Lost in Translation

John Fairbank, Chinese historian and scholar, observed that the Chinese adapted Buddhism in ways that reflected the need to change the subtleties inherent in Sanskrit to the less nuanced Chinese language. I was reminded of that story when I talked to Steve last week about the assignment he gave his art students at Tsinghua. His challenge to them was this: create work that  deals with the obscured or partially hidden image. By creating an image that reveals part of the image or changing the nature of the image one can often reveal a hidden meaning, or further the expression to represent a deeper spiritual nature.  Love the magic of the mystery. Glass has a special ability to achieve this. Through light, transmission, reflection, and distortion, glass is inherently a material that is physical yet is also transparent or ghost-like. This material can speak of the unseen or the “other”.

After he gave them this assignment, his students disappeared for several days. Rumors flew. They did not know what this professor from the U.S. wanted from them. Why didn't he just teach them some nice glass making technique? What was this thing they were supposed to do to find the expression of a deeper spiritual nature? Whaaaaat?

Steve began to wonder if he had any students. Would they return? How would he find them? Were they his hidden image? But, what was lost was found, and by the end of the week, Steve and Qiang had gathered the students together again and spent 3 hours discussing the assignment with them, answering their questions and setting them on their way to discover hidden meaning in the obscured.

Qiang surrounded by the students 

Last week, Steve and Qiang also began their first lectures at surrounding universities on Steve's public art and the glass art movement in the U.S. Qiang had said he had made a poster for the lectures, so Steve thought it would be some small 8 by 11 inch posting, the kind that gets scattered on kiosks all over the UW campuses. But, no. It was a huge, beautiful poster that used one of Steve's public pieces,  "The Life Expressive". I thought it was so cool, I asked him to send me a copy of it so you could see it too:

Toward the end of the week, Steve got to visit some of the studios belonging to the Tsinghua professors and see their work in progress. Here's a beautiful carpet sculpture (is using carpet and sculpture in the same phrase even allowed?) that one of the textile professors did.

Woven Textile Sculpture at Tsinghua

The head of the glass program at Tsinghua is Professor Wang Jiang Zhong. Steve got to present him with a UW baseball hat so he would feel right at home when he comes to visit us in Madison. Here they are looking happy and handsome in their Wisconsin hats:

In addition to glass work, Wang Jiang Zhong creates traditional tea making sets in his studio. Here are some photos of one of his students at work, a finished pot and gift that Professor Zhong gave to Steve.

Our boy is making his way. He has started riding a bike around campus, he's adjusting to the 13-hour time difference, he's figuring out how to moderate those wild 3 to 4 hour mid-day meals and he's starting to engage (and I'm guessing charm and continue to scare, a little bit) the students. All seems good. I'll finish this post with an image of one of the students and her sketch of Steve. Kind of says it all.