Work and Play

Good afternoon, at least it is here..3:25 pm

The past few days have been intense working days

in the studio but also time spent planning our

trip to Shanghai when we leave here in 2 weeks.

We are at our halfway mark for the residency,

the days roll into each other. When I am in the

studio its morning and I am involved with the

work and look up and realize its been many hours-

guess thats a good sign..but whew I feel it today.

Yesterday I struggled on a piece all day just 

about gave up and started back on it today, it

has transformed into something I like but you

never would have known what it looked like yesterday,

layers and layers..next time I will take a photo

and show you the before and after. 

Here's a photo of someone learning the language,

love the way they take this huge brush dip it in

water and practice on the sidewalk, it stopped

me in my tracks when I saw it. The language has

so much character and feels so precise, what a

challenge to learn it, although I met a German

woman who lives here and said it was easy

once she got into it, but she has been here for

a year

Here is a door with streamers on the street we walk on daily..it feels festive but

is someone's front door

Today Mike was out and about without me..he rode his bike to Liao's house and had tea, Liao is an artist who works at the Red Gate, he is a very nice person and next week he is going to take us to meet his friend who has a secret tea shop, his friend's father was a tea broker from the south area, Liao says they have the best tea in the country, I'll keep you posted

What a sweetie, he also went to the art supply store for me today to buy spray fixative and glue so I could keep working

The past week the weather has been unbelievable, blue skies for Beijing..we keep expecting the hot stuff and sure it will come but we are grateful for the coolness, I even wore a long sleeved top riding my bike to dinner last night, there has been a

great breeze, the rains help!

Mike said he liked this photo of me because it was candid 

Tomorrow were going to an opening at the Red Gate Gallery

and next week a day trip to the Great Wall, so much

fun stuff, balancing the work and play