Art for Japan Raffle Winner

We’ve announced a winner in our Art for Japan raffle, the details are here: http://www.artwithin.net/artforJapan.html.

More from China

The company team.

More process.

These big figures (each about 7 feet tall) hold such a peaceful quiet place….. in spite of the heat, hard work, and intensity!

Kneeling figure taking shape

My big kneeling figure is coming together. All these parts are laying around in bronze after the hardened sand mold is beaten and ground off of them. Then the parts are welded together and chased (grinding and shaping at the joints, putting the texture back in) It is amazing to see how it takes shape again. I understand that only half of the work is done when it comes out of the mold. Still so much to do.

Meeting Mr. Deng

As I am flying along on this high speed train (271 km/hr!) between Nanjing and Shanghai, I have awhile to myself. It has been a full week traveling with our family to retrace the journey our grandfather traveled 100 years ago before he settled in Xuzhou and lived there for 40 years. The stories that I have heard in the past about my grandparents and parents in China have become real in meeting people that remembered them and what they did, hearing their stories, and being in the places where they lived and worked.

Yesterday we went to visit the church that our grandparents went to in Xuzhou. It was a big warm welcome there and a sermon on friendship and exuberant singing! After the service we were taken into the head office, an old high ceilinged small room where we crowded in and were served tea, nuts and fruit. The pastor and others told us all about their vibrant church and all the things they are doing (clinic, nursing home, volunteers, youth group, every night a gathering at the church, two church services since there are so many people).

Then a tall older gentleman, about 80 years old, Mr. Deng, stood up and began to speak in a deep heartfelt voice. He had come up from Shanghai to meet us. He said I want to tell you about my growing up in Xuzhou. My father was the body guard of your grandparents in Xuzhou. He lived in one of the houses of the missionary compound. He said in those times there were bandits and theives and foreigners needed protection. We were all moved to tears as he told his story

In 1938 when Japanese invaded Xuzhou, (Nanjing and other cities and areas of China) it was extremely difficult war times. He remembers Gramma and Grampa taking into their home and compound many many Chinese who were desperately looking for protection from the brutal Japanese invading forces. Every day they let in more people, as many as could fit in. Mr Deng remembered his father going with Frank Brown to the Japanese with a truck to buy food as the food was cut off to the Chinese. Frank Brown paid in US dollars for flour and rice to feed the people in their compound. Mr. Brown even went to the Japanese headquarters and told them that they were doing wrong. The Japanese did not enter the compound and the people there were safe. Gramma and Grampa saved the lives of 2500 people. They are regarded as the Rabe of Xuzhou. Rabe was a well known and honored German Nazi who saved the lives of thousands of Chinese in Nanjing during the time of the massacre there by the Japanese.

Mr. Deng asked if we wanted to know any more about grampa and gramma. He remembered planting vegetables with Gramma, tomatoes, beans. He remembered they would get their water from the rain. We didn’t have more time with him but had the feeling there was more to hear.

We thanked him for telling us this about our grandparents and acknowledged that our grandparents couldn’t have done their work without the help of his grandfather.

photos:

Sunday morning at the church our grandparents used to attend in Xuzhou.

(the 3 men, left Mr. Deng, middle Mr. Wang, right, Mr. Wang’s nephew who is fluent in English)

Mr. Deng speaking about his and our grandparents.

Grampa’s journey

While I was in China I took a trip for a week with my cousins and sister to follow the route that our Grampa traveled 100 years ago, from Shanghai to Nanjing and Xuzhou where my grandparents lived for 40 years and where my father was born. Our grandmother had come to China several years earlier following her sister.

My father returned in the mid 40′s to the China he loved with his young family to work as a medical doctor in his home town of Xuzhou. They left in 1949 when the communists took over, a year before I was born. I kept thinking if the politics had been different I would have grown up in Xuzhou instead of Japan.

We met Mr. Wang (a well known caligrapher) who remembered with emotion his grandfather talking about how our grandfather saved his life twice, intervening once when he was imprisoned by the Japanese in the 30′s, the second time when he had cholera and Grampa got the needed medical treatment for him.

The photo is of Mr. Wang and his son looking with excitement at our father’s childhood photo album, recognizing a photo of his father as a child! I think photos of this city and people back in the 20′s, 30′s are rare. It was very moving for all of us to meet this man and his family.

It was a wonderful trip, also getting to know my cousins who I rarely see, a couple of whom have maintained connections to China for decades. My cousin Mary, an expert on China, directed an organization that hosted exchange groups of science professionals between the US and China for many years beginning in the 70′s when China first opened up to the West. A group of agricultural professionals from China was visiting in the west with Mary leading the group. One evening at dinner to break the ice, Mary asked if each person would introduce themselves. She began with a few words about herself, telling about her interest in China and about her father and grandparents living in Xuzhou. As she was speaking the man across the table stood up excitedly and asked if her father was Tommy Brown! She said yes! His father and Tommy Brown were good childhood friends and used to play together! This man is now a soybean expert in China and the brother of Mr. Wang, the calligrapher.

We climbed the 392 steps to the top of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s masoleum (a well known revolutionary). In our father’s photo album was this same scene taken in 1932 when he was on a summer trip, the surrounding area totally barren at that time.

other photos: Cousin Mary and my sister Carol

Top of old city wall of Xuzhou

In the park

The skyscrapers were spectacular, as we rode in to Shanghai at dusk (workshop is about an hour outside of the city) for the festivities of the opening of the Jing’an International Sculpture Project. It is a 5 year project of the Jing’an district of Shanghai to create an international presence. This is a gorgeous and intimate park, free for the public, with about 58 sculptures. They plan to place sculpture out along the streets, near the metro, everywhere! This is one of Antoine Poncet’s marble sculptures, a lovely gentleman, very well known artist from France.

Everywhere you go there are huge apartment buildings, power lines and buildings under construction. Shanghai has close to 20 million people! In a midday summer downpour people on the street crowded under the shop awnings and in doorways to wait out the rain. I did too! Cool hand made cart!

Figures in a park

We installed the three bronze figures on Sunday in the blazing heat at Jing’an International Sculpture Park in Shanghai. You could have cooked an egg on the bronze. As it turned out we didn’t have to go so early. It just so happened my sister was visiting me that day, very exciting! There were plenty of men to move the pieces onto the big rock steps at the park. It was a humbling feeling to leave my pieces alone in the middle of Shanghai as we headed back to the workshop. They look great there.

Back in China

I’m back in Nanhui. Things are moving fast here, everyone working hard long hours with the sculpture park opening and exhibition coming up in the next 3 weeks. My big sitting figures are looking good and will be installed in the park in Shanghai on Sunday. I think we have to get there before 8 am so the big truck doesn’t tie up traffic. Each of the three figures weighs about 900 lbs I believe. All very exciting!

Pouring bronze

They poured the bronze a couple days ago, into the sand mold of my first two sitting figures that i made in April. And that 3rd photo is the next day breaking it out of the mold. See just the torso and legs (arms are separate). That’s Chalong, a Thai guy that I worked with 17 years ago in Thailand! the others are Thai guys who worked at the same foundry. They are really taking good care of me! I am coming down the home stretch to finish this kneeler. yippee!

In the kitchen

Our cook shops and hauls in all the food for 15 or more hungry people for lunch and dinner, 5 days a week! Most of the people in this small company have homes far away but live here now during the week. The food is great, 4-6 different dishes of local fresh food every meal. We all eat together around this table and in the kitchen. (This photo was taken in April when it was cold and there were half as many people to feed.) On the weekends we’re on our own cooking at the main house.