Last words....

In the last words of my artistic concept:

"In this world of turmoil, both environmentally and emotionally induced, how do we maintain our sense of home, our center of calm? The interior innocence we were born with is still with us every day as we make and repeat our daily patterns, whether we are aware of it or not. Yet, it is easy to become so focused on our daily patterns that we forget about our home, our spiritual center. Thus, the interior of the shipping container is designed to be a space for meditation on the true self. The interior of the container is completely naked and empty, except for a large glowing star-shaped wound at the end, our entry and exit from this body. I invite you to come inside and to experience your primeval home." 

Open for business

The sign is up and we are open for business as of today! 

The weather has turned chilly for our opening week. But all the more reason to imbibe in hot tea by professional brew masters during the day....Lea's family friend's business here. 

And more beer in the evening.....

And still have time to admire many of the other containers by moonlight.....

 Marc added the lanterns from Meinung into the interior of his project for a beautiful effect.  Earlier the team wrapped itself inside for a journalist photo-op.......

 Marc is there with the architects from Spain and as well as the museum curator of the festival.....note the floating container in the sky.  It lasted a few days before it popped.

 

The Italians Ba and Anna created a magical invironment of streams of white yarn knitted into chains representing soft rain with a swing in the middle.

Weekend in Taipei

So...last weekend I took the High Speed Rail to Taipei and spent an entire afternoon in the National Palace Museum.  Please forgive me if I don't have the facts just right, but, best I understand, they have the ENTIRE emperor's collection---yes, generations of art treasures originally housed in the Forbidden city in Beijing.  This collection was whisked away to Taiwan during a war in which people feared it would be destroyed.  http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/home.htm

It was amazing, if not overwhelming....ink paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, carved objects of jade, furniture....all of exquisite quality.  My favorites were the landscape paintings of a buddhist monk Lu Hong (sp? bad memory on my part) and the 17th - 20th century intricate curio boxes.  The monk lived in a thatch hut and would venture out between his meditations to create ethereal poetry and paintings about nature. 

The curio boxes are like puzzles that require you to play with them to figure out how to open each part....and the parts slowly reveal dainty little objects of delight. 

I had dinner with the awesome friends of Darcy, Carl and Nat (Ferris wheel at the mall):

 The next day, Sam took me to the town of Yingge, which was known for its production of ceramics.  Thank you so much Sam for the most fun day I have had in Taiwan so far!!  Okay, this was the highlight of my trip.  The ceramics museum was a gorgeous contemporary design housing ceramics from neolithic to present with several themed exhibits by contemporary artists.  I will allow just a few images to tell the story....

This is the garden outside the restaurant where we had a late lunch.....dinner down at the ocean but no pics.  

Ready for inspection

She is ready for inspection......

This morning I cleaned out the interior of the container and made minor repairs.  Put out the welcome mat....it's in Chinese.  Tomorrow we will be interviewed by Kaohsiung journalists.

Took lots of photos of the finished product, although hard to get details with this wide-angle lens.

 I actually did have enough time.....

 The famous puzzle installed.....

 And coffee a little later with AndrewBinkley (Hawaii), Marc (Spain), and Xavier Cortado (Florida) who just arrived.

Halleluya!

I finished the container design on Friday.  It was a hard push....scrambling to find tools like a drill, a saw, the right screws....and helpers to make the interior screen for the project. 

Many thanks to Yiren (from Oklahoma/Taiwan) and Ba and Anna (from Italy) who helped me with the design of the Chinese character "good" on the doors.  The characters just were not reading from a distance on the doors.  We thought about covering the entire door with the silvery vinyl tape and cutting out the letters; thought about painting a white line around the letters, or a black line; had settle on the possbility of painting a large circle around the character---Chinese way of setting off a character.  But finally Marc (from Spain) came in with some black electric tape and suggested I outline the characters with that....oila!  It works.

(Pictures did not come out but will upload some when it stops raining!)

Then onto that dastardly screen whose design had been changing daily....if not hourly over past week.  Many thanks to Richard (New York) who helped me construct it and settle on the best way to install it in the back of the container. 

I ran all day toward the finish line....finishing about 6 pm....just in time for beer.  I only had a wide-angle lens to photograph the interior.....thus the bowed lines.

In the end, this labor of love, my 'true home', became a labor of communal love.  I am so grateful to my dear freinds for their assistance on that last day.  xxxooo

More news on the festival event coming soon....