Earthquake

For me, China is no longer that unknown place on the other side of the world. When I hear or read "China" my mind is filled with images. The spice seller at the daily market. The bicycle repair shop in Xi Zhou. Huge steaming pots of rice or dumplings. The women in the Dong village hauling produce from the fields. The children who were mostly fascinated and a little scared of me. The old gentleman who sang a song for us. The wild variety of wacky vehicles on the roads, crammed full of people. The grandmothers carrying their grandchildren on their backs. I think of Tang Lei and Yang Yang, and my old calligrapher friend, Mr. Yang.

Right after I came home, we received a special issue of National Geographic that was devoted to China. As I turned the pages, I realized I was searching the pictures for a familiar face.

The earthquake feels that way, too. Like it has affected people I know. I've seen the way their houses are constructed. I've marveled (and worried a bit) at the way they build their villages precariously perched on the terraced mountainsides. I've traveled where there is only one very steep and winding road to get from one place to the next. I've seen how closely their lives are linked to the land, how vulnerable they are to the vagaries of nature.

I don't know if there was damage to the villages we visited. Some are only 500 miles (Beijing was 1000) from the epicenter so I know they experienced it. But to me it feels like they were hurt. Okay, maybe not them exactly, but... grandmothers carrying their grandchildren, and people bending over their cooking pots, and kind old gentlemen calligraphers. People I might know.

China Paintings

I did about 20 paintings in China, and took thousands of photos from which I can create paintings here at home. I will be working to get pieces ready for our show which opens August 30 at Linden Gallery in Ellison Bay, WI, (please come!) with additional works being exhibited at Barnsite Gallery in Kewaunee, WI. After that, I will continue to work on pieces to submit to an exhibition in China next spring. Lots to do!

It was hard to paint at first. The light, the people, the architecture, the landscape - everything - was different and it took a while for me to get past the "shock of the new" and really start to see things. (Painting is as much about seeing as it is about applying paint. Maybe more). Once I started seeing more accurately, I had to figure out how to express my perceptions with paint.

I worked small - 9" x 12". The light changes very quickly when you're painting on location, so you
can't spend a lot of time on large canvases. (I also kept things small in light of our weight restrictions and the knowledge that I would be hauling these things around a lot...) Some of the paintings are nice works in their own right, while others will serve more as "visual note-taking" that will help me when I'm painting in my studio.

I've been sorting through my photos (a Herculean task) and find that I am drawn to the ones that focus in on individuals. It is the people that impressed me the most, and I think that my paintings are going to be about them. I' m excited to get started!

Back to China

"So, how was your trip to China? Tell me about it." A simple enough request. Still, I don't quite know what to say.

I experienced something that was so different culturally and sensually (sights, sounds, smells, tastes) that it was a little overwhelming. Everything was new and exciting and exotic at first. (Sorry I couldn't post more stories and observations then; I was limited by time and spotty access to a computer). It was all Fantastic and Fabulous! What an Adventure life in China is!

But over the course of the three weeks, my senses began to reattach themselves to my brain. I started to get tiny glimpses into the reality of life in rural China. I began to recognize that I had been experiencing things on a Disney level (not good for an NPR gal).

For example, when I first saw how they spread out the grain on the streets of Xi Zhou, I thought it was quaint and I took lots of pictures. The grain dries there as people walk over it and vehicles drive over it, which aids in the threshing process. Ingenious.

But as I started to travel certain roads daily, I saw the same people there, beating the piles with wooden implements, over and over and over (and over and over...). It gets less quaint each time, as you begin to see the effort involved in cultivating a small amount of food.


And it was later still that I noticed how weather-beaten and how old some of the people were that were doing the work. They've been on the hot street, sweeping and whacking and sifting grain for untold years.

No wonder they looked at us quizzically as we snapped endless photos of them doing these things. It would be like someone shooting pictures of me cleaning my brushes for the thousandth time and thinking, "How quaint."

So, when people ask me to tell them about China, I'm a bit reluctant because I know how little I know. I want to tell the truth, but I only know a little bit of it. I will continue to share what I experienced if you promise not to extrapolate too far and think that "that's how things are" in China. China is HUGE and varied and fascinating.

Look to the Hamster

There's a reason the old saying is "Go west, young man!" Going west results in exciting discoveries, the taming of unexplored territories, challenges that are met and fears that are conquered. It is the stuff of which legends are made.

Going east results in discovering that you can't remember your own name, the turning of familiar places into unrecognized territories, challenges that are met with a whimper and fears that you will never again think clearly.

Going east results in jet lag.

I had such an easy time adjusting to China that I naively thought I would have little trouble readjusting to Chicago time. Wrong-o! It seems that traveling east disrupts our circadian rhythm in ways that traveling west does not. I was barely functional for three days, and entirely uninteresting for several more.

Had I but submitted myself to Scripture, I would have had an easier time of it. There is a verse which says,"Look to the hamster, thou sluggard" (not a word-for-word translation). Apparently, studies have shown that hamsters who use Viagra have a 50% faster recovery rate from jet lag-like symptoms than those who don't.* (A follow-up study is being planned to determine any corollary incidence of hamster participation in The Mile High Club).

It is clear from the content of this posting that I am still a bit loopy. I probably should have taken Viagra and I definitely should have refrained from posting for a couple more days...

*this is considered an "off-label use" by the drug's manufacturers. I'm sure it's the only one...

Fuzzy

I'm home. I'm tired. I'm fuzzy.

Yesterday, I woke up in China at 4:30 AM. Twenty-seven hours later (26 of which I was awake for; I didn't want to miss any of the discomfort of airplane seats...) I was in my own bed. Bliss! I fell asleep at 7:30 PM, fully expecting to sleep through until morning. Not so. I awoke at 1:00 AM. Wide awake. Get-up-and-do-stuff awake.

I'm hungry, but I don't know whether to eat breakfast or dinner. (If I were still in China it wouldn't matter, I'd just eat some rice and eggs).

Even though I am home, I will continue to post to the blog for a while longer, so keep checking it. I'll add photos and tell you a few more stories.

Not today, though. Today I am boring.

Line up for Autographs

Two great things happened yesterday.

Event #1: I became a TV star. (As a result, I'm not actually posting this myself; I have people for that now...)

What? You hadn't heard? I'm everywhere, absolutely everywhere! Okay, maybe not everywhere. In fact, it's likely that I am on the cutting room floor (or trapped inside that little trash can icon on a computer screen in Beijing. Please recycle me).

A crew from China TV came to Xi Zhou and filmed us painting in the courtyard of the Linden Centre. Do you know how hard it is to "act natural?"

I'm staring intently at my painting. Am I frowning too much while I'm staring? I'm squinting into the distance. Do I look serious, or like I'm still adjusting to my progressive lenses? I just smiled at something Ned said. Oh no, do the photographers think I'm trying to pose for the camera? I want to look at Marci's painting, but the photographer might be over there and I don't want to appear to be camera-hungry. Just. Act. Natural.

Event#2 - The Linden Centre acquired a puppy, the best puppy ever. Eight weeks of cuteness in one little body. His feet have hardly touched the ground since he arrived. We haven't come to blows over him... but we will.

These two events may seem to be unrelated, but not to the media savvy. I think there is an extremely good chance I will appear on national Chinese television. The crew shot a good bit of footage of me holding the puppy, me playing with the puppy, me carrying the puppy around to look at everyone's paintings. If they don't crop in too closely on the puppy... I'm a STAR!

Highlight

I spoke too soon when I wrote that meeting the old gentleman calligrapher would be the highlight of my trip. Yesterday, something even more wonderful happened:

I was able to buy M&Ms.