China is Near

A brilliant and brilliantly disturbing work by Stamps School alumnus Mike Kelly, which we saw in the exhibition Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries by Artists at Shanghai Power Station of Art.  This was one of the most comprehensive shows devoted to the 20th- and 21-st century fibers art organized in the last several decades.

It was then almost ironic that I felt so distant from the people because I did not understand them. Even more so when the hotel staff or waiters often talked to me directly in Chinese in the absence of the much-appreciated CET guides, because they assumed that I was one of them. I never imagined – on the contrary, I most likely did imagine but had forgotten that language could be such a significant factor in fully immersing myself a foreign culture. Because of this, I have begun to think about where I am in a larger sense. The places I feel comfortable in, like Seoul, Auckland, and Ann Arbor, are only the tiniest bubbles compared to the land of China or the rest of the world. This time I left my bubble voluntarily; it may not be so in the future. There are more people who do not speak the same languages as me than who do out there and while this thought is scary, it also reminds me there is much to explore in this world. I felt confused and frustrated at times in the midst of foreign people trying to communicate, however as the saying goes, all’s well that ends well.

While visiting the Swatch Artist Residency program in Shanghai, we were invited into the studio of American sculptor Don Porcella who was so kind and generous with his time, talking about his interest in China, contemporary culture and above all, the pipe cleaning wire brush, which he uses to make his work and which lead him to China.  Thank you Don!

Our last lunch together in China, at a dive restaurant with excellent, scrumptious food.  We shared stories, great food and celebrated this amazing adventure in China.

A fantastic mobile sculpture installation made with three dimensional Chinese characters and situated inside the Swatch Peace Art Hotel  in Shanghai where we visited the studio of artist Colette Fu in early June.

A highly detailed mezzotint etching created by a student from the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing Printmaking Department, one of the works we saw in the CAFA 2014 Annual Student Exhibition.

Upon arriving in China, I was very shocked at the amount of tea consumed at each meal. Tea was always the first item brought to the table, and was constantly refilled throughout the entirety of the meal. I have never been an avid tea drinker, so being immersed in a culture that takes tea very seriously was both an interesting and exciting experience. I was able to see and walk through large tea fields, while simultaneously learning the trade of tea picking and tea making. Not only were the tea fields vast and dense, those working the fields had to have enough agility to walk throughout the fields while carrying large baskets to keep the harvested tea leaves in. Depending on the time of the year when the leaves are picked, they will either be very flavorful or very bitter. The largest type of tea consumed in China is green tea, and I learned throughout the course of this trip that green tea serves as a very beneficial medicine to the human body with a large amount of benefits. This tiny caffeinated and nutrient filled leaf has a market all its own in China. It is absolutely incredible to consider that such a tiny piece of nature plays such a large role in a single culture.

In many ways, it felt as if we returned to the ‘Old China’ in which the landscape cannot be separated from Chinese culture. I don’t think I would have been able to understand what that is if we didn’t spend the weekend trekking out to this monastery and, the following day, visiting a national park known for its waterfalls. Here it became clear why the landscape is a favorite subject matter in Chinese classical landscape painting. I think these experiences also tie back to the lecture Endi Poskovic gave us about abstracting landscapes. I can already see a change in the way I approach my personal more abstract work because of my time spent here in the Zhejiang Province.

Interior windows-exterior door of a private home garden in a secluded part of Shanghai.

Jorge photographed behind old glass windows of a Ming Dynasty era private home garden in Shanghai.

The work of Los Angeles artist Jim Isermann, which was saw in the Decorum: Carpets and Tapestries by Artists at Shanghai Power Station of Art, an exhibition organized by the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Singing Water Taxi along the ancient water canal in Suzhou 

A rainy day in Suzhou with Liz and Sherry 

supercool hipster boys from Shenzhen!

"A Family Portrait", a water-based painting by a student work from the Department of Chinese Painting  from the 2014 China Academy of Art Annual Student Exhibition.

People dancing in Shanghai!

A student work from the Department of Chinese Painting depicting traditional Chinese landscape  exhibited in the 2014 China Academy of Art Annual Student Exhibition.