I first met Mei at a dim sum restaurant in Portland, Maine.

She came dressed in a funky Tibetan wool hat and handed me a photograph of one of her artworks, Tao Seeker (below). ​I was struck by this work, its searching, its journeying. 

It was October 2013 and Suzanne Fox and I had put on an event with the curator and translator Valerie Doran. A quiet legend, Valerie has worked alongside the likes of Johnson Chang Tsong-zung and played a seminal role in the emergence of the Chinese avant garde to the world in the early 90s. I had lured her up to this New England sea port to speak about 5,000 years of Chinese art history. 

At this lunch event, Mei Selvage appeared, her eyes wide with inspiration, telling me that she was an artist based here in Portland. It was almost like we had generated the entire event for her - so intensely did she respond to the themes of the talk. The two of us exchanged phone numbers and met up again the following month.

For the past five days, I've been submersed in a powerful peace. The kind of peace that wraps kindness around your temples. That pulls your center of gravity out of your fast-paced head and down into your heart.

​The kind of peace that is like cotton wool headphones plugging you into another soundtrack. Where air and space take the place of busy sound. Where we can begin to slow down the cogs. 

​It all started early last Friday when Rebecca appeared outside my window in the West End of Portland, with a rented car with New Jersey plates. We set out on the six and a half hour journey to the Catskills of New York and the home of the World Peace Temple at KMC New York.