Day 1

The trip to Beijing was uneventful. Since United took over Continental the food and amenities have declined dramatically. The upside is that you lose weight because the food is so unappetizing. As usual the Beijing taxi driver was upset about going to 318 International Art Park because it is a much lower fare than going to the center of the city. So we negotiated a fee at the airport which was a compromise between the two fares on the meter. He kept the meter on so he wouldn't get a ticket. He then became much friendlier.

I made my normal stop and Jenny Lu's to buy enough food and wine to tide me over until I left for Boshan on Sunday. I didn't sleep very well on the plane so I was exhausted. But I had the presence of mind to go into the travel agent located next to Jenny Lu's to buy my ticket for the high-speed train to Zibo. There were only 20 seats left on the entire train that I wanted. Also, all of the other trains leaving Beijing that afternoon were completely sold out. I was lucky that I did not wait until the next day to purchase my train ticket.

The studio was so overgrown from my absence that it looked like an abandoned slum. The weeds were almost 6 feet high and some of them had trunks that you could not pull out by hand. So I immediately called Lau Shan to come over to clean up the front yard. Since Li Gang no longer has a crew of workers, of which Lau Shan was the chief honcho, Shan is always looking for odd jobs to supplement his pension. I felt like I was going through the jungle to get to the electricity box so I could turn on the fuses and then get my electricity card refilled so that I would have enough electricity for the next few days. The house was covered with layers of dust that had accumulated during my six months absence. Everything seemed to be there, including the unpacked crate from the show at the Zibo Museum of Art and the materials from the CIGE exhibitor show, as well as a personally signed art book from by Leonart containing images of Zhang Fongbei's paintings. I was too tired and grumpy to call anyone or cook anything for supper.

But there was one mystery. My electric bicycle was not there and there was another bike that was fully charged and ready to use. So I called Oxy. He said that he would explain everything to me when we got gather later that night. I warned him that I may be asleep so we don't need to meet tonight and will meet tomorrow. I also asked him to contact the cleaning girl because of the condition of the studio. He said that he would have her come tomorrow morning.

I slept on and off for 12 hours in an attempt to get over the jet lag. Before I went to sleep, I tried to organize things so I can start doing some creative work on Friday.

Day 2

Since the cleaning girl was coming 8:00 AM I had to be up on time to let her into the studio. She was right on-time. I finished unpacking and noticed that my iPhone was missing so I immediately called Leslie and sent an e-mail to my office so that the tech people could wipe out all of the data on the iPhone and notify my carrier of the missing cell phone. The morning was spent seeing where everything was and organizing my tools and supplies to start work that afternoon. I also made a list of what items were needed. I spoke to Oxy who told me that he wouldn't be able to come over until 12 o'clock noon and we planned to have lunch together to go over what needed to be done. It was hot and muggy and I really couldn't get started on any project after going through all of my e-mails from the United States. I was suffering a form of artist's block.

Oxy called and said that he would not be able to come by until 6:00 p.m. The place was looking a lot cleaner by the time the cleaning girl left. I cooked myself a simple lunch of pasta with vegetables and garlic. Coupled with a glass of wine, it was perfect for getting me in the mood to take a nice nap. I just couldn't get into working on any project. After getting up at 3:30 p.m., I started to put on coats of gesso on four pieces of wood that would be used as bases for the Creation Series and the Shattered Dreams series. At my recent show at Yes Gallery, I had renamed those pieces of shattered glass on painted wood "Jing Bao Zha".



I have started putting on gesso during the last trip on two pieces of wood and decided that I could do for it the same time. As the fourth one was being completed, the first one was almost dry. Ligetti's, The Grand Macabre, which is about the earth being destroyed within the next week, was the perfect accompaniment. I had seen the production last year by the New York Philharmonic and with a better understanding of the plot was able to enjoy the music even more. But seeing it as a live performance by the New York Philharmonic was very special. Putting on white gesso does not require a great deal of concentration. Between coats I also use the orbital sander to get rid of any rough spots. It felt good at least doing something as a prelude to the creative process. I was not hungry for supper and was beginning to get into the mood of doing creative work. I spoke to Leslie just before I got into a better mood. Every once in a while, you feel like you are hitting a roadblock and there is no vision of where you are going and when, if ever, you are going to get there. Laurens stopped by to say hello and wanted to know why I had not given him a heads-up call that I was coming over to Beijing. My response was that when he and his wife showed up in New York for a week he never called so I figured he was in one of his funk moods and I would just let things work out. He said he had made some postings on Facebook and expected me to answer. I explained to him that I am very hesitant to post anything on Facebook and even then I usually run it by someone at the office to make sure that it is okay to send this particular message out. It was also better to communicate one-on-one using email or the telephone. He knew I was in New York when he camped out at the Chins.

My next-door neighbors stopped by and introduced themselves. I apologized for the condition of my front yard while I was away and told them I had made arrangements with someone to come once every two months to weed the jungle that kept growing in my front yard. They were living in the studio formerly occupied by Lau Shan and their lack of tidiness almost rivals that of Lau Shan and his wife. They also have four puppies that are so small they can enter my yard through the openings in my front gate. Apparently, rather than have the dogs soil their already dirty yard, they shut them out of their own yard so they can come into my yard and make a mess once the jungle was cleared away. When they asked me if there is anything they could do for me, I explained to them that the dogs were using my yard as their bathroom. Since I had just cleaned up the yard, I didn't appreciate their dogs using this as their favored bathroom area. They said they understood but that the dogs kept getting through their gate. So I suggested that they put up some screening to prevent this. Two hours later, the new fencing was installed on their gate. I hope they will be good neighbors. Unfortunately, the dogs figured out how to go under the new fencing so I was going to have to live with it while I was in Beijing.

I did some more work. Oxy called and said he would be even later. I asked him if he wanted to join me for dinner so he could tell me all about the mystery of the missing electric bicycle. He was supposed to come by at 6:30 p.m. but eventually showed up at about 8:00 p.m. He came by in his sister's electric bicycle. He told me that he only borrowed my bicycle on one occasion and had taken it to the local subway station. Because the subway station is monitored by a video camera 24 hours a day, he felt it was safe to put the bicycle there without locking it. When he returned there was no bicycle and he reported that immediately to the police. The police showed him the surveillance tapes of the area and apparently a group came by in a big white van and the two accomplices of the driver picked up those bikes that were not locked to the stanchions at the station and just put them in the van. After a while, it became obvious to him that the police were not going to recover the electric bicycle. So he went to a bike shop in his village where he purchased the electric bike now sitting in my studio to replace my stolen electric bike. We caught up on what happened in the last six months. His deal for purchasing the van from David had fallen through because David has gone into semiretirement and has a new teaching job in Wuhan. Because of the traffic problems in Beijing, it is very difficult to get a new license plate and there is now a waiting list of over one million people. So the Beijingers are getting their license plate first before buying a car. However, since David was taking the van to Wuhan, he is making a deal with Oxy on his Beijing license plates so that Oxy will be in a position to buy a replacement vehicle even sooner. He had just come back from two weeks with his family. His son was now five and growing up very fast. We briefly discussed what needed to be done during my trip but because we were both tired we wouldn't do anything tonight. We each went our own way after dinner and after doing a little work, it was time to go to bed. Tomorrow will be a more productive day.

Day 3

I made a list of errands to run. I prefer to have everything in order before focusing on any project. My first trip was to the electric bicycle store to buy a good lock. I didn't recognize any of the mechanics but the woman who ran the supplies desk recognized me and pointed out that this was a new bike and how come I did not buy it from them. I explained to her Oxy's tale of woe and his failure to use the lock that was in the bike basket, which was stolen along with the bicycle. I then went to the local hardware store area to see if I could find the type of crimper that I have previously borrowed from Laurens Tans as he had made it quite clear that he didn't want me to borrow it anymore. That trip was unsuccessful. So it was off to the hardware store near the old Pickled Arts Center to find a smoother grinding wheel. Again, I was not successful.

It was then off to the telephone store to reload my cell phone. They are very nice and helpful and reloaded it for me. Finally, I was completing the circle by going to the travel agency to pick up my railroad ticket to go to Zibo tomorrow. I was home by 11:00 a.m. and got right to work on finishing the wooden components for both the Shattered Dream and Creation Series that I had started on my prior visit. I again had a vegetarian lunch, vegetable dumplings accompanied with sautéed vegetables. The glass of wine tasted good and I did not take an afternoon nap until an hour after lunch. So I started to sketch out an idea for the upcoming event in Southbury, Connecticut commemorating the 75 years since the town said no to a National Socialists and their zoning request for a planned community for their use in the Southbury area. The idea for this woodcut came from dinner the prior weekend at the Chin's home in Southbury, where the new mayor was discussing this upcoming event and asked Andrew and I, as artists, if either of us would like to create an artwork for this event. Apparently, two ministers in two separate churches had been outspoken opponents to this project but a number of local businessmen were in favor of this large National Socialist Party project as it would be good for their business and would ensure high employment in the area. After a very controversial and noisy town meeting, the community voted against this proposed project and the German entrepreneurs behind this project then abandoned it to focus on other areas such as Lake Ronkonkoma in Long Island.

I wanted to complete this project before I returned to New York. Preliminarily, I did some research on the internet on what was the source and meaning of the swastika symbol. It was based on the pagan symbol known as a rune, which looks like a bolt of lightning. The Germans then combined two runes, turning one of them upside down to create the swastika, which had both a political and religious meaning. The rune was apparently considered a very powerful force in pagan culture and religion.

I hadn't done a woodcut in over two years so I started working on the simple elements to get back my touch. It is a very simple idea which I drew out on paper and then on the piece of wood used to make the print. I like to do a drawing on the wood because it gives me the needed discipline to do the woodcut properly. Standing at my work table doing this kind of work gets you tired very quickly and also is a strain on my back. So I take breaks by putting on additional coats of the acrylic paints on my four pieces of wood.

On the prior day, I had received a call from Shen Jing Dong. Lee Coral was in Shanghai and he suggested that we meet for an opening of friends of ours in 798. He was supposed to give me a call on the details the next day. He never called but since my creative juices were finally flowing, I did not want to break up the tempo and mood for another noisy gallery opening of an artist that I do not know that well or whose work is not to my liking. Because I was going to Boshan on the next day, I wanted to get a good night's sleep.

Day 4

I got up early to speak to Leslie and the twins. It was important to the twins that Lucky participate in the Skype conversation. All Lucky wanted to do was to lick their faces and licked the screen of the computer. It was a rather "unique" conversation as nothing was really said other than the twins trying to have Lucky bark hello to me over Skype. I was working with the new driver, Pang, who was supposed to be at my studio at 12:30 p.m. I wanted to be packed and ready so if for some reason he did not show up on time I could go out to the gypsy stand on my electric bicycle and bring a cab driver back to the studio with enough time to make the train. So, the first thing I did was to get packed, but since I did not bring a suitcase over, I really had nothing suitable to carry my clothes and dopkit with my toiletries on the train to Zibo. So I used an old duffel bag that was in a poor state of repair. I will buy an inexpensive suitcase in Boshan for the return.

I was able to focus on starting the new woodcut, putting on the metallic texturized paint for the two backings that would be part of two new Creation Series installations in Beijing. When they had partially dried, I did a shattered glass installation using predominantly black glass, with a little red and clear glass on a light gray background.

While the epoxy was drying, I did some more work on the woodcut and came up with some drawings for a new series of glass sculptures of flying bunny rabbits. In a certain position, a bunny looks very much like the body of an airplane. I decided to wait to have lunch at the railroad station so I could continue to get some work done and figured that I would have enough time.

Pang was almost on time and Febi was nice enough to come over to tell me that he would be 10 minutes late but not to worry. She was already quite thin but had lost approximately 10 pounds since I had last seen her and she looked anemic. It was really scary because I had lived with someone who had gone through that type of weight loss because of depression. You could see the bones on her chest and she looked like she would be blown away by a light wind. There was not much you can say but I asked if she was feeling okay. Pang decided that he was in a rush and on the local streets he decided to drive on the other side of the street to pass cars to save some time. On the Airport Expressway, when there was traffic he often used the right shoulder. The traffic was much lighter than normal and he was able to make it to the South Railroad Station in less than 40 minutes. The food concessions in the station did not look very appetizing and were extremely crowded so you couldn't get a seat. I did not want to eat standing up so I decided to tough it out and skip lunch and have dinner near the hotel in Boshan knowing that the only restaurant that was really convenient and that was sure to be open when I arrived was not very good. It is attached to the hotel and I have eaten there on two occasions before. The main dining room is always empty but they apparently do a significant business in the private dining rooms, which occupied the second through sixth floor of the restaurant.

The train was stopped at a station for over an hour. It looked like some type of police activity but there were no announcements. I figured eventually we would get underway. I decided to pass on the train food. Usually the person next to me on the train wants to start up a conversation. I had two separate passengers next to me and not a word was exchanged. But there was a three year-old boy across the aisle who decided to adopt me for the trip. I could really understand his Chinese and he seemed to understand my Chinese. His mother enjoyed the break and it kept me smiling even during the one-hour delay. When the train arrived in Zibo, there was a problem at the taxi stand as there were no taxis. Apparently, the taxis cannot come in right off the street, as there is a special circuitous route they must take. So people were running out into the street trying to get a taxi. But the taxis are not authorized to pick people up on the street as they must use the designated taxi stand. Finally some taxis came and I was able to have a friendly cab driver drive me to Boshan. I coordinated with my friend Snow Cao and he said that he would take me to the new glass workshop on Monday. He wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible. The people at the hotel recognized me, but unfortunately gave me a smoking room. It smelled awful! 20 minutes later I was able to transfer to a non-smoking room. What a difference!

Because it was late, I wanted to have dinner first before unpacking and seeing if the Internet worked. Once again the restaurant attached to the hotel disappointed. The main dining room on the first floor was closed down, but after five minutes of conversation they advised me that I could use one of the upstairs private dining rooms. In Boshan, many of the restaurants do not have menus, rather they have pictures of all of the dishes with the prices and you advise the waiter/waitress of what you want for dinner. I picked out a pork dish and vegetable dish after the order taker told me that she would give me half portions of each. It was a good solution. Unfortunately, they brought me full portions of each dish. The pork dish was overcooked, which is tough to do, but the cabbage dish was pretty good. The half-price, half-dish deal turned out to be a mirage, as I paid the full price for both dishes but that is not unusual in China.

After unpacking, I tried the Internet and it worked notwithstanding the fact that the instructions in the hotel manual have you go through an entirely different procedure, requiring a password and it is only applicable to computers using Microsoft. I have a Mac Pro and did not need a password and I was still able to talk to Leslie and the office before going to sleep.

Day 5

Starting with a new glass workshop is an unsettling experience. But I knew I had no choice after what the Mr. Sun's son was doing to me at Aimei. Even though I left Aimei very discreetly, with no hint of going to another place, it was obviously no secret. Mr. Xie, the owner of Baisheng said that he had number of workers who used to work at Aimei who knew me. I said that I look forward to seeing them again. I had never mentioned to him that I had worked at Aimei during our initial visit or any time thereafter. He wanted to restructure the pricing to do it on a per piece basis and wanted to know what Aimei have charged me. So I went through the pricing history briefly and we came to an arrangement on a per piece basis, but I would still have a master glass blower and a junior glass blower exclusively working with me.

I did not want to discuss what the boss' son had done to me at Aimei and he apparently understood since he and said that whatever happened there was not important as I was now at Baisheng. That was fine by me. Because he had not read the e-mails that I had sent him, the molds were not ready for use. But he did have clay available. It had to be remixed and then we put the right kind of clay around the steel molds so that we could begin work in the afternoon. For most of the rest of the morning, I wanted to walk around to see what they were working on, what equipment they had and the types of materials and colors they were using. I knew it would be very helpful when we started to work on my molds. We also discussed my idea of a flying bunny rabbit. The small glass rabbit that I had seen on my initial visit rested on a table and I wanted my flying bunnies to be mounted on a wall or from the ceiling. So we designed a base for the new sculpture series that could permit these sculptures to be hung on the wall. At the same time I was designing a hanging mechanism because I knew that these sculptures would be extremely heavy.

So we made the decision to try one Bunny Airplane sculpture in the morning. I showed Bo, the master glassblower, my drawings and he said that he could work with the drawings to create the image I wanted. When we were attaching the wings, I realized that the piece would be much stronger if I designed the wings closer to airplane wings. It would look much better and it was time to do the first Bunny 808 in dark red with gold frits. I used Bunny 808 as a name because if the new image is successful, the next series would be Bunny 818. We also installed a modified "mushroom design" to act as a base. This gives me the option of showing this at varying angles on the wall or from the ceiling. Who says rabbits cannot fly?

At around 10:00 a.m., four glass designers showed up. They knew of my work at Aimei and had heard that I was coming to Baisheng to do more work. They initially wanted to know why I switched workshops. My response is this is where I am working now and I was really looking forward to working with the master craftsman at Baisheng.

I was concerned about lunch because the workshop is located in a very remote area that is not convenient to any restaurant. The initial solution was that Mr. Xie would send out for food for me and two of the glass designers who were staying for lunch. The timing was a problem because the food did not come until approximately 12:15 p.m. but the workers break for lunch at 11:00 a.m. and resumed work at 11:30 a.m. There were four dishes that were in plastic bags and we were each given chopsticks to eat communally out of the plastic bags. I must've been very hungry because the food was quite tasty. In addition, Mr. Xie's wife made a vegetable dish, which I found quite tasty.

We finished lunch and then I went down to the workshop to start working on the mold based Spermoids. I knew the first few attempts would not be successful as this was a learning process. Each master glassblower has his own techniques and special tricks to solve technical problems. At Aimei, the glass was formed into a cylinder shape and then using gravity the cylinder was elongated over the mold. Here, Bo decided that a fatter, flatter and shorter shape would work better. After we adjusted the glass for the head he then quickly moved the glass towards the tail part of the mold and it fit easily over the mold in a nice fluid shape. He also tended to use slightly less glass making it easier to work with. They also have a very nice technique at Baisheng of taking the finished artwork and bringing it over to a lamp making device to let the concentrated flame " burn off" the scar caused by where you cut the glass or where the glass is separated from the punti. At Aimei, we discussed the problem because I had to train people in Beijing to do the cold shop work to eliminate the scar caused by cutting the glass before we created the tail portion.

By the third sculpture they had gotten the hang of it and I was feeling much more comfortable that things would work out at Baisheng. I was very happy with my first Bunny 808 and it looked like they were getting the hang of it with the Spermoids series. We initially started working with a red base with gold frits. The colors and the distribution of the colors were excellent from the get-go and by the fourth sculpture we were getting the form the way I wanted it. We ended up doing a total of nine Spermoid forms: five in deep, red with gold frits, three dark green with gold frits and one white with gold frits before it was quitting time.

The two class designers, Zhou Lai and Tsai Tsai, had invited me for dinner at their apartment. Rather than ordering a taxi to take me home, Mr. Xie offered to drive me home and then asked me to join him for dinner and he was meeting with some very large buyers. The invitation was relayed to me by Sno Cao on the phone, who had previously spoken with him. Since he was the boss and this was my first day of working with his company I accepted and then called Zhou to explain what happened and we rescheduled our dinner for the next night. Back at the hotel, I took a nice hot shower, as a day in a glass workshop, when the temperature outside is above 60°, is extremely warm and left a wake-up call request for 5:30 p.m. At about 5 o'clock, I received a call from Sno Cao saying that Mr. Xie had canceled our dinner plans. I did not feel right about calling Zhou and Tsai to ask about dinner that night so I walked to the Sichuan restaurant that was fairly near the hotel that I had been to a number of times previously. The food was again very good and they left me alone while I studied some Chinese. The restaurant is on the first floor of an apartment building and they had converted the apartment into a restaurant with the sleeping quarters now all in one room. I was subsequently told that this is not usual in the Baisheng area. Back at the hotel room, I was able to speak with Leslie on Skype and catch up with my e-mails. Because I had to get up at 5:30 AM to be outside the hotel at 6:20 a.m. to be picked up by Mr. Xie, I went to bed fairly early because I knew that tomorrow would be a full day of work from 7:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.

Day 6

It was overcast and the smog was extremely heavy. Mr. Xie apparently picks up his woman foreman and two office workers every day to bring them to work. He stopped the car so they could buy breakfast buns for everyone including myself. The hotel begins breakfast promptly at 7:00 a.m. so I was thankful for something to eat to start the day. Almost all the women glass blowers or assistants to the master glassblowers work on very simple things. Yet, the foreman of the workshop is a woman. Another difference is that the assistants at Baisheng actually do the initial glass gathering while the master glassblowers take a break. They are much more a part of a two-person team. Having a specific master glassblower and assistant devoted just to my needs is a big plus. We started the day doing two more Bunny 808's; the first one was blue with gold frits; the second one was a bronze/ brown with gold frits.



We had to redo the bronze/brown Bunny 808 because the second assistant in almost dropping the sculpture shifted it in a way that could not be repaired by the lamp work burner set up in the workshop. We also started working on doing some more of the Spermoid series before lunch. We were really humming and were able to do 10 more in this series using the brown/bronze with black frits for five and the dark blue with gold frits for five.

When I was told that my lunch would be available by 12 o'clock because someone had to go into town to get it, I suggested that I would be happy with a simple plate of vegetables, which I knew Mrs. Xie was making. The facilities are extremely primitive because they do not want to go to the cost of converting to something other than coal and/or the facility is far enough outside of town so that they hope that no one will notice them or consider them a big operation. The roof is basically pieces of corrugated steel held down by bricks and cinderblocks with a number of open areas both horizontally and vertically. From the air, it must look like an urban slum in the middle of nowhere. It is very hilly, so different buildings perform totally different functions. Three of the buildings, off by themselves, act as the show room with approximately 20% of the work being on the outside of the showrooms on the hillside. Another building is for the boss' office, living area for his family and the entrance room used as storage by the packaging group. Above that is the bathroom area for the boss and his family. The men's "bathroom" consists of a pail for the urine, I could not locate any other latrine area and fortunately I have not needed that area …….. so far. There is another building below the work shop area which is for coal storage and the workshop area is on slightly different levels throughout. So you always have to be conscious of where you are walking.

Most of the products created at this art glass workshop are extremely sophisticated. This means that most of the glass blowers are considered masters. In contrast, the other workshop was devoted approximately 70% to relatively simple items and 30% to complex items. At Baisheng, the percentages are directly the opposite. Even the simple items are parts of much more complex structures such as unique fixtures to hold electric light bulbs for fancy lamps and chandeliers. We did a combination of Spermoids and a white Bunny 808 with gold frits. It was raining outside and I climbed up to the headquarters building to see if they would call for a taxi since it is a mile and a half walk on a dirt road that is very steep in parts just to get to a regular road and then it is another mile until you get into an area where you may be able to find a taxi. I was asked to sit down and decided to read a book. About ten minutes later, I was told that one of the workers would drive me to my hotel. Unfortunately, he did not know the way so I ended up as the navigator not knowing exactly where we were. But I knew some of the local landmarks and once we found one I was able to us to my hotel.

There was no hot water in the shower but I was really filthy, so I toughed it out. At about 4:30 p.m., Sno called and said that Mr. Xie would like me to join him and Sno for an early dinner. I explained my predicament that I had already canceled out on Zhou and Tsai the night before and I did not want to do this again. Mr. Xie was waiting for me in the lobby. The solution I came up with was to explain the situation to him and suggest that we invite Zhou and Tsai, two glass designers who could become customers of Baisheng, to dinner and it would be my treat. Sno suggested that he convey this to Mr. Xie since he would not misunderstand and misinterpret what I said. I was able to get in touch with Zhou and they were able to join us for dinner. In addition, Sno and his wife were able to join us for part of the dinner before they had to go for another appointment.

We ended up at a restaurant that was very near the hotel I initially stayed at when I first came to Baisheng. I have eaten there in number of times before and the food has always been good even though I was alone. Chinese food is much better when you eat with a large group and can share many dishes. I was back at the hotel by 7:30 p.m. and after some calls to the United States, was ready to go to bed by 9:00 p.m. since I had to get up very early to get to the glass workshop.

Day 7

Getting up at 5:30 a.m. in the morning is not easy even if you go to bed early. There is only a little light and the rest of the world is still asleep. At 6:20 a.m., I met Mr. Xie and his car full of female workers and foreperson and we were off to work. After two traditional Chinese breakfast buns, the workshop was in full swing by 7:15 a.m. During dinner the prior evening, I was told that one of the new colors for the next day would be purple and there were even some purple flowers in our private dining room so I was able to think up how to work with this brand-new color. I decided to start with using the gold frits on one of the large molds. It should be a spectacular color combination. But the first thing I did was to work with Bo and his assistant to create two new Bunny 808s in purple with gold accents. From looking at the cold glass fragments, this should really be a terrific color combination. We then used the same color combination on only three different molds. This is the first time that I have run across this as a base color and was told in the morning that they probably get to use this color three times a year. So I decided to focus on working with this as a base color for most of the day.

Our team was getting into a very good rhythm and there are only two sculptures which were unusable due to mistakes by the person loading the finished sculpture into the annealing ovens. One was due to handling, and that is understandable because this is a form and shape they have never worked with before. Also, these sculptures are quite heavy and large and have to be angled in a certain way to get through the small opening of the annealing oven. The second cracked while it was in the annealing oven. That could be because she dropped another artwork on it or there was an inherent defect in the glass. But I am looking forward to seeing how these look, such as abortion and gun control, especially the two Bunny 808s after the cooling process has been completed and the sculptures of been cleaned up by the cold shop. We just got into a very good rhythm.

Although all the workers bring in their own lunch, the workshop supplements that by supplying free bread. In Shandong, they love their manbai, which is a very large white tasteless gummy product made from wheat. After lunch, we continued with the Spermoids but I switched to a much smaller mold and also did some white base with blue frits. Because the purple was so rare, we switched back to that and I decided to utilize red frits on the purple base. As a general rule, dark colored frits on a light color base, work much better than light-colored frits on door base. Also, as a general rule, there should be a sharp color contrast between the base and the frits. But after talking to the two glass designers at dinner, one of them suggested that I try red frits with the purple. For most of this series, I combined the red frits with gold frits, just in case the red did not show up in the finished version. I did do one with only red frits. I also did one without any frits and it looked spectacular while we were creating it. I wanted to do two more but it was time to call it quits at the workshop. The purple color will not be available on either Thursday or Friday. Tomorrow one of the colors is cobalt blue, which is another color I have never worked with in the past. The Bunny 808 fleet will be expanded with a new color combination tomorrow. I was going to call up one of my friends at Aimei and then had second thoughts. I want to give it some more thought before I call Mr. Chen and Soya to see if we can meet for dinner Thursday night. In the back of my mind, I am concerned that I will vent my bad feelings about the bosses' son. I avoided this type of confrontation in switching workshops. If we go out for dinner, I know I will be asked why I left Aimei. Simply saying it was time for a change would be a lie and they would see through it in a minute. So I need to sleep on whether or not it would be a good idea. We became friends over the years and my other concern is that if they had dinner with me and the bosses' son found out about it, he would be vindictive towards them. He is not a nice person. I thought it would be a good idea to discuss my concerns with Leslie since she is in a much more detached position.

After finishing the diary, calling everyone on Skype and doing some more reading about the Mongolian Queens, it was time to go to bed and prepare for the next day at the workshop.

Day 8

I met Mr. Xie and his three women employees promptly at 6:20 a.m. in front of the hotel. I insisted that it was my turn to pay for breakfast so I accompanied the foreperson into this large breakfast place where they pick up breakfast for the people in the car and certain other people. They have all sorts of dumplings, buns and soups. So I was able to get something different for breakfast and a little extra for my lunch. Back at the workshop, some of the women glass blowers and/or assistants were taking pity on me and were always offering me food. So in addition to what I've picked up, I was fed a variety of pickled vegetables and homemade soup. And, as an additional bonus, I had enough left over for my lunch.

The workshop is literally built in to what was formerly a large-hill. It was apparently the first part of the hill that was excavated. Unless you know where it is, the only sight you have outside of the workshop is a little smoke from the furnace that is used to fire the main kiln for the molten glass. Beneath the area and well below the area that is used for glassblowing and casting is the bottom of the furnace which has a crew of people feeding it coal, cleaning out the ashes and otherwise making sure that it is operating at peak efficiency. The partially open roof over the glass blowers on a nice day is a blessing because there is air circulating throughout the workshop. My hunch is that it is only a matter of time until the environmental authorities come in and insist that it convert the main furnace to some other form of energy. The problem for the environmental agency or the company is that it is so remote it will be difficult and extremely expensive to run an alternative energy source up to the existing workshop. After Aimei was reluctantly forced to convert from coal to natural gas, approximately 50% of its glass furnaces were always non-operational. The units that hold the molten glass in the furnace kept cracking and there was a problem replacing those particular units. The problems persisted up until last year and I do not know if they still persist.

Although I was told the cobalt blue would be available, I was advised that there were four colors available for the day, hise [a very dark red which I had never worked with] white, black and a light bronze color. There was no blue that I could see. I decided to work with the hise to start with. It looks spectacular on the first Bunny 808 we created. I figured out how to use the iPad to both photograph and take moving pictures of the process. Now I have to figure out how to retrieve those videos and images.

  

I like the way the first one looked so much, we did the second one and then switched to using this color, with gold frits for more of a Spermoid or in series done on three separate and different molds. That got us to lunch, which begins promptly at 11:00 a.m. Just before lunch, three groups of strangers came into the studio and the only thing they watched were the creation of the Spermoids. They didn't take photographs or ask any questions. They just nodded their heads appreciatively and talked amongst themselves. After about 20 minutes, they left without any comments. When we returned from lunch, I was told that hise was no longer available for me to use so I switched to using the bronze on white as bases and then used various combinations of frits, including two different color frits at the same time on a white base. Yet, I noticed that a number of the other glass blowers were using hise. Apparently, they had a big order involving the use of this color for a number of different items and the order needed to be shipped out shortly. Two other interesting things happened: Approximately a half an hour before quitting time, I was told that they had made a small amount of blue and was asked me if I would like to use it. I said yes and it was an amazing color. Unfortunately, we only had time to do three sculptures using this color before quitting time and it will not be available tomorrow.

They also brought out one of my original Bunning 808s that was now ready for cold shop cleanup. We noticed that while it was in the cooling process, the glass pedestal we had designed had shifted so when the sculpture was set on a level surface, it tilted forward like a drunk. If I am able to hang the unit with what I designed, you will never notice this and it may hang better with a forward lean. I will have to wait and see how the other seven Bunny 808s come out.

As I drove away from Baisheng back to the hotel, I realized how mountainous Boshan is. It is known as a summer retreat for many people in central China. After a nice shower and a brief nap, I met Sno Cao and his wife for dinner. We first stopped off near where their daughter lives, as the son-in-law was in the car. He seemed very nice. There is an absolutely gorgeous park near where they live. It was an area of Baisheng, just below the large nuclear power plant, which I had never seen before. It is quite new and looks like a very nice place to live if you can ignore the large nuclear plant stacks looming over where you live. We then went to a local restaurant right around the corner from where Sno has his house.

Unfortunately, their three month-old granddaughter had a stomach problem and his wife had to leave. Apparently, Sno and his wife are very well connected with some key hospital personnel and one of them had to attend to make sure that their granddaughter got the proper treatment. After we finished dinner, Sno asked me if I wanted to keep him company while he played ping-pong at the local ping-pong club. He told me that he was an exceptionally good player. After watching him, he is correct. He played on the table that is set up for the best players. You keep playing until you lose. The level of play is quite high and one of the players was a young man who just missed making the national team. I realized I had been away from ping-pong for too many years because instead of 21 point games with each person having five serves at a time, the games are 11 points and each player has two serves.

This ping-pong club has specially made floors and is complete with shower facilities, a snooker table and was specifically designed for ping-pong with very high ceilings and good lighting. I noticed that everyone was wearing a certain type of sneaker. They take the game very seriously. Since Sno was staying until 10 o'clock, I left after an hour to go back to the hotel so I could get to bed fairly early for my 6:20 a.m. pickup. After checking e-mails, speaking to Leslie on Skype and updating this diary it was time to go to sleep. Tomorrow will be my last day in Boshan as I have an early afternoon train leaving Zibo to return to Beijing.

Day 9

The last day in Boshan is always full of mixed feelings. Today would be no different. I was picked up at 6:20 a.m. and picked out my own breakfast and lunch since I would not have time to eat. I made the decision to quit work at 11:00 a.m. when the workshop closed down for lunch. Our team was really working well together and we were able to do 15 Spermoids in approximately three hours. There was a problem with the glory hole at the beginning of the day. Apparently the fuel was not feeding properly into the glory hole. With Mr. Xie and six of the glass blowers working on this problem they were able to solve it in about 40 minutes. It seems that everyone has multiple duties.

It was an absolutely beautiful day outside with hardly a cloud in the sky. But if you looked south to the city, you could see the smog. Then it came time to settle up. My count was different from the shop forepersons. This was surprising since I corroborated my count with the team I was working with during and after each day. We decided to resolve this by taking a count of the sculptures that were packed at the factory and another count when they were delivered to my studio. What a difference in dealing with Mr. Xie and Mr. Shu, Sr., as compared with Mr. Shu's son! Mr. Xie gave me a bowl of vegetables as my farewell lunch and I gave my breakfast pastries to one of the workers. Mr. Xie made about 20 calls during the morning to Sno, my delivery in person in and Beijing and Oxy. Although it was a bit unnerving, I was happy that he was so concerned about doing the delivery correctly. Again, the contrast could not have been greater than how I was treated by Mr. Shu's son.

During one of those conversations, Sno advised me that he had spoken to Mr. Shu and he was recovering from a heart attack. He had been hospitalized in Zibo for almost a week. I was also wrestling with the problem of whether or not I should contact Mr. Chen and Soya throughout this trip. I eventually decided against it because I was concerned that his son found out about it, he would take it out on my friends. Also, it was time to move on to another chapter in my adventures in creating glass sculpture in China. I enjoyed my lunches with them and getting to know them. I realized that they were, in effect, covering for the son's rudeness. I am sure that the company reimbursed them for the cost of our simple lunches at the local restaurants. Baisheng is so remote from anything other than the gravel pit next door, that going out for lunch is not a realistic option.

I am really looking forward to seeing the work created that morning working with only limited colors; blue, green, white and black as the base colors. But the shapes were excellent and I believe that these sculptures will come out very well. Also, more of my Bunny 808's were coming out of the annealing ovens. I realize that the potential problem of the base was not that it was cooling improperly; it appears to have been put on in the wrong location so there was too much weight to the front of the base. That is something that I will have to fix next time, if it creates a problem, when I return to Baisheng in the middle of January.

Getting to the train was no hassle as the driver knew where he was going. When he saw that I was studying Chinese, we started to converse. I basically spent an entire week without speaking any English except to Sno Cao, who always insists on speaking English so he can improve his language skills. After he was married and had a child who was six months old, he left his wife and child to live in Jinian for almost a year to improve his English. Since a great majority of his customers are English-speaking, this great sacrifice to his family has paid many dividends, including a successful business to be inherited by his daughter and son-in-law. But, he bemoans the fact that neither of them have the ambition to want to learn English at the level required to take over his business. I also received a report that the granddaughter is doing well and the new medication prescribed by the hospital is working.

It took as long to get from the Beijing South Railroad Station to my studio as it did from the train going from Zibo to Beijing. So I didn't get home until after 8:00 p.m. I was having trouble getting the Internet to work so I sent a panic text to Febi to see what suggestions she may have. First, we spoke on the phone and we could not solve it. I assumed that I would have to wait until tomorrow to fix the problem. Febi showed up and 10 minutes later and she was able to fix the network problem. What a superstar! And there is nothing I can do about the white slavery situation she is in. Her boss may buy her nice things and take her on trips but she has no money to buy her own clothes, except to the extent that she is doled out money by for this specific purpose. I only hope she figures a way out of this situation. The ideal situation would be for someone to hire her at a salary and give her room and board in addition to that so she would have some freedom. The going rate for an assistant who is provided room and some board is 4,000 to 5,000 RMB a month. But I do not have enough work for her and it would create an uncomfortable situation on the home front.

I was too tired to do any creative work so after pasta and vegetable dish, with a dash of Chinese sausage and a few glasses of red wine and I was ready to call it a day. Before dinner, I was able to hook up with Leslie on Skype and we had a nice chat. It's too bad that China does not work for her, but I think it would be great to share my experiences with her as they occur rather than reliving those when we talk on Skype. But, I understand her feelings.

Day 10

It was a beautiful Saturday in Beijing. The sky was clear blue with no allows. The morning was cool but you could sense would be a very hot day. I was up early because there was a lot to do before the various gallery openings on Saturday. Also the cleaning girl was coming at 8:00 a.m. In the New York Times, I had just read an article about a new way of cooking fried eggs in Spain that was so different than anything I had ever seen and it was very simple. So I tried to copy it for my breakfast. It works and now I have a new and better way to cook fried eggs. Once I got the cleaning girl started, I have made arrangements with Huang to pick me up as I had a number of errands.

Huang was on time, which was quite unusual. To be organized, I created a checklist so we could do things in a logical order. First, it was off to B&Q where I needed to purchase the kind of right angle hanger hooks that were made in Germany, which I could not find in New York, some shorter screws for the Creation Series, refills for my grinder and most important, a crimper tool, which was needed to create a better fastening unit to hang the Creation Series in both China and the United States. Laurens Tans has this tool but he has made clear that he does not like lending it out. I was also looking for a portable vacuum cleaner because I had noticed that the Shattered Dream/Jing Bao Zha Series was collecting dust in the studio. I thought this would be the best way to clean it, without disturbing the glass and then figuring out a way to cover the sculptures when I am not in Beijing. I was unable to locate the crimper tool or the hand hand-held vacuum unit at B&Q.

So I went next door to Auchen, a very large Chinese style general store. I had no luck finding those two items, but I did find a replacement teapot for 10 RMB. I saw a number of people carrying groceries outside the store and I asked one of them where they were buying fresh vegetables. I was told to go to the third floor. It was a huge grocery store with absolutely everything you could think of for the Chinese kitchen. So I decided to stock up on groceries. Then it was off to a special hardware area near 798, where I was told I could find the right type of crimping tool. After visiting a few stalls, which was no more than a glorified version of our local hardware market with a smaller number of stalls, the only thing they had were pneumatic crimpers, which are too large to crimp the wire and grommets I use to hang the Creation Series and Shattered Dream [a/k/a Jing Bao Zha] series. But one vendor wrote in Chinese where I needed to go to get the right kind of crimpers and a hand-held vacuum cleaner that was strong enough to take the dust off my sculptures.

So I went back in Huang's car to continue our hunt for the right type of crimper and hand–held vacuum cleaner to a new location off the Fourth Ring Road. We found the right store in the retail furniture district but it had no crimpers and the hand-held vacuum cleaners were almost $300 and the dust busters they had could only be used with a car battery. So I will have to resort to old-fashioned feather dusters, which I will have to try to locate. We then went to a local bank to exchange dollars for RMBs. We had to go to three different banks. The line was too long in the first one and there was only one person serving the personal accounts. The second one did not offer a money exchange service. But the third one offered a money exchange service and there was no wait.

I then went back to the studio and did some more work on the wood cut before having a late lunch, spiced up cabbage with some steamed dumplings. Cooking in the studio is much more efficient and involves much less time than going out to eat. I have so little free time to devote to my art work in New York that I want to use every minute I have in Beijing for creating art. I was able to get in another couple of hours of work before going over to the gallery opening at Judas Arenas's studio. He always has terrific food and a good atmosphere. His friend Jesus, who is a Spanish businessman living in China, and I see him at of these openings. He was the chef in charge of making a huge paella. Judas had my favorite Russian salad which is served on little pieces of crusty French bread and all sorts of other great hors d'oeuvres along with a huge pitcher of sangria. There was also homemade gazpacho. Judas' daughter is now 15 months old and she has loads of personality.

The painter's work was very geometric with bright colors. The paintings were all well done but after looking at each one for a few minutes, it was not the type of work that has staying power with me. The two videos by another artist were quite different. One was based on the Spanish artist's feeling of loneliness and being insignificant when he came to Beijing for this artist in residence program. So he created a documentary on the theme of someone coming from rural China to Beijing because they are drawn by the magnetism of the city. But like a moth, once he or she gets too close to the light, it dies. Here a young Chinese woman comes to Beijing and after wandering around looking for work gets a job in a massage parlor, which often doubles as a house of prostitution. Frustrated and upset she leaves that to find better work and the movie short ends with her on a bridge over a mainstream watching the traffic while contemplating her future. Prior to coming over to Beijing, he had made arrangements through Judas to hire a young actress who had recently graduated from Beijing University, Nui Shan Shan. She was at the opening with her boyfriend. In the movie, she looks 10 pounds heavier and five inches taller than she is in person. Neither she nor her boyfriend spoke any English but we were able to communicate in Chinese. She did most of the talking. It took Shan Shan a while to understand my accent/pronunciation/tonal usage, but once she did, she understood everything that I said and I could understand her. I still have difficulty when there are 3 or 4 people talking at once in understanding what they are saying.

The paella was excellent. By that time, I was on my fourth sangria. Then they brought out two different cakes for dessert. I had a little taste of each but I was stuffed and feeling very good. One of the local artists, Zhong Dan wanted to show Shan Shan and her boyfriend the art in my studio. So on the way to the bus stop, where they were going back to downtown Beijing, and I was going to take a taxi to go to Li Gang's opening, we stopped by my studio. Their comments were very interesting, especially boyfriend's, who understood that the glass sculptures were all about form, color and movement with an underlying sensuality. It was starting to get cold so I grabbed a sweatshirt to take with me to 798. There were no gypsy cabs at the corner, but some were apparently cruising in the area. The first one wanted 100 RMB to go 798. He figured I was a foreigner and could rip me off. When I said no, he wanted the bargain but it was too late. I was able to get another taxi to take you 798 for 40 RMB and he dropped us off right at Li Gang's gallery.

The gallery is very small but Lee uses the outside area in front of the gallery for cooking and for people to meet and talk. It works. Inside was a video installation by a Polish artist that I had previously met. It consisted of seven television sets each one showing the same movie, but one of them was vertical rather than horizontal and the colors in the other six were slightly different from each other. It was interesting without being satisfying.

Outside, Li Gang had a video, without sound of him driving home from the studio at night. He was holding the camera while he was driving. Above that video was another video of people doing the tango with very loud music. The videos did not have anything to do with each other. According to Li Gang that was the whole purpose. It gave me a huge headache. Another artist with the identical name, Li Gang, was there. He had arrived on his brand-new fat tire beach-type bicycle. He had not been fitted correctly, so I helped him adjust the seat and handlebars so he could ride correctly and more comfortably.

People came and went. By 8:15 p.m., Li Gang and I were the only ones left and we had a good visit catching up with each other since it had been almost a year since we really had a chance to talk. He is under the impression that if we elect Romney, the first thing he will do is to have the U.S. declare war on China. He also has trouble understanding why the Republican Party is so concerned with the personal decisions of the individual, especially since we are supposed to be a democracy. I pointed out that the Chinese government has various policies on the number of children that you can have. His answer was simply that China has population problem and China had to take drastic measures to slow down the rate of population. However, right now there is a disproportionate number of old retired people and those policies are relaxing. Other than creating an occasional video installation, he is now learning how to play the drums.

With that as an introduction/segue, he said we should go here the rock concert in 798. We came in from the side which was fenced off from the band. That was good for Li Gang because he could get some excellent photographs from a different angle. But the songs and the music were extremely repetitious and not very well done. After 30 minutes of listening and being totally bored, I asked Li Gang if he had had enough. Reluctantly, he agreed but since he was taking photographs of the same band again and again, I did not understand why we needed to stay even longer to listen to really terrible music. So we went back to his gallery and he offered to have one of his workers at the party drive me back to 318. So I started to get into the car and then was told that I was going to go on the back of someone else's electric bicycle.

Off we went. He decided to take a shortcut by going on the wrong side of the street as it was a much quicker way to get to Jinmin Highway. It was scary as there were pedestrians and cyclists, along with people on motor scooters, coming the other way in the bicycle lane. I know that going down Jinmin Highway during the day can be a somewhat frightening experience. Riding on the back of someone else's electric bicycle at night makes it even more "exciting". All of a sudden, the temperature dropped by about 20°, reminding me of a thermocline you can experience when you are scuba diving. We were both shivering. Right in front of the Sci Tech mall, a car right in front of us decided to stop out of the blue. Somehow, we were able to stop without getting into an accident. He was so shook up that he dropped something. So, I held the bicycle while he searched for what he dropped and he found it. I was very happy to arrive at the studio. I called Leslie before calling it a day.

Day 12

It was another beautiful day in Beijing. I was able to focus on finishing the woodcut to start the day. Lu Mu was coming over on Monday afternoon pick it up for printing. I did not want to leave finishing it until the last second. I also spent time with Leslie on getting the data and e-mailing Andrew and Southbury at least an image of the woodcut portion to see if it would be of use to them in the upcoming commemoration of "Saying No to National Socialism".



I was also able to finish two more of the "Shattered Dream" or "Jing Bao Zha" series as I completed the multiple layers of gesso and acrylic to "drop the shattered glass" and then epoxy the glass exactly as it fell on the painted board.

In addition, I was able to do work on starting a new wire mesh base for another of the Creation Series. Except for Skyping with Leslie, there were no interruptions or distractions. During these unique time periods you can really focus on creating your art. These are too few and too far between. In its own way, it is very euphoric and energizing.

Oxy, out of the blue stopped by at around 12:30 p.m. I did not even realize that it was lunch time. He was working at Peter Lewis' Oasis Gallery to prepare it for an upcoming show by an American painter. Oxy was having difficulty understanding Peter's instructions on coordinating with the artist who had just arrived in Beijing. After helping him with this situation, I asked if he was hungry, already knowing the answer. I have more than enough vegetables and some Chinese salami to add some flavoring for two people. So we prepared that for lunch, while he was complaining that some of the cauliflower pieces were too big and were not well enough done for him. I explained to him that we often eat cauliflower raw in the United States and I tend to cook it al dente since I don't like it mushy. We both had to get back to work, but before he left we worked on reinstalling some of the Creation Series in the studio because this is a two-person project. The glass sculptures from the Zibo Museum exhibition had already been unpacked. One of those sculptures was broken. What was weird was that it was broken in the thickest part and we couldn't figure out what caused the break, which was a clean break all the way through the sculpture.

I was able to do some more work in the afternoon on the woodcut, start the gesso preparatory work for some more the "Shattered Dream" or "Jing Bao Zha" series. The Chinese word, "Jing Bao Zha", has a number of meanings, two of which are "erupting energy" and "sperm". Jing Bao Zha is an interesting double entendre for this series.

I had to quit by 4:00 p.m. as I had been invited to join Shen Jing Dong and Lu Coral for dinner at their studio near the Sheng Sheng Museum about an hour away by car from my studio. I looked at the subway map for Beijing on the Internet because I thought this would be a more efficient way to go to the studio. Unfortunately, there are no stations near where they live, so Coral arranged for a driver to pick me up. I wanted to stop at Jenny Lu's so I could pick up a bottle of wine as a gift. But he missed the turn and I explained to him that we needed to go back. His response was that he was taking me to another Jenny Lu's in the center of Beijing. However, in order to get to Jing Dong and Coral's studios, we needed to take the Fifth Ring Road. We got into a monstrous traffic jam and I told him to forget about Jenny Lu's and just go to the studio so he made a U-turn to get back to Fifth Ring Road. There was obviously a miscommunication problem and I knew I was already going to be over an hour late as a result of this diversion into downtown Beijing.

When we finally got to the Shang Shang Museum area, the driver just stopped the car on a main road without any explanation. Twenty minutes later, Coral showed up saying that she had to do something at the printer and she asked the driver to pick her up on the way to the restaurant. She had two three-month-old puppies with her. We went to a restaurant where we were the only two people that were going to eat. Eventually Martin, a French gallery owner who has a studio in this area and his assistant, who was also a well-known artist, along with Shen Jing Dong joined us for dinner.

Martin's gallery is in southern France overlooking the Mediterranean. He discovered contemporary Chinese art as a viable offering for his gallery approximately four years ago and decided to take a studio in this area because of the large number of Chinese artists working in the area. He was very outgoing and started to entertain the four year-old daughter of the owner of the restaurant. At first, she was very shy. But once she warmed up, she became overexcited and there was no way of calming her down. He also has an artist in residence program in France that he uses to recruit up-and-coming Chinese contemporary artists for his gallery. Since it is in a unique location and the area is so different from Beijing, it is very attractive to Chinese artists to spend three months there working away and then having a show at his gallery in that part of France.

After dinner, we went off to look at the new works that Jing Dong was doing and to pick up some of the Zibo Museum catalogs that have been promised to me, but were never sent over. Paper is extremely heavy. But my works looked very good in the catalog. There were some really good artists showing in this exhibition, including a Korean painter who does unique work. Jing Dong has started a new series of "injured Chinese soldiers" and is working on other new images. My feeling is that although his current images are very popular and marketable, he wants to move on to something different, but not too different.

We then went over to Coral's studio which she rents out as part of an artist in residence program. Apparently this is a popular new form of business for the artists in China. Ten years ago, there was only one person was doing this, Brian Wallace who runs the Red Gate Gallery. Then Li Gang tried to do it in BIAC, combining it with an artist's hotel and restaurant. Unfortunately, due to some bad management decisions and other factors Li Gang's business model did not work, but many others have followed Brian's model. Brian now has a full-time employee in charge of this program at any one time can have up to 15 foreign artists in residence. Basically, the artist pays for rent in the studio space, is given the connections and the introductions needed to do their work and then given a one or two day show at the end of the residence. It was already 10:30 p.m. and I knew it was a long ride back to my studio. Before leaving, Coral asked the driver what happened on the way over. Basically, the misunderstanding was that he was unaware that there was more than one Jenny Lu store. So he thought I was crazy in giving him directions to a Jenny Lu store when he knew that the only Jenny Lu store was in downtown Beijing. Cora explained to him that there are many Jenny Lu stores in Beijing and I was trying to direct him to the Jenny Lu store that was near my studio and on the way to the Fifth Ring Road entrance near were I live. What took over two and one half hours to get there, only took 40 minutes to return. By the time I got home, Leslie was off to exercise class so we were unable to talk on Skype.

Day 13

I felt I was running out of time, so I made sure to get up early to start work. But the first thing I wanted to do was to talk with Leslie and the twins on Skype. They had just finished watching the Giants football game at Jeff and Debbie's. All Leslie knew was that the Giants had won. The twins gave me more detail and they were also happy that the New York Jets lost. I heard all about their day. They decided that I needed to have another conversation with Lucky. But this time, Lucky was not that interested in being dragged before the computer. But it was quite funny because they wanted to see the dog's reaction to seeing me on the computer. Then it was time to get back to work. Coral called and asked if I would take back two large CIGE catalogs and other materials for Andrew Chin since she was having problems sending them by Federal Express. She was also going to deliver to me more Zibo Museum catalogs and a disk with images of my pieces at the museum to be put on my website. She was making arrangements for a driver to do this later that afternoon.

I finished the woodcut just before lunch. I took photographs of it to send it as a replacement image to the Southbury people handling the 75th anniversary of Saying No to National Socialism. It looked much better all cleaned up and ready for the printer, who was coming over that afternoon.

Oxy called and said that he found two crimping tools that would work, one was 35 RMB and the other was 65 RMB. I told him to buy two more expensive ones as I was going to take one of them back to the U.S. with me to use at my studio here.

I then wrote Andrew on information needed to coordinate with the organizers because I was unsure if he understood what needed to be done. It was time to take a lunch break and I had some vegetables available to combine with a small amount of pasta for a very nice lunch, accompanied by a couple of glasses of red wine. I needed a nap as I had too little sleep from the night before. It was very quiet in 318. I wished Laurens Tans a safe trip to Las Vegas, to adjust to his new house and he was working with fabricators in that area. Peter Lewis was not due to arrive until Thursday and it was very quiet. So after a good nap, I went back to work on creating some more of the "Shattered Dream" or "Jing Bao Zha" series and doing some more work on the mesh sub sculpture for another Creation Series. It was also time to start preparing the studio for my departure. Oxy came over at about 6:00 p.m. and we planned out what needed to be done while I was away. We also packed up 2 boxes of glass sculptures to bring back as baggage. The sculptures that remained on the floor were catalogued and put into the big container box that we get used for the Zibo Museum exhibition. We were done by 8:00 p.m.

I made a potluck supper with the remaining vegetables, some heated up Chinese sausage, some pasta and some tomato sauce. I did some reading and finished the Mongolian Queens and caught up on the back issues summaries of the New York Times on the Internet. I had no shows coming up in the immediate future so I had no deadlines looming over my head. It was time to start winding down to make sure that everything that needed to be done was done without any hassle. I confirmed with Huang that he was to meet me at 12:30 PM to take me to the airport. I got to bed at a reasonable hour.

Day 14

I was up early to complete one more Jing Bao Zha and to do some more work on the wire mesh sub sculpture. After a leisurely breakfast and Skyping with the office and Leslie, I received a telephone call from Huang. He could not drive me to the airport because the fan belt broke and he was stranded somewhere in downtown Beijing. So I had to scramble to find a new driver. Fortunately, Coral was able to call the driver who had taken me to and from their studios on the other side of town and he was available. Normally, I pack three boxes of sculptures, but this time I only packed two so I did not need a station wagon like the one owned by Huang, which could carry three boxes and me to the airport. Also, since United had taken over Continental they were changing all of the rules and procedures; all for the worse for the traveler. So, I assumed that three boxes as baggage would be a problem. They have also changed my status from Gold Elite [which is almost impossible to attain] to Silver Elite, which offers very few additional amenities. You can no longer get into the airline lounges at the airport, there are no special baggage allowances etc. The only benefits appear to be is that you have a special check-in line and when they are boarding the plane you get to board prior to those persons who are not on elite status. Everything else has disappeared and from a business point of view I do not understand it. The cost to let me use the airline lounge is minimal but it is a much nicer place to wait for your departure and they have healthy and good snacks. In view of the cost an airline ticket to Beijing from Newark and that I fly there on a number of occasions each year, this makes no sense to me.

There were sick children on the flight. As a result, I caught a bad cold. Because the food was so bad, I managed to eat a late lunch at the airport so I wouldn't have to eat the dinner that was to be "presented" on the flight. Immediately after I got on the flight, I took a sleeping pill and was able to get five hours of sleep. When I woke up, it was freezing cold and the plane and everyone was bundled up. I had difficulty getting back to sleep so I to studied some Chinese and listened to music from my iPod. We landed early and one of the boxes had been cut open. When I unpack, I will find out if there are any damaged sculptures in the box. Going over, I was very apprehensive about starting to work at a new glass workshop. It takes time to get used to working with the new set of people and a shop with its own unique set up and rules. I look forward to continuing to work at Baisheng.