1.
‘T' The Bottle Collector on the Saigon River in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam’
Whilst out walking one Sunday morning in the downtown district of former Saigon, we came upon the River, it’s docks and the rusty hulk of a large ship. Some way up stream through the tangled mass of weedy vegetation, on the fringes of this fast flowing River, I spotted this old lady and watched as she strained to pick her way slowly (and with great effort) through the weeds. She had to keep stopping to bale out her leaking and very old craft. In between she stopped to carefully fish out plastic bottles from the weeds with her home made net. When she made it into clearer water we noticed that she paddled with her feet ! She eventually turned around, and I commented what a great picture it would make if she were in the shadow of the massive rusty container ship dwarfing her beneath. The lady duly obliged and the scene was complete. She looked curiously at me several times as I kept cropping up at various places on the River bank, stalking her with my sketch pad and camera. Another title for this painting was ‘Recycling Saigon style’ but I felt that the elegantly dressed old lady deserved a more dignified title.
We can only assume that her efforts were worth the rewards for the bottles.
I hope it brings as much pleasure as I got from painting it.
Martin x
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