Lady Lea Laarakker Dingjan
Weaving Brighter Futures

Lady Lea Laarakker Dingjan is a woman of action. The founder of Contemporary Arts and Crafts in Thailand is the type who rolls up her sleeves and gets things done. That’s how the Ban Reng Khai village weaving project came about 14 years ago.

Her Ban Reng Khai project, designed to promote silk weaving and provide additional income for residents of a tiny, northeastern Thai village, has gained national and worldwide acclaim, and was honored in November 2003 by a visit from HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana of Thailand.

Lea, a 58-year-old Dutch expatriate who settled in Thailand in 1987, started the weaving project with just a handful of families in Ban Reng Khai, home of her two foster daughters. Through the years, she worked closely with village weavers to modernize their silk designs in order to attract a broader clientele.

Now Ban Reng Khai silk is sold in Bangkok as well as to loyal clients in France, Italy, the United States, Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia. The weaving project has provided villagers with much-needed income in between rice harvests. From a single village at its start, Lea’s weaving project has evolved into a five-village cooperative involving more than 1,000 families.

So how did Lea Laarakker Dingjan, a farmer’s daughter from southern Holland, become Lady Lea and end up half way around the world helping farmers’daughters in Thailand?

She first came to Thailand in 1985 when her husband, Alexander Dingjan, a telecommunications executive, was sent to work in Bangkok “It was my first contact with Asia,” Lea said, adding that she immediately fell in love with the kingdom and its people.

The couple soon adopted a foster daughter, a girl who, like so many other Thai village girls, had fled the impoverished rice fields of Thailand’s northeast, known as Esaan, in search of work in Bangkok. When Lea and Alexander visited their foster daughter’s village of Ban Reng Khai in Surin province, they saw first hand what a daunting task it was to eek out a living from the sun-parched fields.

Between the backbreaking plantings and harvests, villagers supplemented their incomes with basket-making and silk weaving. When Lea, who studied fabric design in Holland, saw villagers working on their homemade looms, she knew exactly how she could help.

Lea combined her design skills with the natural talent she inherited from her painter mother and began thinking of ways to make the Ban Reng Khai silks more marketable. The traditional fabrics were of high quality but lacked a ready market outside Esaan. “So I started painting it,” said Lea, explaining that her goal was to make the silk designs more contemporary.

“In the beginning they found it so strange,” Lea said of the villagers’ initial reaction to her contemporary designs. But when the new designs sold well, they told her, “ If it gives more money, we will do it.”

“My aim is that they (villagers) can work in their home and their own community,” Lea said of the Ban Reng Khai project. At any given time, and especially between rice harvests, Bangkok’s population swells as migrant workers from the northeast flood to the capital in search of work. Many land jobs as taxi drivers, maids, or construction workers, while others get entangled in the entertainment and sex industries. For the majority, there are few other options.

“I’m a farmer’s daughter myself,” Lea explained, “but I could make a choice.” The southern part of southern Holland where she grew up was not considered a rich area of the country, Lea said. Yet she was fortunate enough to get an education and eventually explore the world.

By providing work in the Thai villages, Lea wanted to give villagers the gift of choice. “They can choose to stay and work in the village, or go to the city if they want,” she said.

Although she had been active on behalf of women’s issues in Holland, Lea said she wanted the Ban Reng Khai project to have a bigger aim.

“I didn’t do it for the women,” Lea said of the village weaving cooperative. “I did it for all the villagers.” In addition to introducing the weaving project, Lea helped establish the saving fund and agricultural fund, which enabled villagers to borrow money at low interest rates, making it possible for them to improve the quality of their crops and healthcare.

Other than her own input, the entire weaving cooperative is Thai, Lea said. The farmers themselves raise the silkworms and process the yarns. The vegetable dyes are also produced by the villagers. The only concessions are Lea’s solar dyes from France and some non-toxic dyes from Switzerland.

Before coming to Thailand, Lea had been active in Dutch politics, serving for four years as a town council member in Hilversum. In 1987, she represented the Netherlands as a spokeswoman on Dutch women’s affairs at the United Nations. Due to her dedication to the Ban Reng Khai village project as well as her past political activism in the Netherlands, Lea was honored by the Queen of the Netherlands with a knighthood in 1995, thereby becoming Lady Lea.

While some customers prefer to address her as Lady Lea, the honoree herself is perfectly happy with just Lea. She prefers a simple lifestyle and is content working at her home studio, located on the grounds of her central Sukhumvit area home. The large, wood-framed house sits in the middle of a lush garden, offering visitors a soothing oasis when they step past the front gate and leave the chaos of street traffic behind.

The house belongs to Lea’s good friend Khunying Napachari Thongtham. “She’s a great supporter of all my work,” said Lea.

With her red hair twisted up in a relaxed bun, and sporting round aqua-colored reading glasses, Lea chatted easily with a visitor. As she talked about her work, she nonchalantly opened a silver tobacco case and rolled her own cigarette. One of her two beloved soi dogs (alley dogs) sauntered over to lie by her feet.

“She’s my Thong Daeng,” Lea said, referring to the soi dog which His Majesty the King rescued and named Thong Daeng (Copper).” The mutt coughed and made a gagging sound, and Lea quickly instructed a house staff in Thai to give the dog some medicine.

Lea’s days are filled with non-stop work. Giving a tour of her workshop on the ground floor of the house, Lea pointed out banners, shawls, home decor boxes, greeting cards, and framed paintings -- all hand-painted on silk. One set of framed silks was commissioned by a Phuket hotel and would be shipped south, while a collection of silk boxes would be sent across town to her Studio Lea boutique on Wireless Road.

The greeting cards came about because after testing dyes on silk, Lea and the villagers were left with perfectly good scraps of multi-colored silk. Lea didn’t want to waste anything. “Silk worms work hard to get the yarn,” she reminded the villagers. So she painted the pieces and transformed them into one-of-a-kind greeting cards.

After her husband Alexander passed away two years ago, Lea started thinking about the future of the Ban Reng Khai village cooperative.

“If I pass away they would all not have any work,” she said. So with the help of friends, Lea established the Ban Reng Khai Weaving Foundation to ensure that the village-weaving project would always continue. “I’m teaching younger women to do designs themselves,” she said. “In a few years, they can work without me.”

Now with the foundation and the Ban Reng Khai Cooperative well-established, Lea can devote more time to Studio Lea and another pet project, Contemporary Arts and Crafts in Thailand.

Lea founded Contemporary Arts and Crafts in Thailand when she decided to expand her solo exhibitions by inviting other artists and craftsman to join her. With steady supporters such as Masako Isomura of Sop Moei Arts and Siriporn Sirikulpisuch of Chabatik, Lea now participates in semiannual group exhibitions showcasing crafts and artwork of artisans from Thailand as well as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia.

“The aim is to bring high quality crafts to the public,” explained Lea. “The aim is to provide more work.”

“What we found is it’s not easy to find high quality craft,” Lea said.

Contemporary Arts and Crafts in Thailand now works closely with up to 15 crafts producers. Each has close ties with villagers in remote areas, thus providing work for those communities. Proceeds from the group sales and exhibitions are donated to charity.

Lea still spends one week every month up in Ban Reng Khai. When in Bangkok, she is at her workshop by 7 am and works tirelessly. Each piece of silk takes one to two months to complete.

“I’m relaxed during the time I’m designing and painting,” said Lea. “It’s kind of meditation for me. As soon as I have to organize I can’t mediate anymore.”

“I hate administration,” she said. So she relies on the talents of others who share her vision and support her work. Among those are Sanwan Teemui, project leader of Ban Reng Khai Cooperative and treasurer of the foundation. Other supporters include Dr. Seri Phongphit,, Director of the Thai Institute for Rural Development, and attorney Viboon Engakul. At Studio Lea, boutique manager Patsri Pookeawsamran and design intern Gula Reindell from Germany keep the shop running smoothly so that Lea can concentrate on her creative work.

An artist at heart, Lea admits that occasionally she finds it hard to part with a particular piece of hand-painted silk. However, she knows she cannot keep any. “I can’t afford it.”

Juggling all her projects leaves Lea little time for herself, but she doesn’t mind.

“I see it as payback for Thailand, because Thailand has been very good to me” said Lea.

After 17 years in Thailand, Lea has no plans to leave. “This is home.”

Text by Elizabeth Lu
Bangkok, Thailand