Day 13

It was another sunny and clear day in Beijing, but at 7:30 in the morning it was already hot. I had a number of errands to run starting at 8:30 AM. After picking up my laundered shirts, I went to the printmaker to review the proofs. The darker proofs were uniformly better and I asked Lu if he could have the last proof and any of the printing done by Wednesday morning. His response was that he did not know if he would have time in the next two days to do this. So we agreed that I would have to wait until I returned to obtain delivery of the completed prints. But, if he could get some of them done he would call me on Wednesday morning.

I then went to China Netcom, which is now China Unicom, to renew my internet lease for the next year. Once you know what to do and bring the right materials, it was very easy to do. The woman who helped me the last time was now a supervisor and we had a good laugh because she remembered what I went through when they disconnected my Internet service. I then went to have lunch with my old friend Michael Liu. Since I got here early and was able to locate the market where I normally buy gifts, I made a stop to buy Leslie and grandchildren some nice silk outfits. It took me a while to find the particular shop that I normally deal with. It was like seeing a long-lost friend. There was very little bargaining because we both knew what was fair and she saw how the other shops were trying to bring me in and heard that I responded that I wanted to locate a particular shop. So she felt I was a loyal customer. It was good spending some time with Michael before returning to the studio.

Because the print makers computer was incompatible with my Canon camera, I have to send the images to his computer from my computer. While doing this I decided to do some basic editing to the pictures that I was going to use for the Derivative Works of 100 Artists submission. After doing this for about 20 minutes I got sleepy and decided to take a nap. As I was waking up, Ewa Kuras, a visual artist from Poland and her husband Juris, an airline pilot for Cathay Pacific, stopped by to visit. They live in Hong Kong and she was thinking of renting a studio in 318 Art Park and had a number of questions. It was then time for me to pay the landlord for my water and electricity bill.

I had not heard from Lau Shan and he had not weeded my front area or planted vegetables. When I called his phone number, the response was that his number was no longer in service, so I offered Hong’s assistant next door and his wife the use of my front yard as a vegetable garden so long as they kept everything neat. She was thrilled at the prospect. Later that afternoon Lau Shan showed up. He told me that he did not need my garden to grow vegetables this year and was still doing odd jobs to make ends meet. He asked me if he could leave the long bean poles and ladder at my studio. I said yes. I then asked him if he could come over the following day to help me hang some sculptures. I will see him at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Hong invited me over for dinner with her 3 person staff. Her assistant’s wife cooked an excellent meal supplemented by some wine and cheese, I contributed. The red wine and cheese were big hits with her staff. In addition to teaching sculpture at a local college, Hong also markets high end pottery. After dinner we went for a walk around the neighborhood and visited a number of studios. She is fairly new to the area so I was able to introduce her to some of my friends. But since she spends more time than me here, she knows a number of people and studios that I do not know. On the first lane there is a whole section that is rented by Korean art school. We walk through this studio which was open but no one was there. It was all painting. Some of the paintings were very strong, especially by an artist who lives in Paris and uses many layers to construct what I would term sculptural paintings. These were very abstract but I like some of them.

By 9:30 p.m. it was time to call it a day. My previous transmittal of images to Lu did not work so he gave me an alternative e-mail address. I re-sent all of the images. I then inventoried all of the sculptures from my third trip to Aimei. I was going to put some up on the wall and the rest I was going to pack and store at the studio so there will be space for Mung and any assistants she wants to hire to do the cold shop work on the fourth shipment, which is expected to arrive in 2 to 3 weeks. By the time I got done with the calls, the diary and other errands in preparation for my departure on Wednesday it was past midnight.

Day 14

Preparing to leave is always hectic. Nothing goes according to plan. Lau Shan came over at 9 a.m. to help me rehang some existing installations and hang some of the third series of glass sculptures created earlier this year at Aimei. Everything went smoothly until he tried to manipulate a large Chinese Dragon series dark blue sculpture over the bookcase. It fell and destroyed two other sculptures that were on the floor. We worked as a team for three hours straight. Some of the results are pictured below.











Li Gang wanted to see the new work as he wants to accompany me on my next trip to Boshan. Luis was with him and they delivered the original steel with bronze Long and Slender to my studio. When Gang closed the Pickled Arts Centre, he moved this piece to one of his studios. I was very appreciative that at least this piece was saved. Ewa and her husband, Yuris were supposed to join us for lunch and I confirmed that time a half an hour before they were to arrive, but apparently something came up and they were delayed. I wanted to go back to the new restaurant that I tried two days ago. When we got there it was closed. Apparently it was only open two days ago for a trial run and they have no food today.

So we went off to a new noodle restaurant in 798. Li Gang fortunately had his large van and we were able to load my electric bicycle and Eva and Yuris’ bicycles in the back. It was very cramped and it was only a short ride to the resteraunt. The food was very good and Li Gang had to go to an installation of some of his works at the Quac Gallery in 798 before everyone was finished. It is a small gallery with nice light and this was a group show with very large paintings. Everyone else wanted to hang out in 798, but I had to get back to the studio. As I was arriving, Mung was leaving but there was still a lot of work to do in packing up all of the sculptures from the Sheng Sheng Museum show and the others in the original series created in Shandong Province.

It was amazing to see the difference between the original series and a third series. I have learned a lot on each of my visits to Aimei and to me there is a noticeable difference in the new work. Packing up sculptures for storage in the studio, especially when they are glass sculptures, is time-consuming and tedious. I plan to take 7 to 9 sculptures from the third series back to New York. We replaced the first and second series as installations on the walls of my studio with approximately 50 sculptures from the third series. That still leaves about 15 to 20 sculptures from series 3 that need to be stored it at the studio. Because they are glass, I want to go to the extra effort of packing them properly so they are safe. I also need to label them so that if a third-party needs to access the sculptures for a gallery or museum exhibit, they can do so when my absence.

Lauren was having difficulties in installing his portion of an exhibition being sponsored by the Australian embassy. I had a very late lunch so I was not hungry. He is supposed to call at about 8, and Prof. Wang is supposed to stop by between 8 and 9 p.m. I decided to take a walk and Lang Hao, one of the younger artists in the compound invited me in to play some ping pong in his studio. Although I won the first game, he won the next two and I was soaked in sweat. He is a student of Shen Jingdong. He wanted to show me his works on the computer. He is a photographer and painter who specializes in doing males. Many of the photos were suitable for the male homosexual erotic magazines.

My next stop was to visit Shen Jingdong to say goodbye and to go over some of my ideas for the show he and Lu Coral are curating. I then returned to the studio to do some more work in preparation for leaving tomorrow. I was not hungry again and a cold glass of white wine hit he spot. After posting a diary I put on some classical music to do some more reading of the new Chief Inspector Chen mystery. Then Professor Wang and his wife, Wang Pei, stopped by. We spoke mostly in Chinese so Wang Pei could participate. I wish my Chinese vocabulary was better. They brought some face masks and medicine for swine flu to bring back to their daughter, who is now living in New York City, but she was traveling out West. After the Wangs left, I did some more work on my proposal and spoke to Dan and then Leslie. Below is an image of what I finally came up with.



At 11:00 p.m. Shen Jingdong and Egret stopped by to visit. We discussed the proposal and then they looked around the studio has I had hung a number of new installations. He was doing another Mao sculpture as a commission for a museum in India and wanted to do something new, so he is using a new color scheme – grey and black. They are planning to come to New York City after a month residency program in the Rioja wine district. He is to have a solo show at an art gallery and an exhibition at the local art museum in Spain. They invited me to a farewell lunch at Tun Da , which had recently reopened.

Day 15

Again it was a bright, sunny and warm day in Beijing. I decided that I would pack methodically this time. Molly’s packers came to prepare the two boxes of sculptures that I would take as luggage back to New York. They came on time and everything went smoothly. Mung observed how they packed so we could repack the second series when I come back to Beijing. Then I met with the landlord and we competed our renegotiation for a new rent for next yesr. Apparently, the landlord decided that in view of the current state of the economy it was unilaterally reducing the rents for the next year.

Then it was time to take the electric bike to Tun Da and meet Jingdong, Egret and their sculpture crew for lunch. To my surprise Lin was with them. My understanding from Li Gang was that he was no longer available to work with me on the woodcuts as he had moved and no one knew where or how to contact him, so we had lost touch. It was very goood to see him again. He had lost a lot of weight. Jingdong was thinking of renting a studio in New York for two months and he and Egret had a number of questions.The food at the “new” Tun Da was quite good and we finished in time for me to get back to the studio just in time to say goodbye to Hong’s staff and go to the airport.

I had my traditional rum raisin yogurt before going to the gate. While I was waiting for the plane, I met an interesting soon to be retired “spook” for the US government. He was engaged to a Chinese woman who lives in Beijing where they plan to settle. As a result he has to retire. He had just returned from his fourth tour in Iraq/Afghanistan and had a number of interesting observations. I am looking forward to coming home to be with Leslie and then do a “grandpas weekend” with Hannah and Ruben, including going to Phantom of the Opera, a Broadway show I had never seen.

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