally. I disagree. Now I’m able to do amazing projects with my publisher and independent creatives that I’ve met. But the dream has its price, because up to half the time I’m not painting and writing. It’s the admin and the research and the deadlines and details that keep the work coming in and getting out of the studio on time.
There’s also a little voice that says, ”This could be your last project if you don’t sell ‘X’ copies!”. There’s no such thing as tenure or security in this business, now more than ever before. It’s exhilarating and terrifying, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Can you describe the process behind deciding to travel? (was there an enlightened moment, or a more ‘organic’ process?)
Organic sums it up. Doubtless some find my desire for change pathological, but it keeps me engaged with the world and some of its more interesting places.
What do you enjoy most about your life in Asia and Australia?
I’ve been able to take advantage of the Northern/Southern seasonal diversity. For example, over a two year period I’ll experience three summers and just part of one winter. In essence, the real appeal for me is the contrast between these two regions, which keeps me on my toes.
Asia offers: Dynamic economies and the inherent tensions and opportunities within rapidly changing cultures. Challenging experiences, from the social to the culinary. Huge possibility for career and personal growth. Ease of travel between cities with dramatically different cultures and costs of living.
Australia offers: Along with spectacularly clean skies and amazing landscapes, Sydney is blessed with plenty of sunshine that keeps my spirits & motivation high. It’s been a peaceful place to complete my overseas projects. And overall, Australia’s got the freshest food I’ve tried outside California & Italy.
What have your biggest challenges been?
Allow me a navel-gazing moment. The most difficult challenges come from myself, as the biggest stumbling blocks always do. Doubt, fear, negativity, it’s all there, all the time, and I’ve learned to just ignore those internal critics and get on with things. Most of the time. The external critics every artist has are a comparative piece of cake.
Is there anything you miss about the United States? If so what is it?
Overall, no, I don’t miss anything about life there. Family and friends, yes, but online contact is in some ways a substitute. Those of us from first-world countries are lucky to own a passport that allows us hassle-free visas to so many places around the world, but I find that the priorities of my birth country are not necessarily my own. Instead I seek to savor a few of the many experiences that the world offers in different locations.
How has a life of travel changed you as a person?
The other day my book editor said I’m living a “life without borders”. She knows all about that – she’s an Alaskan-born woman who’s lived in Bangkok for many years now. A nomadic life has forced me to sharpen my priorities, be selective in my companions, and minimize distractions from my dreams.
How has travelling changed your lifestyle?
One dramatic change I made was to shift my primary artform from encaustic painting to hand-printed photography. I shed my cumbersome paints and was able to move my home base much more easily. Now, however, I am painting again – this time on paper, which is still an easy-to-transport medium – bigger and better versions of the Calendar Girls series I started two years ago: http://elizabethbriel.com/gallery/calendar-girls.php
Do you travel with family? If so how has travel changed family life?
My partner likes to take his holidays wherever I’m working, and has been a great companion for the past 6 years, even though we’ve often lived in different places.
Sometimes family comes to visit me when I’m living somewhere they’re interested to explore. My parents have both come to see me in Asia, and I look forward to showing my sisters around Thailand next year. Travelling in a culture that’s not our own can offer freedom from past experiences.]
Any last words…..?
My studio practice has expanded over the past couple of years, so as an alternative to frequent moves, I have been on the lookout for two studios, axes from which I can travel, one in the West, one in Asia. I’m currently in the process of buying a studio in Sicily, and am still looking at several options for long-term studios in Asia.
I appreciate your thought-provoking questions Emma, and the opportunity to tell my story.
http://elizabethbriel.com/blog/
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