at home in the world Welcome to my chronicle. I have embarked on my 'global art studio tour' (GAST). Who knows how long i'll be gone or where exactly it will take me. I hope to meet as many artists, see as many studios, and make as much art work as possible before my return. If you wish to sponsor me, you will receive a peice of artwork, of your choice, after my return at the value of which you sponsor me. (does that make sense?) Put another way, you can pre-purchase artwork from me, if you would like. The two ways to get money to me are (1)Send it to my parents who will deposit it: c/o Ron & Janine Parrish, 9102 Towanna Tr., Austin, TX 78736, USA. OR (2) email me (via this website) for Paypal information. (my account is under my email address, if you already have that.) Thanks so much. Please comment as freely and frequently as you wish on articles and picture. ~heather

Thanks to my new friends, MJ and Hayley, I have been initiated in the real-backpacker-world-dom. I left the wonderful land of my heart, Indonesia, yesterday, and landed in country number 2. Took a taxi for what seemed like longer than my flight, and found my little 'Green Hut' backpacker world in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. Even though this country is so close to Indonesia, it is a whole different world! It is a world of food stalls and advertising. So colorful! The multiple ethnicities living all together makes it totally fascinating! On any given street, it seems, there will be Indian, Chinese, Malay, and Thai restaraunts, all in a row. All populated with their respective ethnicities. There are of course also concentrated areas of one ethnic background. Did I mention how Colorful it all is? It's really fun just walking around the city (which I did for about 6 hours today - not so fun crossing large highways Frogger-style; that hostel lady had an interesting take on 'walking-distance'). Another dominant feature is, again, the shopping malls! i thought Surabaya had a lot. This district near me seems to be miles and miles (verticle and horizontal) of solid shopping! I thought America had a bad case of consumerism. I'm getting a little more perspective, which of course is what this whole trip is about. Anyway, as of yet, no art successes yet. I walked about 3 hours (with a little stop for shopping & food) to the National Gallery, and found it to be all Sweedish-looking maniquines with custom-made (due to their large size) ethnic clothes on them. I watched a very interesting documentary on the making of Kerises (traditional Malay/Indonesian swords), but other than that it was a disappointing bust. Fine art, people! Not manaquines.