It's Just a Walk in the Park

8/03/08 Sunday
In the morning I looked out the hotel window and the sky was clear, no smog at all, b-e-a-utiful and cool. Work at the studio progressed at a rapid pace even without my assistant Yu, was out with a tooth infection. He had stopped in briefly just to let me know what was going on, he looked swollen on the left side of his lower jaw, no joking with him today because I could tell he was in pain. Chun Hua found another assistant to help me, one not needed by another artist for today, which was lucky for me. I felt back to my old self today, I think I slept better, or I may have been fighting off a bug, whatever the case, I worked hard all morning and lunch came quickly. After lunch Michael Warrick and I had discussed going to a huge market that we heard about from other artists. The plan was to go back to the studio and pick up our interpreters, then grab a cab to the market and be back to the studio before the bus arrived to pick us up. However, after we returned to the studio after lunch, we both wanted to do a little work on our sculptures, and before you know it I couldn’t stop. We were all forced to stop for a brief moment for photo opportunity just outside the main entrance to the studio. (Pictured above) The plan to go shopping just kept getting pushed back, much to the disappointment of our female interpreters who like to shop. After that, Chun Hua accused me of being a workaholic. Regardless, the third plywood form was half full (I prefer to look at it that way) by 3:30, I figured that it was a good place to stop, get away from the noise of the studio, and have Chun Hua take me for a walk into the park to enjoy the sunny weather. This made her quite happy again and she was a delight chattering on about many interesting subjects about Chinese culture, in addition to tongue twisters in English and Chinese…”what are woodchucks, and rubber baby…what” ?