by DESTINY IRONS / PHOTO BY JP VAN SWAE

The yearning to " stick it to the Man" may be a cliché, but that's only because every working stiff in the world has sat in his or her gloomy cubicle and fantasized about wasting away in paradise. of course, there are people out there who actually don'tcare about 401K plans, Roth IRAs, and braces kids. Usually they're gypsies. Or starving artists. Or fanatical surfers. In Celine Chat's case, she 's three for three.

But firts, Chat is a painter. While attending college in France, she had a revelation. " I painted for long time and drawin my [art]books," she says,"but my parents didn't want me to be an artist. They wanted me to be a teacher or a doctor. But It wasn't for me."

So she did it. She up and quit school, took off with her boyfriend, and became a gypsy. Her parents through it was a phase, a childish rebellion. And the prodigal daughter might well have returned, if she hadn't set foot on a surfboard.

The ancient Greeks believed that when a Muse sang to an artist or poet, she gifted him with divine inspiration. Ten years ago, when Chat surfed for the first time, the heavens opened up and the Muses sang: The gypsy painter became surfer." Life on the beach is...freedom," she says,"I like to be inspired buy the ocean."

Chat isn't exactly a "starving artist," as surfing and art have proven to be a somewhat lucrative combination for her-at least enough to keep her fed and travelling. She's also earning a spot in surf culture. The International Surfing Museum in Huntington Beach is running her exhibit until the end of August; she has shown her work at the Roxy Jam in Biarritz, France, for the past two years and at the Rip Curl Venus festival in 2005; she's done posters and greeting cards for Roxy; and in 2007, she exhibited at the Mostra Alma Surf Festival in Brazil and has been invited back again this year.

Travelling widens her perspective. Chat says, "I just to take everything I learn in my travels and put into paintings,"While some artists base their work on their mood or subject, the titles of Chat's series are based on paradisiacal locales, sounding more like postcards than pieces of art-"Spirit of Indonesia", "St Barth experience", " Souvenir of Morocco", and " Carribean rhythm", to name a few. Each series is at least a dozen of paintings, all using specific media that communicate the feeling of each destination.

So why ever put down roots ? Chat says, " One day, I'd like to buy property and build an art studio". Her base camp right now is in Guadeloupe, a beautiful French Carribean archipelago that has perect weather and great surf year-round. It's downright utopian, if you can stand the hurricanes and active volcano. She and her boyfriend rent a room on the beach, and simply surf and paint.

Having a small space to create art can hardly be called "roots", but it's the closest she's come for a while. It seems that Chat's muses keep calling. "It's feeling the Ocean all around you and feeling small," she says. " It makes me feel like I am small here on the Earth ...I think it's the true way t be happy."