Giga Travels To Exotic Places

By Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington

GigaTravels To Exotic Places A Memoir

Ferguson-Huntington is a twenty-first century storyteller, weaving wild yarns about her exotic travels.

Artist Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington, is an accomplished artist, multi-media artist and writer. Ferguson-Huntington Her first published work was a mini-graphic tale called A Toothsome Romance, which was in Speaking Pictures published by Harmoney Books.

She taught art and design at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar and traveled extensively. University research funding allowed her to explore stations along the fabled Silk Road and to create artworks based on those travels. This memoir details many of those experiences.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington
• Release date: Jan 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215509913

Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington

Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington is a multi-faceted, multi-media artist living in Taos, New Mexico. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Digital Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She first came to Taos on a Wurlitzer Grant. In 2000, she was hired to teach art and design at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar. She worked for twelve years in Doha and traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, notably trade routes along the Silk Road. In 2012 Kathleenreturned to New Mexico and started a memoir called Living With the Giga Rich: A Qatar Memoir about her time in the Middle East and her experiences teaching; how she empowered her students –often wealthy Arabian royals –by inspiringthem to see, and think, in unaccustomed ways. She felt that thinking creatively was arguably the most important skill to acquire and the hardest to impart. Herself an accomplished multi-media artist, a vast array of her powerfully original work has been included in many exhibitions nationally and internationally including the Whitney Biennial of Contemporary American Art. She hasreceived grants and awards from Ford Motor Company and HSBC Bank International. She has been an artist in residency at The Harwood Foundation of the University of New Mexico, Sanskriti Foundation, Delhi, India, Bait Al Baranda Museum, Muscat, Oman, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre in the Republic of Ireland. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Arizona Republic, Art in America, New Art Examiner, and Art News to name some. Website: kathleenfergusonhuntington.com Instagram: kathleen.ferguson.huntington TicTok: @rancho_rockhenge

Book preview

Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington

Copyright 2022

Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington

Cover design: Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington/Muqeem Khan

Cover photo:  Kathleen Ferguson-Huntington

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other without written permission from the publisher.

Ferguson-Huntington, Kathleen 1945-

Foreword

Taos Mountain has mythic powers, Kathleen Ferguson Huntington writes in her sparkling new book Giga Travels to Exotic Places.

I recently visited Kathleen in Taos, where she introduced me to the gorgeous views of her Mountain, and took me on a tour of the Harwood Museum, home to one of the town’s most extraordinary art collections where Kathleen lived as an artist in residence in 2007. 

Taos is indeed a mythical and magical place – a touchstone of America's spiritual, artistic and historical past, present and future. The Taos Pueblo people have lived in New Mexico for a millenia, making it one of the oldest cities on the American continent. Great artists, thinkers and prophets - Georgia O'Keefe, Ansel Adams, Carl Jung - have also passed through.

Until now, Kathleen’s career has been primarily as a visual artist, her art paying tribute to her journeys around the globe. It’s a creative voyage that includes drawing, painting, sculpture, costume design, performance, installations , video and animation. Her work has been displayed in some of the world’s most prestigious venues: the Smithsonian, the High Museum and the Whitney Biennial.

Teaching in Qatar from 2000-2012 Kathleen lived on the shores of the Persian Gulf (on the Silk Road) which became the inspiration for much of her art, as well as her first book, Living with the Giga Rich, which takes her readers on the surprising journey of Kathleen’s unique experience as teacher to the children of Arab royalty.

And now Kathleen has written her second book, Giga Travels to Exotic Places, and the gift of sharing more of her singular global perspective. Profoundly curious about the most remote corners of the planet, Kathleen takes us on a sensational voyage along the Silk Road, the center of global trade that’s become the inspiration for much of her art, spanning thousands of miles and linking economic, cultural, political and religious life - a magical tour of the Middle East, East Asia, Europe and beyond.

Kathleen’s gift for interweaving short stories and vignettes brings this history to life, beginning in Cambodia, where she devours the scenery with what she aptly describes as her hungry eyes. She weeps as she describes some of the world’s most profound spiritual places: Statues of 1001 Bodhisattvas in Japan who have put off entering paradise in order to help others attain enlightenment; and the glorious Ankar Wat Temple; while the historian and humanitarian in her connects us to the deep and visceral tragedy of the Vietnam War.

Then, delighting in the cultural importance of the unique dress of women in India, Kathleen takes us through the Sari room of the Crafts Museum in Delhi, appreciating the beauty, her words seducing the rest of us to experience it as only she can. I walked around in utter bliss. Those brilliant colors, materials and patterns are stunning, no, downright Stupendous!

In Belgium, Kathleen’s special love for chocolate leads us to The Old Chocolate House to indulge in a cup of hot chocolate. Indeed, life with Kathleen is very much a sumptuous cup of coco, indulgent and a sweet slice of heaven. But always insisting on offering her readers the truth, Kathleen refuses to sugar coat the history of chocolate. A dark note on the Belgian kind, she writes. Leopold II of Belgium committed the first Genocide in the 20th century. With the Black Lives Matter movement his statues have been painted red, burned and then ripped down. Kathleen always knows what’s important.

And then Kathleen is called back. One more opportunity to make art and life in Taos. She writes about her return as only Kathleen can: "Mom’s yellow ’88 Cadillac de Ville was my speeding bullet transport. I shot from Phoenix, Arizona to Taos, New Mexico in mid-December. I was pulled over for going ninety in a seventy-five zone near Winslow, Arizona."

A pioneer in all aspects of her singular life, Kathleen has finally made it back, to take up residence in an Earthship, one of the sustainable off-the-grid homes that dots the high desert landscape just outside of Taos, built on a foundation of old tires and plastic bottles. (Could be a wonderful topic for Kathleen’s next book.)

Kathleen always suspected she would return to Taos. Luckily for readers of the joyous Giga Travels to Exotic Places, that time has come. Kathleen’s new book is a gift, a rich source of hope, information and insight that teaches us to re-connect with the past, at the same time that we’re re-inventing the future.

Stuart Sender  Producer, Director, Writer, Los Angeles, CA

Acknowledgments

Pre-Qatar, enormous thanks to my dear friend Tom DeSmidt, former Associate Dean at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for suggesting that I apply to teach at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar for the year 2000. For Dean Paul Petrie, who interviewed me for a position in the Foundations Department.

Seikha Moza Al Nasser, and the creation of the Qatar Foundation, has an educational vision in Qatar. Her effort was to bring to locals an experience of a wider world vision. I wouldn’t have had a story to tell without her support for Education City campus, and our university.

In Qatar, early in my writing process, people encouraged me, read the work and/or edited it:

The late Paul Petrie, Robin Featherston, Mary McLaughlin, Precious Lovell, Muqeem Khan, Minakshi Malla, Della Reams, Tammy Moe, Jean Hodges, Treena Crochet, Ruth Beals, Dwight Rose, Li Hon, Victoria Berge, Robert Baxter, Claudia and Peter Rush, Sandra Wilkinson, Dr. Saif Ali Al Hajri, a role model for tireless work, kindness, generosity and care for the environment, which is to this day truly extraordinary.

People who read the early Sand Bar Newsletters, the precursor to this memoir, commented, edited and supported what I was writing: William, Paul and Catherine Wurtz, Bette McAvoy,  Tom and Carla De Smidt, Jena Pincott, Laurie Nobles Munn, Paula Verona, Gretchen Ewert, Wendy Jackman, Peter Frank, Stuart Ferguson, Anna Lisa Marshall, Heidi Jack, Annette Ebert, Kathleen Fluhart, Maureen McCabe, Jeffrey Anderson, Janis Williams, Jerry Neuner, Janet Pierce, Dr. Rebecca Martin, Joann and Tom Sticker, Sandra Lerner.

People in Taos, New Mexico, in Phaedra Greenwood's writing group read the work. Phaedra was our fearless group leader and my mentor. The group members who critiqued the work: Jan Smith, Scott Acher Jones, Abbie Conant, Brinn Colenda, Karen Thibodeau, Louise Deretchin, David Perez and Steven Burgson. For me this meant a full-scale rewrite of my whole book, because their feedback was powerful and insightful. Thanks to Carol Terry who edited the final draft.

Dedicated To My Spiritual Mentor

Dr. Rebecca Martin

Miss Nora Goes To Dubai

Dr. Saif Al Hajari, The Vice Chairman of the Qatar Foundation introduced himself to me in the year 2000. The word was out that he was Qatar’s only ecologist, and one of the nicest people on the planet. All true, plus he was one of the most charming men I’ve ever met. His auric field radiated for about twenty square blocks. An example: a chauffeur working for the Qatar Foundation went straight to the top and complained to Dr. Saif about the car he was driving. Did Dr. Saif direct him to someone lower in the chain of command? No, this wonderful and humble executive saw to it that the man got a better car to drive. 

Dr. Saif’s deep, rich voice was captivating and he was always peaceful and happy. Omani by birth, he was born in the African part of the Sultanate of Oman (then Tanganyika). He arrived in Qatar as a teen to study and became a Qatari citizen. As a super soccer player he was needed for the Qatar team. Later he went to school in the United States and got a doctorate in geology. Teaching geology at Qatar University and being Vice Chairman of the Qatar Foundation (the Chairwoman was the Queen) were both his full-time jobs. Friends of the Environment was the name of his NGO, ecology was where his heart resided. With all that he did, when did he find time to sleep?

Dr. Saif, I am pleased that you are our local ecologist in Qatar. I’ve been wanting to meet you since I came three months ago. I’ve taught permaculture, a form of ecology, for a number of years in the US. Would you like to see ‘Rita Ragweed Tells All’, an animation I created as a graduate thesis?

Love to.

He came to my studio to watch my ten-minute animation. I completed the animation at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1999. 

I love the animation and want it to be translated into Arabic so children here can watch it.

I will see what I can do. There will be some technical problems with switching it to Middle Eastern video format.

He thought the problem would be easy to fix, but it was in fact too difficult to accomplish at all.

Would you like to collaborate on a video for my recycling program? he said

Yes!

Three weeks later I got an e-mail from Dr. Saif.  I was told that he had set up a meeting at Occidental Petroleum for me to show my animation. The idea was to garner funds for an education project from OXY. The meeting was the very next day. Prepared with my laptop I attended the meeting to show my animation. I had one of those all too familiar tech glitches. I will not give you the boring details. All female directors of the Community Giving at Occidental understood what had happened. We just talked about my video. They funded the project, video unseen. That’s what I call Wasta (influence) with a capital W and Dr. Saif had lot of it.

I scripted a story and created the storyboard. I would play the part of Miss Nora, Super-Consumer and richest woman in the world. We had a palace, (the Queen’s office) right up the hill from our school that became the setting for Miss Nora’s swanky-enda. I designed the costumes. Mine was kelly green, for the character Miss Nora. She had a sort of skirt, with tons