Dressed in a traditional pha sabai and sarong, a young Thai woman twirls a cheerful yellow parasol in a landscape populated with elephants and birds. Alaya Cholprasertsuk's design skillfully captures the girl's grace and power in an exquisite batik. Using simplified lines and a palette of rich earth tones, she achieves a contemporary feeling for a traditional subject. 

Features:

• Handmade in Thailand
• 100-percent cotton
• Weighs 0.3 pounds
• Dry clean only
• 2.8 feet wide x 3.4 feet high

Story behind the art:

My parents worked as professors for the university but are now retired. I was brought up with a loving younger brother. I was introduced to arts very early. When I was a child, I had the chance to study drawing and painting with artists. At home I would constantly practice what they taught me. I also used to participate in Siang Dek (Children's Voice), a newspaper whose writers, artistic directors, and journalists are children. It is a free tabloid-size newspaper issued with the famed Ying Yook Mai (Modern Women) newspaper. I had such a good time there that I then set my mind on becoming a journalist. But after graduating from high school, I decided to study architecture and arts media at at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology. After graduation I got a job as a designer for an advertising company. Two years later, I worked for another advertising company; I thought it would be more of an interesting job for they worked with all the media: magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. However, after eight years of hard work, I felt like I could not take it anymore. Not only the routine, but everything was exactly the same, our customers ran exactly the same kinds of business and were always asking for exactly the same concept - it sort of dried up my creativity. My husband, whom I met while still working for the first advertising company, left to his hometown in the country in order to work in a ceramic factory. I decided to move and live with him there and this move changed my life greatly. We have been living in a small rural village for three years. Here I wanted to do something that I loved and to feel free. One day I got the opportunity to learn the process of batik and kept practicing at home afterwards. I thought it was fantastic because I could create anything on the cloth with a free mind. What I wished to create, well I would just create it! I would go for a walk near my home and look around; I would look at things that impressed my mind and feelings and think about them. Once back home, I would use this inspiration and get down to work with concentration and patience. At first I could not really sell anything until I joined an artistic fair where I used my husband's company stand to display my work on its walls. Unbelievably, I could sell. What really made me happy was to know that people I didn't know bought my work because they loved it, and not only to please me or out of friendship. It encouraged me to continue, which was a good thing since some shops later placed orders. love to design my batik with earth tones. I think most of the batiks found on the market these days are made with too many bright colors.