Rich Culture
The Cambodians are blessed with a richness of culture and tradition they use as a foundation for rebuilding and moving on. There's an innate spirituality that cuts across everything.

The Cambodians exude a simple joy of interaction with other human beings. They embrace the beauty of simplicity, of the basic cycle of human life. Caring for the family unit is much of what their day consists; working to eat and care for their children. Life is simple with a pureness nearly forgotten in our culture. They live life without the distractions or social pressures of materialism.

Ironically, we could also feel the loss coming through in the natural joy people expressed. Everywhere we went we felt the loss, the 1.5M people. You cannot find someone who has not been directly touched by the insanity of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat itself leaves one in a state of awe. The ancient immense hand-carved stone temples are undeniably true works of art. The contrast between the massive stone blocks stacked side by side forming the fortress walls and the intriguing bas-relief murals tell a story about the strength and spiritual force of those who created them. (Like uncovering the spiritual forces that lie beneath the raw exterior one needed to endure the life they experienced).

Internal Wealth
Stripped naked from parents, educators, community and spiritual leaders a child stands alone barefoot on a dirt road; hungry, lost and na•ve to the landmines that lie before her. This common desolate road that many children of Cambodia shared, forced a human endurance of survival; a dignity of bearing; an internal wealth. It has created a dignified culture that has risen above-and resolutely set about the task of rebuilding new generations of life without rancor.

Artist Conceptual
Development - Doorways to Tranquility
Atop The Bayon the face of the Buddha surrounded us-dozens of stone faces, many over 20 feet tall. The aura consumed us and our minds quieted. It was as if the stones spoke to us, that there was some message we were responsible to carry back and share with others. Through each carved doorway we would see the Buddha, the goddesses-each bearing the essence of tranquility.

For our show, doors became the unifying element. We saw them as more symbolic than literal. The doorways capture the essence of Angkor Wat and they remind us that doorways to tranquility are really all around us. It's just that we usually miss them. For us, the doorways of The Bayon sparked an interest to create an exhibition we hoped would motivate others to look more closely for the doorways around them-and to step through them. Or, perhaps visit Cambodia themselves to see what we saw-and feel the spirits we felt.

Motivation For The Show
There's a major contrast or discrepancy between life there and here-how much we throw away and what value that has or could provide for those people. Consider for example that in Cambodia $150 pays for a full year of English language study.

It's clear to us that even so, simply giving money is not the answer. Cambodia needs something scalable. We believe the right approach is to focus on creating an economic engine with which the Cambodians can bootstrap themselves up the economic ladder to wipe out hunger and build toward self-sufficiency. One of our motivations behind Doorways to Tranquility is to begin a project that is aimed at creating a foundation to jumpstart the education process. And so we have committed that half the moneys generated through the sale of art in the Doorways to Tranquility show will be dedicated to projects in Cambodia.

In view of our objective to raise money for Cambodia, we display in this exhibition other works from our collection to help with the funding. These include images from nearby countries as well as floral works we believe integral to the tranquility theme. Flowers represent a tranquil being; generate a tranquility all of their own. In Buddhism, life is about impermanence. And flowers epitomize the impermanent. They are born, they bloom to their fullest and then they go by. Impermanence lives within tranquility.

Closing
The artists would like to thank the audience for their interest and participation in our show, Doorways to Tranquility. We hope that this exhibition will touch you in a way that brings a clearer perspective to your everyday life. A perspective that will help you to see beyond the challenges we all face; to bring an appreciation and deeper meaning to those simple joys of life we sometimes overlook. Let our doors lead you-the spirit of our art move you-and our paths guide you to find your own Doorways to Tranquility.

History
The Angkor period extended from 800 to 1400 AD, ascendancy peaking during the 12th and early 13th centuries. Some of the most spectacular and enduring construction of the Angkor period took place under the rules of Khmer Kings Suryavarman II (1112-1152) and Jayavarman VII (1181-1218). Their contributions include Angkor Wat itself, Angkor Thom, The Bayon, Ta Som, Ta Prom (all of which we visited and photographed). Following the reign of Jayavarman VII, the Khmer empire fell into decline leading to the collapse of Angkor in the 15th century at the hands of the Thai Sukothai kingdom. The conquering Thais stripped the palaces and temples of their ornamentation, jewels and gold coatings. They left behind only the husk of carved sandstone they could not cart away-a nonetheless awe-inspiring launch pad from which future visitors can imagine the magnificence and splendor that once had been, Angkor Wat.

Fast forward to April 1975 and the imminent fall of Saigon in neighboring Vietnam. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces rolled into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975-just 5 days after the US mission evacuated Cambodia. In the next 48 hours, the Khmer Rouge ejected Phnom PenhÕs 2 million inhabitants and sent them to the countryside without food or possessions. From 1975-1979 the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy Cambodia's commercial, legal, religious and social systems. Businessmen, bureaucrats, monks, priests, engineers, prosecutors, legislators, lawyers and judges were systematically rounded up and killed or perished as a result of starvation, disease or forced labor. Temples and courthouses were dynamited or converted into slaughterhouses. All of this was exacted in the pursuit of Pol Pot's vision of returning Cambodia to a utopian agrarian economy and society that was not dependent on technology or external aid.

Research based on extensive interviews with survivors by two independent Western researchers puts the figure at 1.5 million dead from execution, starvation or disease, out of a 7.3 million 1975 total population. Visiting Cambodia today, it's difficult to find a native who has not been personally touched by this atrocity.

The bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge came to a merciful end at the unlikely hands of invading Vietnamese, and ironically to the censure of the west that feared a pan-Indochina consolidation of power by Ho Chi Minh. The citizens began the long task of rebuilding their former lives-without books, professionals or infrastructure.

Since Cambodia's 1998 election, the country has enjoyed relative peace, though as recently as November 1990, 70 so-called Cambodian Freedom Fighters rocked downtown Phnom Penh with grenades and rocket launchers.