Charles Hecht | Writings

Day 7 Sunday
August 20, 2006

After breakfast I met Len at the studio to continue making the prints from the wood cuts. We worked all morning and finished the mask series. [pictures] David, Oxy, Niko Len and I went out for lunch. We rode to the restaurant near the Pickled Arts Center. Oxy turned on some basketball game on television. He got extremely upset when another customer came in and changed the channel. We switched back to the basketball game. We had Kung po pork, a type of braised cabbage, kale sauteed in a shrimp sauce, spiced raw carrot and Chinese meatballs. The Chines meatballs are huge. They are the size of baseballs and are served in an interesting sauce. They were delicious. We also had one other dish. Lunch for five was less than $7 including tip.

After lunch the others had errands and Len and I went back to the studio to do some more work on two new wood cuts, Darfur Genocide and Razor Fish. After the first two prints of Darfur Genocide, I instructed Len to stop and we would switch to the other wood cut. I was initially unhappy with the way it came out on paper but wanted to give it some thought. We did three prints of Razor Fish. I then went back and looked at Darfur Genocide. It looked excellent from a distance but up close I wasn’t happy. We decided to call it a day. I went into town to pick up two artworks I had purchased from Ren Jie. Because he was friends with Li Gang and had just shown at 2 Lines Gallery, in which Li Gang was a part owner. I included Li Gang in the purchase discussions the prior day so they could work out their arrangement. I did not want to go behind the back of 2 Lines Gallery or Li Gang.
Ren Jie and his wife told me that there was going to be some of his work selling in New York either at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007 and they would let me know the details. David Everson had also purchased one of his inks on paper works. David asked me to bring back his framed purchase, which I did. When I returned David and I inspected all three acquisitions including the Ren Jie small oil I had purchased. David decided we needed a drink to celebrate our purchases and raided Lennart’s locked closet for some Aquavit.

Then David had to go off to pick up a cake that he had ordered for a birthday dinner he was throwing for a friend. After David left I signed some of the wood cut prints that had been taken back to Lennart’s apartment for further drying. I then went back to the studio and utilized an etching machine that Li Gang had pointed out to sign my name and date on one of the bronze sculptures and all four of the steel sculptures that I had originally brought over as models. I then went to the Artist Inn where they gave me access to the computer and I could spend a couple of hours responding to messages. By then it was 7:30 p.m. and I was hot, sweaty and tired. As I was leaving the Artist Inn Tian Yibin, the photographer for whom I had done the “retranslation” previously, insisted that I sit down and join him and some of his friends for dinner. I tried to beg off as being hot and tired but he said no. Two hours later the group had migrated to Yibin’s studio for an impromptu party. One of the leading Chinese rock musicians had dropped in at dinner and he, along with three of the artists beating on drums started an impromptu sing along concert. The music was quite good and it was a lot of fun.

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