Transparency

“There is a male artist… He lived for a period of time in a big box made of glass so that other people are able to see through and know what he is doing inside that confined room.” This is the part of the discussion I caught between Ms. Smith and other students last week in class while I was working on my painting. To be quite honest, “pervert” and “weirdo” were the two words for that female artist as well as for people who would like to watch him that came up to my mind at that moment. However, I started to understand this when I was watching other people playing squash in the other day.

As an audience, I was no different from those people who had watched that artist. On the one hand, we, people who are outside of the box, are interested in find out what is going on in that small space. This is the point where the wall made of glass plays an important role; the transparency allows us, the audience, to look through. On the other hand, we enjoy the fulfillment of knowing everything of that limited space and the sense of being omniscient. We suppose that they do not know about us as much as we know about them since we gratuitously believe that the world we are living in, contradicting to their small boxes, is too big to know well. However, the fact is that there is no difference between the people inside and the people outside. As soon as they walk out of that space, he squash players and that artist both live in the same world as we do. It is just the matter of the transparency of the wall.

My point is that we, mankind, are all living in a confined world. But the walls that confine us are too transparent to realize and see, or we have gotten used to live with limited space. Unlike the squash players and the artist who clearly know where that transparent exit door is, we do not. The path of escaping from the stereotype as well as from this “imprison” is almost extremely difficult yet still possible.  

My initial plan for this painting of rowing is to show the abysmal condition of rowers on erg and to try a different painting style. I was petrified by the difficulty of abstract painting; I have always thought that those who do abstract things are just unable to paint or draw realistically. But this painting has proved  my misconception.

Unlike realistic painting which contains a sufficient amount of details for people to read, abstract painting somehow needs to be laconic yet still makes good sense to readers.

Anyway, although this painting of rowing does not turn out to be as abstract as I initially planned, I enjoy it a lot. It really demonstrates my pain while erging.

I just finished talking to my mother, shouting, may I clarify. Like always, I felt so awful during the talk and even more awful after this talk. As I recall our conversation as well as conversations we had before this one, I do not understand why I get so mad every time I talk to her. But as soon as I hanged up my phone, regrets prevailed in my heart. She is always so kind on the other side of the phone, seven thousand miles away in China. She would have shouted back if we were to talk face to face. But she did not do so in the phone. She is always so patient in the phone maybe because she does not want us not to talk to each other for a month, maybe because she feels it enough for her to hear my voice, no mater nice or mean, maybe because she does not want me to have no one to turn into when I have a hard time here in Tabor, maybe because she understands that I am not in a good mood every time I talk to her, maybe because she is my mom. I hope she understands how much I love her even though I shout at her in the phone, hope she still loves me as much as she did before the phone call, hope she does not cry alone on the other side of the phone, and hope she is happy and healthy with or without me on her side.

“Please, just a little more patience next time.”

My next painting will be about rowing. As I start to recall my rowing experience from the past three years, what jump out of my mind are miserable memories of workouts on the erg, full of exhaustions and pains. All the curses I had during those pieces are still vivid in my mind. I wonder why I have stayed in rowing even though I hate it so much. However, looking at where I end up right now, I am delighted.

I started my rowing career in my freshmen year, a week after the spring season started. Before that, I was in the tennis team. And one day I heard a coxswain shouting as I was passing by hoyt. I looked at the wake made of the varsity boat gliding through the water glistening in the sunlight. It was quite something at that point of my life. I admired the powerful lines reflected in the water from the four oars on each side and the elegantly patterned vigorous rowing paces of the crew. I got a vicarious feeling of myself sitting in that boat and rowing under the sun set.

I still remember the sunrise when I was in my boat on water at 5 A.M. It was never the same view from the land. All pains were superficial at that moment. I felt so honored and proud to be an oarsman.

First thing is the first. I would first like to reveal how miserable erging can be.

Finally, my painting of "I, painting horse" has drawn to the end after almost three weeks. Let me do a few self analysis.

The biggest problem of this painting is that "the big horse", "the horse group of four", and "the man in pink suit" do not quite get along with each other. What I mean by saying “do not quite get along” is that these three parts of my painting all seem to be the main characters. Most books contain only one protagonist and one antagonist; to the most extreme extent, a few antagonists may apply but no more than one protagonist. Although books are not quite the same as paintings, they certainly share something in common. Given the fact that neither the horses nor I is the antagonist, I suppose there are three leading roles currently in my painting, all with splendid colors and compassed by colors even more sumptuous.

The reason for this problem is that I did not brainstorm that much before I started working on it. Like writing a prose, I put down my thoughts randomly. The theme or topic stays the same, but my way to approach this topic changes throughout.

2013/10/8

Everyday is loaded with unreasonablly massive amount of work. While painting my horses firstly seems to be the only time during the day I can get rid of all the physical and mental pressure, I later realized that this, the only seemingly "relaxing" activity, is totally depends on how well I perform on the canvass. For those time I enjoy myself and my horses, every hour wears on me like minutes. However, unfortunately, vice versus.

I have to admit that drawing and painting, or the process of learning drawing and painting, do not work the same way in China, where I can "copy" other people's work in order to develop my own sense of beauty and skills. "That's copying other people's work"; yelled by my lovely art teacher Ms.Smith. Cannot disagree more.

As for my choice of animals, I think horses look cool, at least cooler than the pigs, though they are equally edible in China, might I add.

I finished one of my five horses today. They say that the thing one draw or paint always look like the one. I hope this well-know and well-convinced concept is nor necessarily true for me. My horse looks much cooler than i do.

2013/10/8

I know blog keeps dates on tract for me, but still would like to see the dates typed by my own hands since paper dairy has becom a history.