If you are born to draw, you are meant to draw throughout your life. Sorry I don’t remember how to spell the word “draw”, but however it is spelt I just keep drawing. I storm into drawing the very first minute I wake up every morning. It seems that I live to draw and I draw to live.

I draw the sky; I draw the earth. I draw the clouds; I draw the trees. I draw the day; I draw the night. I draw the cattle; I draw the poultry. I draw the elephants; I draw the horses. I even draw the flying birds, crowing cocks, and swearing neighbors. I draw the leaves; I draw the branches. I draw to tease the girls who are still alone. I draw the wind; I draw the rain. I draw the above; I draw the below. I draw the angels; I draw the devils. I draw the outside; I draw the inside. I even draw the anger as well as love, unhappiness as well as happiness, and worries as well as peace of mind. I draw yes for yes; I draw no for no. I draw yes for no; “no no yes yes”.

I draw with ink, coal, and fire until everything runs out; I draw with my heart until there is nothing left. I draw up and down; I draw in and out. I draw to and fro; I draw rain and shine. Sometimes I even draw with my eyes closed.

People tell me I am crazy because I just love drawing. Whether it is a good painting or bad, I draw until I cannot see anything but my imaginary self-confidence. In times of nice weather, I would draw for those who have a profound insight, open-mindedness, with a graceful smile, and for Chị Hằng on the moon offering rain without wind and allowing souls  to travel in the air. Whether it is colorless or shapeless, I believe that my painting is beautiful, not to please the tourist’s eye or those promiscuously flattering writers. Then one day, a crazy person paid me a compliment on my paintings and asked for all that I have drawn, insisting on buying those that one could hardly make out what they were about. I hesitated, but finally had to sell them to support my wife and son as a breadwinner. I also did it so that I would be able to keep on drawing. Draw drew drawn.

Drawing cats for a living: In 1948, I graduated from Toulouse University and left for Paris without any shelter, without good friends, without a wealthy wife, and with an empty pocket. One day, I found myself in front of the road Chat-qui-Pêche (Fishing Cat) drawing cats before selling on the spot what I had been drawing. Cats helped me make ends meet; cats turned me into a man of wealth and taste, and profusely so. Meow meow miaow.

Drawing to fight the enemies: Aggressive invaders came flooding to my fatherland, massively killed my relatives, burned houses, digged graves, raped women, and robbed their pigs, cows,… Stuck in Paris, I could do nothing but fight against the invasion with my brushes and colors as weapons. I even drew B52 remainders through which my fighting spirit could be widely expressed. “A murderous plot backfires,” that’s what they say, and the aggressors got evicted. In 1976, I returned to my hometown, which looked just like a picture.

Drawing to praise my homeland and its people: After the invaders were repelled (1976), I was allowed to return home and the authorities had me taken to Truong Son Trail, which was named “Ho Chi MinhTrail” by the press. My impression was that the so-called “fighting” landscapes I had painted in Paris were merely made to look like art; the picturesque scenery before my eyes turned out to be beautiful in so many ways! Despite all the hardships that the enemies had caused, the “red line” still surprisingly maintained.

Drawing for variety: I love all of the ladies who granted me full rights to make them pose as mountains, rivers, clouds; to draw them fat and thin, in red or blue colors, or whatever that featured them pretty. There was a wide variety of watercolors; there was an abundance of women in my drawings.

Drawings with webs: During the past few days, in my dreams, a lot of works of mine become as lively as spider webs in the trees facing the wind, flirting the rain, and in tune with their surroundings. Suddenly I was in two minds about the author of the paintings – whether it was me or the spiders that exchange banter with the wind and rain. It is said that Le Ba Dang “put clothes on the trees”.

Art to wear: I am keen on meeting women who are not only PRETTY but also RICH, so that they are both of wealth and taste putting on Le Ba Dang’s arts rather than showing off the flashy jewelry that anybody can have. Not only will they look wealthy but they are going to be classy as well. WEALTHY – CLASSY.

FLOWERS: Flowers in my paintings are by no means “in the pot” to beautify girls and women; it is these girls and women that turn into flowers, displaying just by chance some charming feature. To flower my flower drawings.

EYES:

Everyone has two eyes

Open your eyes to look

Close your eyes to dream

Keep them half-open to chant (Buddha’s teachings)

GIAO CHI FEET: (“Giao” means intersection and “Chi” means thumbs; “Giao Chi” therefore refers to a special shape of feet where the two thumbs pointing towards each other and away from the rest of the toes). How many people with Giao Chi feet are there in the world? Why shouldn’t Americans have them however rich and powerful they are? Over a billion Chinese citizens right next door, however clever they are, cannot own Giao Chi feet, either; let alone those from Japan, Korea, Thailand, India or even Soviet Union irrespective of them generating a great number of atomic bombs, various religions, theories, books, and techniques. The French did colonialize Vietnam for nearly a hundred years, but failed to possess that shape of feet also. Poor as our Vietnamese people is, there are two such precious items in each of us. I’m proud of this fact, but I don’t mean to look down on those who don’t. Instead, I feel compassion for them and would like to share my art works of Giao Chi feet, albeit quite excessively so. Anyone may freely kiss, watch, or touch them at no cost! To those who want to make them their own property, please feel free to ask the author and you can purchase them then ending the inferiority complex. There are many photos of feet. And photos of wooden feet.

EROTIC ART: Those who once looked at the sky and watched the clouds in a storm and strong winds, are likely to observe more or less the same images of couples or animals satisfyingly wrapping around and caressing each other. It is a scene liked by many people, but sometimes they feel embarrassed and pretend to close their eyes. That’s erotic in God’s way, in the wind’s manner, and in the clouds’ fashion. In the human aesthetic eyes, there should be another matter, but it boils down to that human beings are the same.

At first I thought I was nervous, I was scared, but then the doctor said 99% of people are the same. Especially the East, the mind is very sharp, see a fantasy out ten, except for those who are paralyzed or religious, family rules grip or law prohibiting. Many people keep watching and do not dare to speak out for fear of neighbors, friends laugh, lose face, or fear of accusations then the authorities lured, póllit.

And I’m an artist, I do not speak, but just embroider, embellish with color, form, draw pictures, sculpted statues and also presents sit idly imitative imaginary form in the immensity (nothing unclean). Knowing that the government banned morality, prevented religion, society, friends admonish, teachers bumpy, but then bad blood rises, how can resist. Moreover, the tattoos on the clouds, in the head is unclean but what is the natural language of creativity, the art of that. And it was of the Creator, the art of the common, of freedom to be shared by those who alone were severely despised, to the rich of those who were paralyzed, to the priests who were lord God, look at the Buddha, as well as grippers as well as the secret observation secretly closed. There are many photos, many pictures, many books but not up here … Who dare to joke with the tiger ever.

IS IT A PAINTING?: Unlike the statue nor is it a picture. Forms of painting and statues are confused. This is only a “ARTWORK”, away from the trail, away from the eyes of the old, narrow mind, lack of culture.

There is a bad thing

Good compliment

Do not know, ask

Do not do high

As an addict

Like the illiterate

SPACE: A black crow, long neck, wide mouth, just hovering and louder louder: oacoac. Well, this is Le Ba Dang’s space here? Deafness in the ears. Oh. Too busy! There is no one! Why do not you write like other people, but stubborn to draw out these mysterious! There is also the look of crows looking down from the top to enjoy. Then use the quality that rugged, rudimentary, rustic, colorless, cut, tear, paste, high, low, where there is, where not, sometimes white or full black. I have not seen anyone do this! oak oak oác … All outside the line of the school of art today. May are living at this time, but in times of severe hardships are put on fire to burn corpses, or in the present day in the “liberalism” they are invited to paint countries or be put into a locker, or sleep with a bed bug, eat with a mouse, fly with a mosquito, visit the night, have no food or the stick of the guard, “Oxygenated cigarettes, Le Ba Dang’s cigarettes here. Yes No No: No subliminal theory. No religion. Yes to no. Not to have, to “Yes – No”.

PAINTING FOR PAINTING: Sometimes I set up my own pictures (pictures to paint) to look at the old love affair ancient meaning carefully. This picture sells nobody to buy, friends see little one understand. Every time I have time alone, I see myself happy, full, no longer need anything. Then felt like chasing dragonflies, butterflies as in childhood, in the countryside, poor but full of life. View forever not bored. Then feel that this new painting. Painting to that PICTURE. Also out of half fat half fat, who can not do, where there is no.

LeBaDang