Open

With a group of old lady bellydancers and six speeches in Chinees the Guandu Sculpture Festival is opened for public. Sem the chief marketing was so nervous he didn't introduced us properly. Can happen. Afterwards press and bobo's walked the route. Every artist could say something about theit work and that was it. I told about my inspiration, my way of working and the nature is taking the site over again, birds are already sitting on top of the poles... The reactions are good.  Aso the weather was good and  the crowed ok. Afterwards lunch and the black hole. Its strange to work that hard and then suddenly the work is done. A happy and sad moment at the same time. Rest of the day relaxing, took some pictures and went to an opening at the school of art up the hill. Remains two days of public activities and packing and planning for a trip in Taiwan. Wonder how that goes with the language...

Work is done

Its done. Put the last ones up and fixed them. Flock is flying, battery empty. Its all right! 

Creating the Flock of Birds

You're beginning to see it, a flock of birds. Got the lines in. I taped it and it will look like an performance I think. Putting these wavy strings onto the poles with 5 volunteers, Kuang-Chu the transalater and one payed worker Mr. Kuon (or something) plus myself with this chinese had (realy comfortable with the heat!). Started at 6 this morning to connect the biggest one at down the site. Finished this fat one around 9:30 together with Mr. Kuong. Todays heavy work covererd my body all over with scarves and scratches from 'lu wei' reed, bamboo and grass. Like I've been in a Asian war one of my collegues said. It was a good day altough making the composition is hard to do. Its like drawing on a large scale paper in 3D. But fun: this is the real creating! The 3 angles from where you can see my work make it realy difficult to do the right thing. Often work like this is best to experience at the site. Had a good talk about the work I made today together with Jane (curator). Just talked about the composition and lines, nice to have some feed back and discussion. Tomorrow I will do some little changes and adjustments and fix it. So I am on sceduel! Everybody is. The works are looking good; all come to Taipei city for the opening on fryday. Anita and Sil are you coming?! 

The first

Brought today the firts line in , in two parts. Carried this long tail with 7 peolpe. The same who made 3 more lines today. Good work, thanks!! Christeen already arrived at 7:30, what a suprise! My master assisiant, age 15 yrs. Tomorrow last warm day before rain will come again. Will make a long day and try to put, tempory, all the lines in.

Visited a recedency at the Danshui river an later the house and studio of my Taiwanese collegue Chen-sen. Good!

 

More lines to go

Just a short one this time. two blue sky days left. Rain is forecasted the last 4 days including the opening, not so good. Thats why starting early with more lines. Sculpturepoles are waiting for their horizontal 'brothers'. Hopefully tomorow there will be just like today 1o gigling volunteers to make my wavy strings. Been more manager than artist, its all in the game with this kind of large scale pieces. Strange because they do the realy good work wich I would like to do but then I need one more week! Lets go!!!

Horizon

This day was to me a day of the horizon. The horizontal lines are being made now. Find out with a bit help of the reed, bamboo, Roy (Staab), Christeen (talented creator and scout) and myself. It is a good feeling to have that started because this will be the true creating of the work I am making. Will show lots of choises (the amount of the lines: less is more?), the dificulties by fixing onto the vertical poles and ofcourse its shape. The way the curving lines will be. Like Roy said in his lecture; ‘its all about drawing’. In my case drawing this wavy composition. The lectures were good tonight. I was a bit nervous for mine, espacially when my slides turned out to be a sort of wide screen. But on the show it went allright I suppose. Did a short humoristic introduction of ‘Nederland’. Second the work I am making on Guandu and the inspiration and ideas behind it. And ended with a mixture of ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder pictures’ (token the last years and two this morning) and my previous works. After the ‘way to long’ lectures yesterday we (tonights artists) decided to do it more briefly. Aterwards I thought of a lot of explenations and details I could haven given to give my work a better understanding. Anyway it was like this. The others were less briefly but amazing inspiring to me. The large objects made by Roy and Stuart entered my nature and art heart straight away. Look and enjoy www.stuartianfrost.com plushttp://www.greenmuseum.org/content/artist_index/artist_id-68.html The end of the day I pictured a little movie of exotic sounds in the park: frogs and insects played a real symphony while the full moon was watching at the horizon.

Going on

Doing projects this size is a matter of going on working on it... At the end of this day a good ammount of reed is harvested and got all the poles in! Tomorrow I will start with the horizontal lines! Will be a lot of work anyway so it’s time to start that for sure. ‘Heb er veel zin in!’ realy looking forward to do so. Putting the poles in was already a composition and creative thing to do, together with hard labour. Making the wavy lines and fixing them onto the poles will be the real creating of my work. Thank volunteers of helping me during the day. The youngest today was about 2 years old!  

Being to ambitous?

Long day. Started today at 7 and stopped at 7. No rain at all. A beautifull warm day. Realised my project is very ambitious. Sketching a project in maquette or making it on large scale is ofcourse totally differtent. I knew that already but today I saw it again. Everything is different then suspected: the materials for example. The bamboo poles I ordered are nice and straight but I liked them to be more with a curve: ‘B quality’. You have to do, because of the little amount of time, with what you’ve got. So my poles will be straight what makes the work a total different work then sketched. And the large scale. With dis heat... Some people think I am a ‘crazy artist’. I thought the same when I was sitting and thinking the day over at the end of a day hard and muddy labour.‘What the hell I am doing?’ Being ambitous I supose.

Heavy rain

Not a good working day. In Groningen, The Netherlands we know rain but not that bad as here. Already 24 hours of rain and no stopping at all. Everybody tried to do some work but nobody did a good job today I think. Bonggies artwork was overtaken by high water, Stuarts too and mine… The site became water, the harvesting of reed was not really possible because of the water rise and we, ‘Donovan’ the volunteer and I were soaked all day, especially in the harvest field. In one night 12 centimeters water was fallen! We continued and found a way to use less reed in the sculpture. We started to cut large bamboo in small rings to be used as a skeleton together wit split bamboo. Despite the rain we still had a good day. To me its funny: nature artist always fighting the elements to do their nature-art thing.  

Hardware store old fashion

This morning at the park no volunteers to assist me at the site. Had a good morning anyway. Rumbled arround, arranged this and that en tought about the possible sollutions to give the project a bit more progress. After lunch – good vegeterian one – went to a great old fashion ‘we got everything’ hardware store, thanks to our local Taiwanese collegue. Bought rope, rope and xl working gloves. Meanwhile breeding on a plan for a good harvesting method for the big ammounts of reed I need. Together with the staff decided to find my reed closer to the site and done by machine. Neveratless well done harvesting by 5 volunteers. Hard working and good mood. Had a good day alltough it was extreemly hot. Later visited Taipei city center and camera stores. Had a spaghetti bolognese in Taiwan with Tim and Jane and went back to my nice clean and quit room at the hotel.

Testing in the heat

Feeling at home already. Woke up at 5:30 in the morning just like home. The site issue today. Got a good talk about it with Stuart Frost, my Norwegian / English collegue. He asked good questions. Decided to test 2 sites with the original bamboo poles to see what is feels like. Got altogether 6 volunteers working and this was a great help today. Put up 6 poles and walked arround. Decided to go to the far best but most difficult site. It is the one with different angles to see my sculpture and the possibility to explore the site closely. It will be a discovery to go there but the view is good! The stream besides it makes a nice curve and will give me the oppertunity to modify my installation to the site, site-specific indeed! And I a came a long way to work overhere so to me it is good the site breathes Taiwanese atmosphere! Had a heavy negotiating with chief Park about the mowing. I like the site rough and wild and not like a lawn. Managed (thanks to translator Emerlad) to arrange only a small curving path to enter the site. Happy about it. Ended the day in the hot spring downtown, super.

Meeting at the park

Good sleeping, no jetlag. Got to late for breakfast, the group was waiting for me at the lobby to enter the metro, MTR station almost in the hotel. Thats why my view is a metrowagon! The group of artist is friendly and international. We had a start meeting with staff and colluges. Nice that there are two Taiwanees people, Chao-chen and Chun-sen, to show us around in language and culture. Also there will be transalaters around al the time, good! The Guandu Nature Park itself: I already thought there wouldn’t not wild nature close to Taipei and ... it isn’t. It is a very nice park with a lot of paths, stairs and buildings. So the wide view I was hoping for (withouth water) seems not available. Three options, 1. with no entering path and high grasses, 2. a rather good view but with a fence behind it, 3. inbetween a big golfcourt and the main (hughe) building. Tomorrow at noone I have to make my choise. The first (very) importand one because it is the base of my installation. The Guandu Sculpture Festival 2009 is started!