rachelceramics

Amazing walk [up hill all the way] to a mountain top view near our flat in Hang Hau and surprisingly only signposted to Clearwater Bay road, no hint of the fact that you can see all the way to the Peak Tower and possibly into China !!!

It is more important than anything that no human life was lost but to very many people the Mac. Building was a like a dear friend. Thanks to the Scottish fire service’s work it is badly hurt but still breathing.

 

It might seem trivial compared to everything else but Tableware International back issues from the 1970s were all kept in the GSA Mac. library, [not to mention the Studio journals]. It is a sad loss because unlike the library itself they’ll never be replaced. I pored over those pages for many hours whilst writing my dissertation. Like Japanese temples the Art School will be rebuilt but who’ll give faded pictures of 1970s tableware a second thought?

 

 

Everyone who studied in the Mackintosh building has private and personal memories of the place. Remember the toilets where painters used to wash their brushes leaving smeary, spattered colours behind? The damp cloth hand towels that should have rotated but were perpetually stuck in one position? The toilets were replaced in the “modernisations” that heralded the closure of the ceramics department. These are the liminal spaces now lost except in living memories.Is it possible to comprehend the fact that everything turns to dust in the end?

 

Or maybe they had already moved to the main library…

 

Long Forgotten Holiday

First trip to Singapore, the highlight for me is the amazing architecture, both contemporary and historical, much of which [unlike Hong Kong] has not been obliterated by developers. My favourite place is the once popular, now somewhat faded, Haw Par villa and the Tiger Balm garden that would certainly not have survived to the present day in Hong Kong. The imaginative use of concrete echoing le Corbusier’s fascination with the versatile and, in his day, cutting edge material providing a pleasure ground created by the Tiger Balm director with the goal of illustrating consequences of debauchery and other such activities resulting in immediate despatch to hell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently the first time in nineteen years that Western and Chinese valentine’s day have coincided. The sun shone and the ciritique group shared cakes and wine in the studio whilst watching the graffiti movie Bomb It. Artist Fuckin Revs says, “I’m not really into people too much” but he seems to be happy with his dog.

 

 

Maybe a slight [3 days so far of 6-7 degrees centigrade in the studio and no heating my nose certainly feels like one] exaggeration…I’m trying to enjoy the rare moments of cold weather but seriously Hong Kong I’ve had enough now, time to warm up! Even the kiln firing has little impact.

Managed to finish the pendants before Chinese New Year  and need to really knuckle down now for G.O.D. – much to do…

Studio being taken over by horses and other Chinese style animals…more to follow soon

Friday…A visit to Beijing to join in Buro Happold’s Beijing office Chinese New Year party. Tasty meal infused with baijiu followed by karaoke. Saturday…A walk through the winter sunshine to have lunch at Capital M followed by a return to the restaurant on the underground to collect lost spectacles – argh! Sunday afternoon back to Hong Kong.

 

 

 

Exhibition of translucent porcelain installations by Fiona Wong in a gallery that, according to the director, only shows Chinese Hong Kong artists – great show despite that.

 

 

 

A feather duster on the end of a long pole obviously!

With less paid writing [or possibly none] on the horizon at the moment, now is a great time to focus on my ceramic comission for G.O.D. and plan new applications/outlets for my work. There is the ongoing question of whether to leave Hong Kong for Beijing/Glasgow/London but this is mainly a hypothetical debate because life as usual intervenes and things continue in the direction set by daily routine. Horses are on my mind as next year is the year of the horse in the Chinese calendar and this is informing my work alongside the many traditional motifs used in China on ceramics and other objects of applied and fine art and everything else in the universe. These symbols have a narative as well as decorative value and usually signify good things, especially for the future. I seem to be focussing on animals at the moment and I’m greatful for the opportunity to explore Chinese aesthetics for [more or less, in any depth] the first time since coming here.