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| Baan Jang Nak, Elephant Wood Carving Museum |
| Written by Panida Suvapiromchote | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 19 December 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Though situated less than 20 kilometres from the Chiang Mai city, the Ban Buak Kang village and its museum are perfectly surrounded by traditional northern Thai farm lifestyles. Along a narrow road leading to the Baan Jang Nak museum, visitors are still able to observe the farmer lifestyle while their cattle are grazing near the road passing through the village. An entrance has been creatively shaped into a concrete elephant form while gigantic elephants and sculptures are exhibited in front of the museum built in theThai Lanna style.
In 2008, Phet Wiriya, 53, a Chiang Mai wood carving artist, estimated that he had sculptured over 100,000 pieces of elephants which clearly demonstrated the development of his 20 years labour of carving works. Five years ago, Phet decided to officially turn his new house of 1.2 Rai of land at the Buak Kang village in San Kamphaeng District into the Elephant Wood Carving Museum called "Baan Jang Nak" (A House full of Elephants) where a large number of his carved elephants are exhibited. Phet, a down-to-earth and sincere artist, said that he learnt elephant carving with the great wood sculptor, Kam-Ai Detduangta, for 4 years. Phet used to work as a wood carving instructor at the Industrial Promotion Department but resigned in 1997 in order to set up the wood carvers group at his village. The wood carvers of the Ban Buak Kang Moo 2 initially started with 8 carvers and later increased to 70 carvers. Presently, of the remaining 40 carvers, half work at their homes while the rest work at the Baan Jang Nak Museum. The name of Baan Jang Nak was given to him by the famous late Thai cartoonist, Mr.Prayoon Janyawong, who visited Phet's house in 1988. Phet went on to say that he started carving his first elephant from teak wood 23 years ago. During his early years of work, Phet had not yet concentrated on elephant carving until famous engineer, Dr.Arun Chaiseri, and renowned architect, Mr.Nithi Sathapitanon, who purchased his carved works, had encouraged him to seriously study about elephants. Phet later went to visit various elephant camps, observing elephant behaviors, taking snapshots and did a lot of sketching. He also made a study tour to Surin Elephant Festival. "From my frequent field trips observations, I can feel the elephant moods of either cheerfulness, sadness, or happiness, by observing their eyes and body language." Phet noted that a few decades ago, Thai elephants used to be huge and tall as high as 3 metres, with long tusks, but nowadays it is sad to see elephants become fat and shorter with either broken or short tusks. As Phet has put a new life into his carved works by adding natural feelings and elephant characters which has completely changed the Chiang Mai' s typical carved elephants formerly depicting tough characters and unrealistic looks and postures. Phet has combined added carving details of natural gestures, skin, and eye lashes into his works. Carved elephants created by Phet and the Ban Buak Kang wood carvers group are admired and exported around the world, with costs ranging from just over 1,000 baht to several millions baht a piece. Most of the carved elephants are created from Cassia wood, Jack fruit wood and toddy palm wood, or sometimes small carved wood pieces that are combined together into a gigantic elephant sculpture with each of the master pieces taking more than four years to complete. Apart from wood, elephants are also created from concrete material. A natural colour from the fruit called "Ebony tree" (Diospyros mollis Griff) is used for colouring the elephants to make them look more realistic and safe for buyers. Phet added that "I love every piece of our work and am proud of my creations. I usually do the sketch first and my sketching works are similar to the time capsule of my job." He expressed that though his works have changed from the traditional carving styles reflecting the northern Thai rural village, Phet still finds this typical village life image truly classic and impressive. Featuring in four main sections of the Baan Jang Nak are Phet's carved elephants from his early days until present, including his first small teak wood elephant. Wood carvers are seen busily carving from large master pieces to small wooden elephants on the museum's ground floor. Among the master pieces is a large gift box for King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan to be presented by The Siam Cement Group, while others are orders of small to huge elephant carved pieces. Most of the wood carvers group's clients are from Canada, the U.S., Germany, Japan and Singapore. "Sometimes visitors impress me with their appreciation. For example, three years ago, a group of Japanese doctors and professors patiently waited for two hours to meet me and to express their thanks on my dedication on the museum project, and they all stood up and applauded."Various International TV channels have released documentaries about Phet and the elephant wood carvings museum project. With these encouragements to continue, Phet recently opened the San Kamphaeng Traditional House within the Baan Jang Nak compound. It is a thatched roof house with old style bamboo floors and walls. Displayed downstairs are cloth weavings of the San Kamphaeng lifestyle in the old days. Next to the house is a rice barn, a well, a northern style bathroom called "Torm" and backyard garden of vegetables and herbs. Phet and his daughter named "Ying", a painter, are always around to gladly guide visitors to the museum. Admission to Baan Jang Nak is free. Donations are welcome to support the maintenance of the San Kamphaeng traditional house project. Interested persons can visit Baan Jang Nak's at:
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 19 December 2008 ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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