Getting Down to Work in Guangzhou

Now that I have gotten settled here I decided it was time to get some work done. I belong to a group of expat women

 who like art. Some are more serious than others, but with the shared interest they are good compay. They meet Wednesday and Friday mornings. The place we have to work in is a room on the second floor of local sculptor Xu Hongfei's house. The house occupies one corner of the lower 3 floors of a large apartment building in the Jiangnan Garden section of Guangzhou. It is near where they are building a new subway station and an apartment building. You really have to know how to get there to find it. I have a hard time telling taxi drivers, so it is easier to take the number 178 bus get off at the corner and walk up the street to the alley, which is lined with several car repair shops to the gate of the house. The door way is closed with a metal roll up gate and flanked by 2 lions. You ring one of two doorbells(the Chinese, instead of relacing a broken doorbell simply add another one next to it) and you hear the tune played inside which brings a man to the gate. He expects us, smiles and raises the gate. You cross a small bridge over a fountain and pool to enter a large room, wooden chairs form a square in the center of the room, which also has sculpture and paintings, and plants. The lights are turned off in this room and the one next to it which has more art and books. Since we do not come to be entertained we pass through and head upstairs to the second floor where there is another large room in one corner are sofas and table for tea and then sculptures and paintings around. There is also a fountain with water running. The lights are also turned off except for a sculpture and plants. Our work room is in the back of this room. Professor Xu has given us use of this room as a favor. One of our members helped him to organize a show of his sculpture in France, and a good friend of ours went to art school with him. There is yet another floor above this one, similar to the one below and always shown to guests.

So far only Christine and myself have been coming to paint since Christmas. Christine is Swiss and her husband is a perfumer for a Chinese cosmetic company. It has been pleasantly quiet just the two of us working.

I also work in the studio of my American friend, Daniel Krause.  His studio is in the "Loft 345".

This is a pretty barebones place.  Since there is no elevator you have to walk up to the 5th floor where the studio is.  The water pipes run exposed above the hallway corridor.  They have been painted red.  You can hear the water in them.