Charles Hecht | Writings

Monday, August 21, 2006

Got to work at the studio early to engrave my initials and dates on the various small sculptures. After doing that I made a decision not to keep any of the steel sculptures except the “Sting Ray Sea Critter”. The others had been near water and were badly rusted. They had also been reassembled improperly. Maybe Li Gang can melt them down and use the materials in one of his sculptures.

I then invited Chao Khan to join us for lunch and we rode off on our bicycles to the restaurant near the Pickled Arts Center. I let Len pick the restaurant and he seems to prefer that restaurant over the others which are closer to the studio complex. Len and I then worked until 4:00. I was previously unhappy with the Darfur Genocide wood cut, as well as, the Razor Fish.

We decided to try some new prints softening the color dramatically. It worked and we then ran off a whole series of prints utilizing the lighter color. For some reason the images look much better when they weren’t so starkly black and white for these two wood cuts.[pictures] After the large lunch I was not hungry. I decided to clean up the studio, collect my thoughts and have some tea. Again it was very hot. I spoke to Leslie and my phone indicated that I was out of money.

For the past five days I have tried to get in touch with Guan Dong Hai of the Tsing Hua University Glass Department. I had brought over with me the books on glass, which I had charged to my credit card. He was to deliver to me the sculptures and reimburse me for the costs of all but the most expensive book which I said would be a present. His phone consistently said “power off”. I decided to leave the books at Lennart’s studio with specific instructions. I read some of the XinJiang-China’s Muslim Borderland book while listening to some Kiri Takaniwa arias. I had a miserable cold. I was off to sleep by 10:00. Fortunately I found a couple of Sudafed. Hopefully they will help.

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