Pieces coming together

For the past week, I have left a jigsaw puzzle out every day for anyone passing by to work on. The puzzle is a Thomas Kinkade painting of "home"....a log cabin set in a pastoral landscape.  Tomorrow morning it will be the last object placed on the container wall; and the final star-shaped wounds will be applied.

 The placement of the stars has gone very quickly....instead of being several days behind, I am now several days ahead.  However, it continues to be sunny, which makes work very difficult in the middle part of the day.....and yet the sun goes down and it is DARK by 5:30 pm.  This makes for a shorter work day lately.  That Taiwanese one of the artists lent me has been a blessing.

Dirty, gritty, grimey.....

Early morning unflurling of the plastic film that covered the exposed, glued objects on the container.....wind caused beautiful whiplach shapes worth sharing.  Last night the guard complained that someone might steal the household objects, several delectable children's toys and videos just waiting to be plucked from their plastic sleeves.  So I complied with the filmy covering for the night. 

From my proposal: "Those regular patterns are altered at times by the wounding we experience from others as our true selves are slowly molded and domesticated for this world.  These wounds are necessary; they can even be thought of as beautiful.  However each of us receives and reacts to our wounds slightly differently. Thus the layers of our protective covering evolve in individual ways, giving us our unique personalities." 

This may look like fun, but trust me....it is dirty, gritty, grimey work. It has been sunny for the past two days, which means from 11 in the morning until about 2:30 in the afternoon I am drenched in sweat. The air is actually fairly cool, but the sun has an intensity I can only describe as TROPICAL.

Still shopping every day for supplies....great time to get out of the heat.  And working into the evening......the container is becoming quite beautiful at night.  Will try to get a better shot tomorrow where you can see all the colored reflections in the star-wounds. 

Household Objects

I have been gluing hosehold objects collected in San Antonio and in Kaohsiung to the walls of the container.  The star-shaped wounds will eventually cover them. 

From my proposal: "The protective covering of the shipping container, composed of bands of reflective adhesive tape, includes both a regular repeating pattern and star-shaped wounds, whose placement evolves organically and circumstantially.  The mirror-like finish of the tape constantly reflects you, other people, and the colors of the environment where it is located.  Trapped in the protective covering are the objects of the world that we collect and identify as “home”; the things we believe are building our identity; that we think are making us secure.  These objects are universal to most households around the world, since these very shipping containers are constantly transporting them back and forth across the seas.  The objects cling to the surface of the container and are caught up in the wounds, like debris washed up on a shore."

 

On Friday, the person who will be workin on the container next to mine, New York artist Richard Humann, arrived.  His project is to create a global map that documents where his shipping container has been for the past 11years of its life.  As an historian of ports, I find his concept intriguing.  Wish I had thought of that!  http://2011container.kmfa.gov.tw/home02.aspx?ID=$3001&IDK=2&AP=$3001_SK-^$3001_PN-2^$3001_HISTORY-0

   

Thanksgiving Day

Although Thanksgiving Day is not a holiday in Taiwan, I found a way to celebrate it with Jin and Lea. We went to a marvelous, authentic Taiwanese restaurant called Amy's and had a feast.  Soup, Ma Po tofu, Drunken chicken, Cod with a wonderful cake-thick crumbly crust on top, and bamboo shoot salad. The seasoning of each dish was subtle, delicate and delightful. Yum!

 

 We are posing in front of a wedding carriage, an artifact inside the restaurant. It is the kind they carry the bride in to the groom's family....sometimes a long trip.

A day's work

 


It took another day and night to finish the repeating patterns on both sides of the container....with a break for shopping for materials  in bewtween.  It is cool in the mornings and evenings here but around noon the sun gets REALLY intense, even for a Texas girl, and we have to stop. 

I knew shopping in Taiwan was going to be fabulous, since just about everything I own at home is made in China.  But I wasn't sure how I would go about getting construction materials and things like extension cords and specialty glues.  Nothing to worry about there---Kaohsiung has its own version of Home Depot called the B & Q!! 

Work, work, work.....

This was a tough day....up the ladder...down the ladder.....all day long. The rays of the star-wound on the back end of the container were extended to radiate their effect through out the body. And then, the first changes of domestication were registered: "Our body, our container, moves every day through a sea of visual imagery, sounds, voices, and emotional and physical stresses. As we grow, we develop repeating patterns of behavior based on the content of that sea. Those patterns form a protective covering that make it easier navigate the world." The vertical strips applied down both sides represent the monotony of repeating patterns that we learn early in life that construct our "day".

I am greatly indebted to Chih-Han, one of the museum's curatorial assistants, who is the "right arm" for 3 of the artists at the festival site.  She is our magic problem-solver and contact for the vendors who provide supplies and labor when needed.  Could not complete this project without her wonderful help!!

And the ever-present Jin and Lea who have made life here quite joyous!





A star is born

Today I got the first star-wound in place at the end of the container.  This is symbolically the birth of the project; the star represents the entry and exit point into the container, into the body,into our life on this planet. At this juncture, I realize that many of you may not be familiar with the artistic concept for the project, so as the design evolves, day by day, I will present the relevant ideas.

"Artbitat," the theme of the festival, signifies "art-as-home".  A quote from the beginning of my proposal explains: "Although we most often think of home as a place, fundamentally, our physical and spiritual home is our body.  We are born into this world in a naked and vulnerable container with an interior innocence of pure light.  Every person’s home is the same at the core.  However, with the progression of time, the container is forced to evolve."  Stay tuned for the evolution that will take place over the coming days......

And, by the way, we are having fun too!  Mmmm......authentic bubble tea.......

                               Chih-Han, Shelley and Jin