Day 10 - July 6

The sun was out and the sky was blue. I took a shower in the main bathroom. The studio bathroom had hot water and plenty of it. I called Li Kogen to thank him and we discussed the short-circuit caused by the outside lights. He explained to me that this was caused by torrential rainfall the night before and that the clear weather should dry everything up. The lights worked and we did not blow a fuse. I did some reading and sketched out some new ideas, but it was such a nice day that I decided to go to the Sunday flea market at Panjai Yuan to buy gifts for the office and see what else struck my fancy.

As I was leaving, 5 people from the real estate management company, including the big boss, came to my unit to look at the sculpture that I wanted to hang on the back of my studio. Their response was that they would like to hang it by the front gate. They asked for a Chinese translation for the writing on both of the large sculptures, one of which was at 2 Lines Gallery. The boss also liked my Chinese furniture and asked how expensive it was. I told him it was used furniture. He asked how he could get in touch with my sources, so I gave him the phone number of two dealers.

I knew that Torsten and Imka were already at Panjai Yuan and we met at the front gate. He was buying embroidery goods, she was looking for interesting pocketbooks. I was looking for clothes made in southern China for the grandchildren and a nice gift for Leslie, as well as gifts for people in the office. Clothes made in Southern China were now being shown in abundance at the flea market. When I first saw them last year there were only one or two vendors. I was also able to buy some very small calligraphy brushes and some good calligraphy paper. I could not find a nice gift for Leslie, but I found nice gifts for the office staff and cute dolls for the twins.

I knew there was a large building near the flea market that contained a number of dealers in fine jewelry. After looking for half an hour and talking with a number of people, no one knew where this building was located. I decided to head home. There was some confusion between Mung and Oliver which resulted in Oliver having my second set of keys. He was going to leave them at the New York Arts Center. He told me they were having a show, so I dropped off my stuff and went to the show. It was empty with only one employee from New York Arts, Christina’s sister, her daughter, the cleaning lady and husband and Oliver. We then all decided to go to my place. They had fun looking around and taking pictures of the new glass sculptures, often posing with these sculptures in a humorous way.

I decided to do some reading and people kept dropping in to look at the art. No one had definite plans for the evening. Because I missed lunch, I got hungry fairly early. After working on the diary, I decided to go to the Beijing Duck restaurant for dinner of cold spinach and their duck and dumpling stew, which I previously thought was very good. It was a little over a mile walk each way. Beijing duck is not appropriate for one person. At dinner I read a book on Chinese calligraphy to get me in the mood to work on a calligraphy project.

After dinner I walked home. The parking lot at the corner supermarket was now being used for ballroom dancing with music from a terrible sound system, but the people seemed to be having a good time. I then saw people with flashlights walking slowly and looking at the ground. I asked them what they were looking for and they showed me a bag full of crickets.

I then spoke to Leslie and the twins on Skype. Leslie reminded me that I was leaving on Tuesday and not Wednesday, so I had to change my plans for tomorrow morning. I looked at my ticket and she was right. There is always so much to do at the last second, but not so much this time because of the inability to get stone for my a sculpture garden, the failure to get the luminescent paint from Australia, and being unable to locate an available press for my woodcuts. These things prevented me from doing the three major projects I had originally planned for this trip. I then did some calligraphy.

Day 11 - July 7

After some calls to New York City it was time to focus on doing a new woodcut. Huang stopped by to drop off Mung and asked questions about my electric bicycle. I explained to him that it could not even be ridden manually and I was waiting word from Li Gang on the availability of one of his trucks. Huang suggested that we go to the bicycle store to see if someone would come to the house and repair the bicycle onsite. First, we went to the store that sold me the bike. The worker explained that he was the only one there and he could not leave the shop. We then went to a larger store nearer where I live and they had a mechanic available to come to my studio to try to fix the bicycle. After 20 minutes of work he said that I would have to bring it to the shop, it would require a full day to fix and would cost 400 RMB . I agreed to pay for the repair, since a new electric bicycle would cost me over 2500 RMB. Huang offered to tow me to the repair shop. I thought this was too dangerous. I did the ride of 4 to 5 miles in 95º heat.

During the afternoon I worked on refurbishing the other large flag sculpture, continued reading the book on calligraphy and coordinated with the real estate company on the possibility of hanging some of my large flag sculptures in their art parks. I also visited Manuella and her boyfriend, who was working on some clay sculptures of only arms and hands. The time just seemed to fly.

The Wangs came by to pick me up to meet Madeline and John for dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Janwah Soho district. This is really part of downtown and full of expensive and trendy shops. Everyone got along well even though the food was at best fair. Almost all the conversation was in Chinese and, since Professor Wang spoke slowly out of courtesy, John, Madeline and I were able to understand much of the conversation. I was so focused on understanding that I only listened for most of the evening. Although the drive to the restaurant took over an hour, in part due to the Wangs getting lost, the drive home was less than 20 minutes.

We discussed a continuation of my glass project in Shandong Province and then left it that I would discuss the timing with Leslie and communicate via e-mail with Professor Wang to work out the details.

After coming home, I did more work on refinishing “Out Beyond... .” Unfortunately, after almost 9 hours the paint was still tacky. However, I knew that if I didn’t properly polyurethane this section it would be totally rusted in a week. I was very tired when I spoke to Leslie and was asleep by 1:00 a.m.

Day 12 - July 8

Departure day feels rushed even when there is not much artwork to do. First thing to do was to put on another coat of polyurethane on the large flag sculpture. Then a breakfast of Beijing duck on small rolls and eggs . I did some last second packing of three glass sculptures to bring home, before calling the bike store to see if the repair job was completed. They told me to come by at 11:00. Since this was my last day, I decided to call Huang for a ride rather than taking the 944 bus. We stopped by to get some more turpentine and brushes. The bike was ready but it was not as fast as it used to be, and was much noisier. I will handle that problem when I return to Beijing.

On the way home I stopped by the fabricator to make sure he was paid before I left. He wasn’t there. As I drove away I saw him coming from the other way, so I went back to his place to pay him and exchange farewells. Then it was back to the studio to put on another coat of polyurethane, say goodbye to Peter and Lorenzo and have a quick lunch at the local restaurant. Peter called me as I was arriving at the airport and asked me if he could submit for consideration some of my work at a new museum opening. I said yes.

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