Home Back to China 2 to China 4
On the second night the mayor Ms Wang Ping put on a banquet for us and this was even
more lavish than the first one. T
The main dining room was booked but instead of the buffet we had the night
before this was gold plated crockery and each dish was served to our table.
The
only trouble was, the dishes came as quick as they were made and we ended up
with a selection of dishes at our elbows. They had all sorts of things such as
the vegetables being made into little animal shapes and even a plate of
meat and three vegetables! Great Tucker, just a bit rushed .
The mayor had a meeting with Kerrie before the meal and was interested in the aims of the exhibition. During the meal the mayor got up and worked her way around the table talking personally to each person. A really lovely thing to do and she was a really warm and friendly person
After an appropriate time the meal finished and we went to view the
exhibition. Initially it was just a polite viewing but the mayor noticed some of
the elements in Leonie's work( air, earth fire and water) and commented that
these were common in much of Chinese art. Leonie explained what she was trying
to do and from that point the mayor was really interested in each piece and
artist. The whole mood of the room changed and our shire people started to see
the exhibition as a real point of contact with this culture.
The
mayor even looked at my catalogue pages ( which was all I had to display of my
work!) but she was interested and engaged in a positive way.
That night some of the delegation went to try Karaoke at the downstairs area and found a different world .
The next day we went drawing again
and
this time took a taxi to the Yangtse bridge and drew and painted there. It was a
fine clear morning and the bridge looked great. Along the bank came a herd of
Friesian cows and Gary called out Modella, Catani and commented that they would
remember
their homeland but the cows looked particularly blase.
I did some oil pastel pieces and it was nice to have some work to display .
After breakfast most of the others went off to visit artists in their studios . I stayed with the exhibition to answer questions and had help from Dan Ya Cheng.
The week passed quickly and soon it was time to close the exhibition and pack up