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Mr. SouTian: A Tour of the Artist's Studio

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Mr. SouTian is an artist who lives and works in the Song Zhuang area. Song Zhuang is an area outside of Beijing which has been developing as an artist community over the past 25 years. Starting as a rural retreat for artists who wanted studio space outside the city, the area now attracts foreign artists and students from art schools. It also attracts tourists and members of the art world who want to visit artist’s studios and galleries.

Mr. SouTian identifies as a sculptor, a painter, ceramicist and a calligrapher. During the course of the visit to his studio, the fieldwork team was able to see work in all four mediums. The tour of Mr. SouTian’s studio space began in an open room with some of his finished works on display including ceramic work, painting, calligraphy and sculpture. The first piece Mr. SouTian explained to the fieldwork team, which hung in the entryway to the studio, was a painting of Mao and several individuals reacting to Mao’s presence. The artist described this not as a criticism of Mao but was instead was a representation of the variety of responses people can have to Mao and his legacy. Members of the fieldwork team found a resemblance between people in the painting and the artist himself.

The open space of the studio, which displayed finished work, was about fifty feet by fifty feet. There was another corner of the studio with a work in progress. This painting in progress was off to the left when you first walk in to the studio and was propped up against the wall. In the work area there were reference books stacked under paints and brushes. One book was open to a page with pictures of starfish and sharks, which the team was able to recognize in the painting the artist was currently working on. The video below has close up shots of this in progress painting and further information about the artist’s practice. The studio also had a pool table and Mr. SouTian had converted it in to a calligraphy workspace. The pool table had paper, inks and brushes on top of it. The table had a thick mat made of wool one quarter of an inch in height. The wool had newspaper on top of it in order to keep the ink from soaking through on the surface of the pool table. The pool table also had several crumpled pieces of practice calligraphy paper on it.

Mr. SouTian discussed the significance of the combination of materials he uses in his work, specifically with regard to his ceramic work. He created porcelain busts of communist figures such as Marx, Engels and Mao. He paints on the ceramic figures using, what he described as, traditional Chinese brush painting techniques. Mr. SouTian’s work in all mediums often has a mixture of contemporary and historically practiced themes or techniques. He told the fieldwork team the mixture of contemporary ceramic techniques and Chinese brush painting techniques symbolizes the contrast between “common people” and the refinement of political thinkers. When he first showed the busts to the team, Mr. SouTian asked us if we were able to identify the names of any of the busts of political figures.

Mr. SouTian conducted the tour of his studio in Mandarin. Two members of the fieldwork team, YuTing and Jo, translated for the group and translated questions from the English speakers in the group for Mr. SouTian during an interview. It was very hot inside his studio and Mr. SouTian gave all the members of the fieldwork team fans during the interview portion of our visit. This space was much quieter and there was less noise from construction of nearby buildings in Mr. SouTian’s studio. After the interview we continued the tour behind a wall dividing the studio from a storage area. The storage area had covered sculptures and a cardboard bucket where calligraphy practice sheets, some of which were more than three years old, were stored. The work area had materials, such as acrylic and oil paints, stored on a rolling platform lined with cardboard. At the conclusion of our visit Mr. SouTian signed several cards with images of his artwork for the team. He also did calligraphy on the pool table on a fan for Professor Blandy. He used ink and brushes already out on the pool table and finished the piece with a wax seal.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/33122667[/vimeo]

Looking through the images of work in Mr. SouTian’s studio included below, can you notice any themes from Christian artwork mentioned during the video clip? Where can you identify motifs created by Chinese brushwork? How do you interpret the interaction between these themes in his work?

Reflections

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Now that I’m back in the states, spending time in a familiar environment, and falling back into the daily routine, I’ve been alloted some time to reflect upon the new friends that I made during the field program.

Upon arriving in Beijing I felt indescribably sad, with a strong sense of foreboding that didn’t seem to have a defined root or cause. All I knew was that I felt terrible and couldn’t wait to go home. The next morning I met some of the people in the group. At first I thought I may have gotten off on the wrong foot with Jeanette because I basically stole her room, but she turned out to be one of the most friendly and enthusiastic people on the trip. It blew my mind that the person renting out her room for the summer was my old roommate. Small world I guess. Jeanette will always be the bug magnet to me. I’m always going to remember her swollen legs and the constant smell of repellent that followed her wherever she went.

I was unsure what to think about Megan at first. Being older than me, I kind of expected her to be in some weird mother goose role. This wasn’t the case at all. Her cynicism and sense of humor matched up perfectly with mine, and helped me keep my sanity through some of the weirder portions of our stay. Her taste in TV was also so good. I’ve started to watch Dr. Who on her recommendation and it’s great!

Next I met Jo and Yu-Ting. Their combo was hilarious to me. They had all these weird notions of the type of person that I was right off the bat that while sometimes brutally honest, gave me something to think in terms of how I’m perceived by others, and more importantly how I am perceived by people in differing cultures. For instance, just based on the way that I spoke and moved around, Jo thought that I might be gay. I realize that I am more articulate than most guys when I explain things or interact with people, but I never really thought about it being classified as a “gay” way of acting. It also made me wonder what kind of people Jo has had the pleasure of meeting in Eugene. A lot of “bros” perhaps? Yu-Ting was great as well. Extremely blunt in her opinions and observations (not sure if this was because of the language barrier or her natural character, I think a bit of both). The thing I enjoyed most about Yu-Ting’s company was seeing her and her boyfriend with each other. Probably two of the happiest people I’ve ever seen together. He was so nice too! Always holding her bags and doing little things for her. Something I don’t really see back here in the states. Both Jo and Yu-Ting loved showing me around, and seemed to be delighted that I loved shopping so much. Also Jo’s strong interest in seeing me wear skinny-jeans was puzzling, but funny to me.

Naan (I dunno if I’m spelling this right but whenever I’d hear her name an image of Naan bread would flash through my mind) was so amazing! She balanced the social aspects of being in the group as a student perfectly with her duties as a guide and translator. I never felt like she was an authority figure or afraid of disapproval or judgment from her. She always had answers to my many questions and really made me feel welcome in Beijing. Plus she went above and beyond during those long translating sessions at Beijing Normal and elsewhere.

Rosalyn was another great person to have around. She along with Megan provided the cynicism and black humor that kept me grounded throughout the trip. Rosalyn noticed things that other people didn’t notice, commented on them, and was never afraid to voice her opinion. She was a great leader for our group and extremely engaged throughout our meetings and work sessions. I fully realize that she could have spent the majority of her time with her husband, but she made an effort to be part of the group, and I’m very thankful that she did because she was an awesome person to have around. I feel so bad about the revolving restaurant thing though!

As for John and Doug, I don’t think I could have asked for two better instructors. They were a lot more like friends than supervisors, which is really what I was hoping for. Doug was possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met. He always asked me if I was feeling good and if there was anything he should be worried about. The one thing that really stuck out in my mind was his concern for my feelings about sending pictures of our trip to my mom. It wasn’t even on my radar in terms of things that I’d be worried about, but he was actively thinking about it. I really appreciated this thoughtfulness, even if it was unneeded, and will never forget it. John was  a fantastic instructor as well. Possessing a strong interest in almost everything, his willingness to try new things and genuine attitude towards our individual likes and tastes was awesome. I always go overboard and nerd out about movies, and he knew about pretty much every on that I mentioned on the trip. John was like the go-to guy for technology, always up on the latest gadgets and electronics. Extremely helpful and eager to please whenever I was having trouble with the compiling of footage or data. It was great meeting his wife and kids (briefly) at the airport and see the family that he clearly loves so much.

So in short, this group of people, all ridiculously different, turned out to be some of the most pleasant individuals to spend what I consider the closest thing to a life changing experience with, and they’re part of what made it a life changing experience! I could go on talking about all of the great cultural things that I learned about China and the famous sites I visited, but one of the things that I valued most about the program are the people that I met and the relationships that I built with them during our stay.

Orientation to Conceptions of Culture – 2 Questions

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I chose to read the article Sins of objectification? Agency, mediation, and community cultural self-determination in public folklore and cultural tourism programming. Here are the two questions that I came up with pertaining to the article.

1. Baron mentions professionalism quite a few times in the article, talking about the role of a public folklorist in terms of career goals and advancement. This made me think about intentions and motivation connected to money. In my eyes this field school is much more about knowledge than any type of monetary or career boosting gain. So how do Baron’s themes here change when we, students are given the role of folklorist? Is there a chance that we may be taken less seriously than someone older with more experience? Or do you think that the community members will be more comfortable collaborating with those less informed who lack preconceived expectations about their culture? In other words do you think that we as students are able to represent the cultures of these people in a purer way than a professional, career oriented folklorist?

2. Baron devotes a section of the article to the idea of framing cultures when representing them. He talks about the power of the stage, stating that “While the elevated stage can be constraining for folk performers and thus limit their interactions with audiences, it nevertheless serves as a dominant context for performance in most contemporary cultures.” Baron also quotes Daniel Sheehy by likening the stage to “putting a picture in a frame and hanging it on a wall”. In other words, the stage becomes a tool to help legitimize the art (72). He continues to enumerate the ways in which this framing can be used to diminish the distance between the artist and the audience by “fostering interaction with them”. I am majoring in cinema studies and plan to use my camera heavily in documenting the cultural traditions we will be examining during our stay. I believe that many of the ways in which artists can be framed on the stage can apply to the use of framing in terms of film and cinema. One thing that stood out to me in Baron’s article was the seemingly simple decision on how high to place the stage on which the cultural artists were performing in order to encourage the idea of it being a participatory event. With this in mind, I began to think about the ways in which camera techniques can influence and dictate audience opinion. Everything from camera angles to positioning to color adjustments to use of sound can affect the way in which an audience perceives what they are seeing. What are some techniques that can be used to encourage interaction  and eliminate distance between the subject and the audience? How similar do you think the idea of framing on a stage is to framing with a camera?