Drawer 4.3: Wish You Happy Year of the Monkey!

Well, here we go: another China year for us. We've been working our way thru the 12 year cycle of the Shengxiao (生肖), the Chinese zodiac. Our first Chinese New Year in Shanghai we met the Rooster...which means...omg!...we arrived in a Monkey year! We thought we'd stay 2 years, maybe 3 & here we are full cycle! 

Those of you who are Monkeys...born in 1932, 44, 56, 68, 80, 92, 2004...might want to visit Drawer #1.4 to catch up on protecting yourself in your ben ming nian (本命年), your zodiac year. It's all about Red Underwear. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I've been in North Carolina all of January with my head happily down at a Winter Residency at the Penland School of Crafts. I was there, at the invitation of Kathryn Gremley, Penland's Gallery Director, (super big thanks, Kathryn!) to work on an installation for an interesting wedge of outdoor space created by the addition of a new gallery building. 

But I also had fun with the yards & yards of the red fabric called Dong Bei Large Flower Cloth I laid it out as part of my April installation at the Hillyer Art Space in D.C. Dong Bei is a province in  Northwest China (though in Chinese that's Westnorth.) but the fabric is favored all over China. By color - red is for happiness - & imagery - the cloth is associated with domesticity & marriage; it's traditionally used for marriage bed duvets (and to decorate Dong Bei restaurants in Shanghai.)  Older Chinese women have a way of putting patterns together that we'd consider mismatched but utterly sings out to me (though I'm too shy to shoot the pics...)  I gave it a try, mixing four different versions of the Dong Bei cloth - some vintage, some contemporary. I learned a lot about pattern and color values but whether it's going to be an audacious addition to the show or an over-the-top failure is yet to be seen...

A few weeks ago He-Whom-I'm-Trailing came home to a pink notice on our front door. Once we got it translated, it forbid the use of fireworks inside the city limits. We were skeptical that this would dampen the show but, indeed, word on the street from Shanghai is that this year there really were no fireworks inside the city limits. I guess that's the safe & prudent way to go but I'm sure glad we were there for the glory days as it gobsmacked us every time...click here for a minute's worth of video of what used to go on for hours & hours...So, this drawer, with its images taken from the spent firework castings that would land on our balcony, is in honor of all that thrilling firepower. Thank you for looking thru the Cabinet with me & Wish You a Happy Year of the Monkey!

Drawer #4.3: from the top 

1. The Chinese Character for Firecracker & a snarl of dragony-looking green tape 

2. A dragon, the highest animal in Chinese mythology, symbolic of males; with a sticker offering services to those migrants in need of a residency permit 

3. A fenghuang a  mythological bird, part phoenix, part peacock, part other things, symbolic of the females; w/ "happy clouds." 

4. Another fenghuang, more happy clouds, all images taken from the decorative wrappers of firecrackers. 

Photo credits: Full drawer, Bruno David; all others, Christina Shmigel

For more Chinese New Year items, check out Drawer #1.4: Chinese Zodiac Animals;
 Drawer #2.2, Things That Don't Fit in a Drawer #4, Things that Don't Fit in a Drawer #3

Drawer #1.3: Predatory Goldfish, on Wheels

…which, actually, with a little research, turns out to be a Predatory Carp.  

Which, according to my Chinese Motifs book, is distinguished by 1. its scales 2. “its wide mouth & two pairs of barbels attached to its upper lip” 3. its long dorsal fin. Homophone Alert: carp is (li 鲤) which, depending on its tone, can mean profit (li 利) or it can mean power (li力)…but a “carp among lotuses (lian lian you yu 莲莲有鱼)"  plays the lian 莲 of lotus against the lian 连 of again (”again and again,”  lian lian 连连 ) and the yu 鱼of fishes against the yu 余 of surplus to wish you again & again may you have an excess of wealth... or carp. 

But calling this drawer CARP wouldn’t really make you want to open it, would it…and open it you should because it’s really about Again & Again, Abundance of Delight. 

Like the pondful of fake lotuses you discover behind the Jade Buddha Temple … 

 and the troves of tassels at the Notions Market…

and the Mid-Lake Teahouse mid-Yu Garden, familiar to you on arriving in Shanghai  from the novel you are reading by Qiu Xiaolong in which policeman/poet Chief Inspector Chen has a clandestine meeting in the 1990's with his informer, Old Hunter. To reach the Teahouse, they, like you, have traversed a demon-defying ”nine-turn” (a.k.a. zigzag) bridge (see drawer 5.3) “full of tourists at every turn: People pointing at the lotus flowers swaying in the breeze, throwing bread crumbs to the golden carp swimming among the blossoms.”  And photographing each other & themselves like mad.

Not to mention the rare delight inside the cabinet of being released from the tyranny of the grid (only 4 other drawers are missing a divider: 1.5, 2.3, 3.2 & 3.5…) so that the goldfish toy, sold by the tiniest, most ancient, slip of a woman from her shop that is merely a cupboard attached to the outside wall of her lane house, can skitter about as the drawer slides open… 

A Swedish friend, just six months into her Shanghai life, asks, “Have you found that your aesthetic changed after you came to China?” How else to explain the hot fuchsia Crocs in my closet, linens on my bed the color of orange marshmallow peanut candies, window curtains covered in sequin daisies...

For other related drawers, see Drawer 5.3 & Drawer 8.3 & Drawer 8.2 to hear the  monks chanting at the Temple...

Drawer 1.3: From top: 1. Chinese Knot Tassels whose color combinations never fail to send me; 2. Carp pull toy with small carp swallowed inside; chinese brocade in water or seaweed pattern; 3. Sample of tea from the Huixinting Tea House, Yu Garden, Shanghai. Photo credits: Full drawer: Bruno David; all others: Christina Shmigel

Drawer # 3.7 : Coral by Sand & by Design

This drawer, with its bits of coral collected on a beach on the Chinese island of Hainan, came to mind as I walked today along a different beach, this one at the edge of a small fishing village on the coast of the South China Sea, just west of Shenzhen. I had imagined, while I packed to come here, sunny weather, temperatures in the mid-70's. But it's raining. And, in order to stay warm in the chill wind, I'm wearing just about everything I brought in my suitcase. Still, it is quite lovely in the quiet emptiness - so unusual for China! - walking along the beach bathed in the violet light cast by my new purple umbrella, purchased at the single shop in Guan He village, the Guan He Department Store, a proper old-fashioned five & dime.

I'm here as one of 6 artists invited for the inaugural residency at iDtown, "an arts district betweens the mountains & the sea." We arrived last Tuesday to find studios not quite ready (surprise) for occupancy but the former factory compound has been wonder enough, leaving me too gobsmacked to even shoot many photos. I'll post more about the factory & the other artists soon but for now here's the view from my studio box out to the end of the studio building, including one of the "la feng" (chinese for "cool") bicycles we use for the 5 minute ride between village & factory...when it's not sheeting down with rain, that is...

The two circular objects included in the drawer are cast ceramic filters for I-know-not-what, purchased in a shop full of other unidentifiable ceramic wonders. Their delicacy & the logic of their design appear to me as the human mind channeling the cleverness of the natural world's design.

In good weather, the village beach is crowded with the froth of brides posing for wedding photos. At the farthest end, there are a series of tableaus, mixing up, like this drawer, the natural & the man-made, in one direction the sea, in the other a factory, plastic gardens in between.

The natural world the manufactured world the invented world colliding into each other...

Drawer #3.7: From top, boxes 1, 2 & 4:  coral collected on Hainan beach; box 3: particle filters made of cast porcelain purchased in the hardware market in Shanghai. Drawer liners: chinese brocade in wave pattern.
Photo credit for full drawer: Bruno David; all others are mine.