Phew! It has been another busy day, and two long traffic jammed bus rides to and from the SFAI new campus, although admittedly I fell asleep on both the way there and back. I have not yet had a bus journey Chongqing where I have not nodded off – it must be the combination of the heat and purring engine.
This morning Jessica took me to the Masters Printmaking studio where I could print my woodblocks. Two English speaking Masters students helped with with the equipment. It was a shame that their press was broken so we had to burnish by hand with spoons, and took a lot longer, and several times the paper moved so we had to start again. The paper I had been advised to use what not the best, and also the board was not so strong, so we had some difficulties with printing, and in the end an MA student gave me some paper to achieve a better print. Due to doing by hand the paper has picked up a lot of extra marks, and even though I am going to work onto them further, I am not as happy I had hoped I would be with them. I am thinking about doing another one, but I really need to move onto an installation.
It was really interesting to watch their approach to printmaking, and the department, including the office were very, very welcoming to me. I will have to give them a special thank you.
I also visited the Sculpture graduate exhibition, the New Media graduate exhibition, and an exhibition by the second year students (which one of YanYan’s students, Shu Wen is in). There is always so much to see and do.
I am starting to become aware that I will really miss it here when I leave. It is fantastic to have all day, every day to focus on work. Despite communication difficulties at times, it is a productive time for me. China has been both what I expected and not what I expected. I have travelled a lot in Asia, as well as living in Japan for 18 months, so I had anticipated life slowed down to miscommunication, and the feelings of being the show pony spotted in the supermarket for a photograph (which I was very tired of by the end of my time in Japan). But I don’t mind it so much as the attention will only be for the next few weeks, and the Chinese I have met although interested in foreigners, are more nonchalant than the Japanese. My experiences living here is of a more relaxed society, but unfortunately, hygiene is questionable at times!
I am going to continue developing the prints tommorow…..
