Art and craftsmanship

Today a student without the necessary craft skills can enter an arts school. He (or she) may not be able to draw when he is accepted, and he may still does not know how to draw when he leaves arts school. Rightly or wrongly creative and conceptual thinking has become the main criterion in the enrollment process as well as in the teaching curriculum. Though after leaving arts school, an arts student still has to pick up whatever craft skills that are needed for his career. After all he cannot become a creative director on day one!

Not so in the old days. Most if not all painters in the Renaissance had to make a living taking on painting jobs, most from the nobility. We call them artistic paintings nowadays, but their patrons bought them or commissioned the jobs for the rendered superior craft skills. It was not uncommon for famous painters during that period to prepare certain colors by themselves. And it would only be reasonable for a painter to keep those particular color ingredients as his trade secret, so that he could render his paintings differently from other painters in the trade. To be good at his trade, a painter had to deliver a better painting through better craft skills using better supplies and tools. Those master pieces that could stand the test of time will be those that were better both in terms of craft skill and creativity.

Recently I read about the story of late famous Chinese painter Qi Baishi (齊白石). His paintings are now periodically auctioned worldwide at astronomical prices. Master Qi's paintings demonstrably delivered superb craft skills and he therefore asked for higher prices for his paintings then his contemporaries. And like all clients, his clients liked to bargain for a better price. There are many stories about the business side of this famous painter.  For example it was said that when his clients entered his old studio in Beijing, they would first see a big sign: "I charge my paintings irrespective of friendship. Please respect yourself and pay according to my stipulated prices without bargaining" 賣畫不論交情，君子自重，請照潤格出錢。

And how did master Qi price his paintings or painting jobs?

There was one interesting story: he charged one dollar for one little chicken. Once a client asked him to paint five chickens and bargained to pay four. It had to be an old or important client, because finally he did paint five little chickens for him - with the last one half-hidden behind a tree!  Similarly he had a fixed charge for each shrimp. And when an old client begged him to paint one more for him. He finally agreed and painted one more for him. All shrimps looked lively and energetic except this last little one. "I will give this one for you free, because it is already dead", master Qi said.

Master Qi Baishi painting at his studio in Beijing

Harmony and Design

When we designers speak of Harmony as a design principle, we usually mean a good design is expected to have all its parts fitted together aesthetically, or organically, resulting in delivering a focal point of interest in completion. Any element that does not contribute to the integrity of the whole shall be taken away. As with all endeavors involving human, it has to fit in with the taste of a discerning viewer, the reasonable man of our legal assumption. As such, the harmony principle faces the following areas of complications which unfolds itself when facing the taste of a discerning or knowledgeable human subject.

Firstly, too harmonious a design will be boring. Like music, when all the melody notes come from harmonious Major and Minor Chords, the piece will be sweet, but will become boring hearing it a few times. We need notes to generate dischord at the right time, to deliver surprise and suspense, in order to give us more lasting aesthetics. A designer job is the same as a musician, to create element of dischord to drive away the monotony of an expected comfort.

Secondly, people have changing taste within the definition of harmony, or people define harmony-in-practice differently. In the era of Kings and Queens, Prince and Princess, elaborate decorations would be considered to be harmonious designs. Beginning from the era of Bauhaus on the 1920-30s, in response to the immense possibility of mass manufacturing, people started to appreciate designs with the barest elements to define a new design. In our modern world in which the spirit of free choices runs supreme, designers have almost infinite freedom to tailor their designs to an increasing number of commercially viable niche markets.

Thirdly, the fast pace of the modern world makes people getting bored even more easily. Previously unacceptable disharmony become harmony, and designers are trying newer and newer approach to test and to extent the taste of the consumers. Music is one area where creativity runs at a wild pace. With the modern sound synthesizer, undreamed of sounds (chord, dischord or noise depending on one's taste) are being made everyday, some will forever be considered as noise, and some will be included into the main stream harmonic sound one day - becoming an acquired taste through frequent exposure!

Below is one of my Shangri-La ring, with the well-balanced centre stone set within the garden of a natural habitat of flora and funa, a mixture of chord and dischord. A lasting piece of art.

Sabina Lee - Shangri-La ring

Artist as cultural historian

When we visited museums around the world, we revisited our own culture or cultures of other peoples and nationalities, some of these cultures may be still living and flourishing, whereas, sadly, others may have been dead for a long time, on the latter the Inca culture comes into my mind. Oftentimes the artifacts were practical or decorative items made by the artisans and artists, the better ones were usually commissioned by royalties, or wealthy families who had the luxury to spend on more discerning things in life. Most if not all were not made to be preserved for the cultural heritage of the people. How could Mona Lisa have imagined her portrait would become the most important piece in Louvre today!  When things were unexpectedly heading towards the wrong direction, people would be too busy fleeing or fighting for their lives, and artisans would likely to be drafted as a last resort! One major exception to this order-of-thing is the Chinese scroll painting masterpiece: Along the River During the Qingming Festival - 清明上河圖。 It was meant to become a cultural heritage when it was painted. Let's first look at how it was being introduced in Wikipedia:

"It is a panoramic painting by Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145). It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today's Kaifeng, from the Song period. The theme celebrates the festive spirit and worldly commotion at the Qingming Festival, rather than the holiday's ceremonial aspects, such as tomb sweeping and prayers. The entire piece was painted in hand scroll format and the content reveals the lifestyle of all levels of the society from rich to poor as well as different economic activities in rural areas and the city. It offers glimpses of period clothing and architecture. As an artistic creation, the piece has been revered and court artists of subsequent dynasties have made several re-interpretive replicas. It is considered to be the most renowned work among all Chinese paintings and it has been called 'China's Mona Lisa.'"

The artist (張擇端) was a top royal painter of the (North) Song Dynasty. He spent 10 years to complete the painting. Apparently he was either commissioned directly by the Emperor himself or had obtained his royal approval in undertaking this time-consumption painting job. For what purpose was the painting meant to fulfill? It was done with a special cultural mission. The Song Dynasty was the most prosperous, most civilized and most cultural country in the whole world in those days. Scholars from far away places went to the capital to study the classics and her cultural heritage, so much so, some foreigners, after obtaining outstanding results in the nation-wide open examination organized by the Emperor, became high-ranking mandarins. The idea of doing the scroll painting was to immortalize the high culture of the Song Dynasty that the Emperor as well as his mandarins fully understood.

It was unfortunate that Song was then faced with militarily powerful states up North, coveting the resources in Song. First came the downfall of the Northern cities, and the whole administration fled to the South crowning a new Emperor (the old one was taken hostage in the North). A new capital was established in the South of Yangtze, in the city of Hangzhou. Despite military defeat, South Song, as it was called by historians, continued to flourish culturally and commercial, so much so, the Emperor had extra resources to pay hefty ransoms to the Northern invaders annually. And Hangzhou, like the previous capital Bianjing depicted in the painting, continued to become the New York or Paris of the world, culturally and commercially speaking.

The new Mogul power proved to be too ambitious to be satisfied with ransom-taking. After the fall of the South Song Dynasty, the new Mogul Emperor liked the scroll painting so much that he kept it as his treasure in his Royal Palace. And probably because of it, he vowed to recreate the culture as depicted in the painting, whether or not he was successful in doing so is another story. Fate had it that the scroll painting fell into different hands, some of them top painters of their time. And they loved it so much that they imitated it and recreated almost exact copies of the original. So much so, there was the original now in Beijing's National Musuem, and the the best copy (painted in Qing Dynasty) was also considered a natitional treasure at Taipei's National museum.

Had it not been the beauty of the scroll painting, this important document on China's cultural history, depicting the best cultural city of the civilized world would not have survived up to this day - not one, but two paintings. The following video is on scroll painting number two, a cultural treasure in Taipei's National Museum.

Pattern – the mother of all designs

Everybody can make his or her own pattern using the simplest of software like a Photoshop Elements. You draw a line-shape on paper, scan it, open your Photoshop, rotate it, say 45 degree left, to make two different shapes, add color to the enclosed areas, duplicate your two colored shapes, and finally arrange them to fill out the space. Now you have created your own unique pattern.

For famous patterns, in Hong Kong, one does not need to go all the way to mention Andy Warhol’s repeating Marilyn Monroe or Campbell Soup. Calligraphy graffiti by late self-proclaimed “King of Kowloon” Mr. Tsang Tsou Cho made his famous patterns around the city for years, and the one in Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier is now protected as monumental. His first major commercial recognition came when Sotheby's auctioned a board, painted by Tsang, for HK$55,000 on October 31, 2004. Pattern is for everybody.

We see patterns every day when we open our eyes in the morning, our pillow, bed sheets, our wall papers and our pajama. It is the key element in fashion design, in some product design, in our environmental decoration. Many fashion apparels are chosen just because of the more attractive pattern of their fabrics. Kids select their own snowboards and helmets by comparing different patterns. In a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong, hoardings in construction works, in particular those of shopping arcades, are oftentimes decorated with attractive patterns, making an otherwise unsightly site looks interesting, and any inconvenience to the pedestrians made more bearable. Pattern is the mother of all designs.

Designers give us many patterns, nature gives us more. The black and gold spotted coat of a leopard makes her sexy, whereas the two black patches surrounding her eyes make the giant panda lovely. The variety of multicolored patterns of marine lives in coral reefs is a major reason behind an average citizen's effort towards their conservation, and motivated many to spend a day or two taking a short experience scuba diving course for a closer encounter with those colorful living patterns.

I love interpreting nature’s patterns in many of my jewelry designs. For example in my rose-buds ring below, I built a pattern out of a rose bud and its twig.

Sabina Lee - Rose buds ring

Mona Lisa’s smile

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci is the most famous painting of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Everyday thousands of viewers were mesmerized by her smile. On extremely busy days, the museum staff steadily ushers viewers past the painting in order to keep the crowds moving at a steady pace. Therefore if you have visualized yourself standing in front of Mona Lisa for hours while contemplating the meaning behind her smile, you would be disappointed. In fact, pausing in front of her is often not permitted because it interferes with crowd control.

Have you, like me, wondered how Mona Lisa managed to keep the same smiling face for days that presumably would have taken Leonardo Da Vinci to finish the painting? What was her inner experience during the time of da Vinci’s artistic creation? And where lies the art of da Vinci, I mean presumably the painting was not just an exact recreation of nature - which can be done much better with today’s photographic technology.

Today, we usually don’t have the experience or luxury of having a painter to paint a portrait for us. When we took pictures for our passport or other photo IDs, we delivered a blank look, trying to conceal any possible inner emotion, lest our inner self might be revealed to an official who might look at it with suspicious eyes one day, our jet-lagged smile might just be interpreted as concealing some sinister secret. And therefore most ID pictures look unattractive and we don’t want to show them to our friends.

When we take casual pictures, like during Christmas parties, we try to deliver the best impression and try to immortalize it onto the mind of future viewers of our picture. I noticed most of my friends’ smile on their social pictures almost look exactly the same, irrespective of the setting, occasion, environment or the mood when he or she was taking the picture. We conceal and we deliver what we believe to be our best image. And some will be proud to tell you that “I look much prettier on camera!” or "People say I'm photogenic" And the speaker will be happy. Which statement can be translated as “I can deliver the best of me when someone takes a picture of me.” And seemingly we have all turned into a modern day Mona Lisa with our best smiling faces. Or is it so? Let's speculate a bit on the psychology of Mona Lisa.

Assuming that we share the same human psychology, I would say that the facial expression of Mona Lisa would have continual subtle changes through the days when her portrait was being painted. She would most likely be fresher in the morning, getting a bit restless as the hours pass, perhaps pondering about the chores on next evening’s dinner when some important guests would be coming over for a casual meal, day-dreaming for nothing in particular…etc etc. What was in her mind at that particular moment would have affected her facial expression subtly. And such subtleties most likely couldn't escape the discerning eyes of the artist. The more the artist could empathize with his human subject as a living passionate person, the more information he would get, and the more likely he would be confused as to how to paint just one image instead of the many images that have impressed on him.

The personal rapport between the artist and his subject is very important for the artistic creation process. Fair to say when a painter/artist did painting job for a fee, he really had no choice, he had to do it good no matter whether he could stir up creative rapport with his human subject. He had to do it right, and better yet, his human subject would like to have himself or herself “Look prettier on canvas”, like our modern photogenic neighbors!

In order to do create something as lasting as the Mona Lisa painting, something more must be there. In my previous post “Look at your loved one the Picasso way”, I discussed Picasso’s approach on seeing and drawing his loved ones. For one thing, Picasso was not selling portraits, and therefore he could have the freedom to choose an artistic technique that he believed could fully deliver his passion towards his human subject. Working within his constraint of having to deliver a good looking realistic portrait, da Vinci had to deliver everything with only one singular perspective. And our painter/artist had to capture every emotion and passion he had with his human subject and deliver it with one singular expression. A facial expression not of a single fleeting moment that will better be captured by a modern camera, but facial expression that captures the eternity of the artist’s passion towards his human subject, recreated through his brushes on canvas.

And that makes the true art of the Mona Lisa painting, same for Leonardo da Vinci, same for other artists doing realistic human portraits.

Mona Lisa

The beauty of negative space in arts and design

What is negative space? Essentially it means something that is not there. It is often used in graphic designs, and in logos design in particular. Recently I came across a blog called Bored Panda (by the way, an interesting "designed" name) featuring 30 Clever Examples of Negative Space Logos. It contains some interesting logos worth checking up. Yet, the most talked about "re-designed" logo is the Steve Job Apple logo by Hong Kong design student Jonathan Mak Long (see below). Mak, second year design student doing the Job-Apple for fun, was landed with a logo design job of Coke through Coke's advertising agency Ogilvy China (full story).

Yet, the beauty of negative space doesn't lie in the above.

Negative space is the clue to learn the creative activity of drawing, and to learn it fast! We all know how to draw, kids know how to draw and love to draw. But as adults, most of us stop the creative, and enjoyable, activity of drawing. "I can't draw!", meaning, "What I draw doesn't look like what I see out there!". To make matter worse, in today's art-schools, the skill of drawing is NOT always compulsory for an art student! Fair enough, an art student is supposed to be creative, art for art's sake, and drawing, for the most part, is technical in nature. And the professors are right, which leads us to an unavoidable conclusion: artistic talent is not essential to making good drawing, or better yet: Everyone can learn how to draw!

The secret of all secrets in drawing is Draw Negative space. Simply put, to draw an object, any object, for example, a cup sitting right next to you, you have to draw the negative space, instead of the object itself. Now take a piece of paper, any paper, like an ordinary A4 paper from your copier tray. Then take a pencil (any pencil, not 2B, not charcoal, just an ordinary HB pencil). To draw the cup, forget it is a cup, forget it means anything to you, just track the outline of the cup as if you are drawing the empty space. Don't look at the cup, look at the empty space instead. Draw the empty space as if it is a solid object. Turn the corner as you trace the outline, and go on until our line meets itself (and Don't look at the cup!). After you have finished it, look at the final picture. You have drawn the negative space of the cup, and you have drawn a cup having the shape of the real cup.  And you can fill in the rest of the drawing. Why not try it now?

Job-Apple Logo

The design of Chinese Classical Gardens

The city of SuZhou 蘇州 is a must visit to any visitor who intends to stay for a few days in Shanghai. The last time I traveled to Shanghai, I did day-trips to Suzhou, strolling around its numerous Chinese Classical Gardens, mostly built from the Sung to Ming Dynasty, and the one I like most was the cozy Humble Administrator's Garden 拙政園.

The nine famous Gardens in SuZhou has been included in the World Heritage List of Unesco, and acclaimed as "masterpieces of Chinese landscape garden design in which art, nature, and ideas are integrated perfectly to create ensembles of great beauty and peaceful harmony". An interesting question is: how does a Chinese Classical Garden's design differ from other architectural structures, and in particular, how does its aesthetics differ from its western counter-parts?

The Humble Administrator's Garden had been the site of the residence of Suzhou notables since the 2nd century AD. It was built in Ming Dynasty by a Royal Inspector (御史) Mr. Wang (王献臣) who spent 16 years to build the Garden under the supervision of the famous painter and artist Mr. Man (文征明). The office of the Royal Inspectors was like today HK's ICAC (independent Commission Against Corruption), having a direct line of command from the Emperor. Apparently Wang couldn't win trust from his Emperor, and he therefore retired early to the South, bought the site, built a Garden there, and named himself the Human Administrator.

The Garden's central section is a recreation of the scenery of the Lower Yangtze. Rising from the lake are the tree covered east and West Hills, each crowned by a pavilion. The variety of plant species is spectacular, and the main reason that it is named one of the Four Great Classical Gardens 四大名園 in China. Suzhou got two out of four (the other one is Lingering Garden 留園).

The most prominent design feature of a Chinese Classical Garden is that it refuses to show you everything at one time. A visitor has to explore the interior like a maze. There are walls to block your view, with an entrance, often round, to lead you further in. From time to time there will be different shapes of openings, oftentimes with built in patterned decorative grids, that allow you to have a glimpse of what lies ahead, like a life painting hanging on the wall. The paths are winding, aiming at aiding you to view the interior, be it a pond or a pagoda, from different angles.

Just when you feel tired, there will be a resting place in the form of a pavilion (舘), with wooden grids on the windows to artistically frame your view to the outside. On the way, the path will lead to to walk closer to a pond, where there will always be the sound of running water, with fish and sometimes tortoise too, glistening on a cloudless day. Meticulously manicured plants as miniature banyans or their like will be scattering here and there. And just when you feel too constrained by its winding path, there, on the next turn, will appear a miniature high-mount, which you can climb with a few steps, sometimes there will be a pagoda on top too, and you will have a panoramic view, not of the whole garden, but of the section that you have just visited, and you can trace with your eyes your various points of perspectives.

In the west, architectures were built to impress, and sometimes to intimidate, people. And we say Wow! In Chinese Classic Gardens, we don't have a big Wow, but we have lots of little Wows, as planned by the designer of the garden as he managed the view of every step that we are going to take.

The layout plan of Humble Administrator's Garden

IM Pei's conservation project: Miho Museum

Recently there has been an on-going debate in Hong Kong surrounding the Government's decision to build a man-made beach on the remote Lun Mei rocky beach in Tai Po, the New Territories. Some environmentalists claimed that they found sea-horse, an endangered species, there, and urged the Government to scrap their plan. The Government's senior marine conservation officer said a three-day drill to relocate species from Lung Mei to the nearby Ting Kok east coast in July had been successful, with 20 marine animals being moved, and the department was confident the main exercise would go smoothly when beach construction began. But the environmentalists are adamant on their demand.

While the debate goes on, the remote beach became better known. It attracted some families for an weekend outing there, with some adults and kids acting less than friendly to the marine-lives found on the beach, turning stones, throwing them away from their natural habitat, catching them and even killing them, for a free-meal or just for the fun of doing it. The environmentalists were alarmed and have organized a 50-member "ecological guard" to monitor the site after they found remains of starfish and sea urchins littering the area.

That reminds me of a documentary that I saw many years ago featuring IM Pei's conservation effort when in the 1900s he designed the Miho Museum for Shumei, an Shinto organization founded by Mihoko Koyama, one of the wealthiest Japanese women and the lady who founded the religious group. The stunning thing about the documentary was that a whole mountain was moved piece by piece to an interim location, with its plants, soils and everything; until the museum was completed underground when all would be transported back to be reconstructed exactly as before. I believe only the Japanese can support and execute this grand conservation project with such vision and precision!

When IM Pei first saw the mountains, he exclaimed, "This is Shangri-La". And madam Mihoko (Miho being the name of the museum) agreed and spared no fund in supporting Pei's grand design to conserve one of Japan's many Shangri-Las. As its says on Miho's official website:

80% of the museum's structure is beneath the earth so as to preserve its natural environment and to assimilate it into the surrounding scenery. This unique design clearly demonstrates the intention of its architect, I. M. Pei, to create a paradise on earth. When he first visited the site, he was moved to declare, "This is Shangri-La."

Look at your loved one the Picasso way

How did Picasso look at his loved ones? A clue perhaps can be found in Antibes, a city in the South of France.

People visiting the French Riviera often take as one of their destinations a visit to Nice, a nice popular resort town for the rich and the not so rich. The view of the beach is breathtaking and the scent of the gentle sea breeze is refreshing, unlike Hong Kong's more humid weather, the South of France is the place to sunbath and to cultivate a better skill on people watching. Those who prefer avoiding the tour groups can choose to visit a nearby small town called Antibes. And the artistic treasure here is the cozy Musee Picasso housed within the stone walls of the Grimaldi Castle, itself an impressive sight, overlooking the waterfront.

In 1946, Picasso left Paris for the south of France and spent several months working in what was once the guards' hall of the castle. His materials were what could be found locally during the period of postwar austerity - asbestos cement instead of canvas, boat paint procured from the quayside and household paintbrushes. What delighted me most were the large number of sculptural exhibits, giving visitors a renewed insight into understanding Picasso's paintings which were displaying side by side with the sculptures. Some exhibits were generous donations by Picasso's muse and second wife, the late Jacqueline Roque.

The world around us becomes meaningful to us through our visual perception. We look at things through a single point of view. With a pair of predator's eyes, the vision of homo sapients is frontal and hence can almost be faithfully captured and transposed onto a two dimensional painting canvas. Most of us find no problem towards this way of perceiving the world, after all, we can move about and enrich our singular images. And we are justified in our complacency.

Prominent modern painters, like Picasso, did not like to be constrained by this perceptual rendering on their creation. Different painters used different creative techniques trying to break through this constraint. Moving a bit ahead of my explanation, I find it interesting to see that after a great artist (or a group of great artists of similar orientation) created a new perceptual technique, we can all learn to see the world this way. And for all truthful creativity, it ends up touching our hearts, and we exclaim, "Isn't it the same way of seeing that I have been using in my daily life without my realizing it?"

To look at a person or an article we are passionate about, we observe and study it in minute details, from all angles, amidst all moods and in every situation. Looking at one feature attentively, such as a silhouette of a nose, we forget about everything, and even forget about the eyes, the hair, and the mouth. We are consumed by a singular beauty, not only psychological, but, if we think about it carefully, also constrained by the law of physics, the law of selective perception, whose effect will blur our perception of the surrounding. And it is the sum total of these individual perceptions, which are not of the same scale and which cannot be connected together logically in our imagery or memory, that form our total perception of the person or article that we are passionate about. And the stronger our passion, the more images we have and treasure, and the more difficult we can communicate their totality to an unconcerned outsider. Like for a cat lover, every cat is different; but for some (hopefully not too many), a cat is just another cat!

Picasso also did sculptures. As you can see from the exhibits in the Antibes Musee Picasso below, Picasso used the same rendering mentality in paintings and sculptures. And you can see his paintings in this regard were richer in meaning than his sculptures. And you can also appreciate his chosen way of artistic creation and communication determined his primary choice of medium - painting.

Now that you understand how Picasso looked at his loved ones, do you remember when was the last time you looked at your loved one, the Picasso way?

Musee Picasso in Antibes

Sculpural designs

Many years ago when I first visited the city of Barcelona in Spain, I was astonished by Antonio Gaudi's Casa Battlo. Casa means house in Spanish, and it was a building still inhabited by local residents. Gaudi didn't build the casa from scratch, he re-created it through re-building its outer facade in the early 1900s. With a face-lift, the building was transformed into a dream-like fantasy land in the heart of a middle-class residential area populated by mundane buildings. Gaudi's Casa used numerous shapely curvatures to signify an organic form, a living icon among concrete structures, and a pioneer of modern day sculptural architecture, serving the same aesthetic function among modern high-rises.

Modern sculptural buildings usually not only create an organic outlook, like the Casa did, but they would incorporate an organic element in its total design-concept, that serves an integral part of the building's functional and experiential objectives. The Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1950s, is such an example. The exterior focal point of the museum is its signature spiral center. This center is an integral part of the personality of the museum in that it serves as the main curved exhibition wall spiraling up at the core of the museum. A visitor upon entering the museum will be standing at the bottom of the central void, inside the spiral and enjoy its magnificence from the perspective of an upward browse, right from its heart. The spiral also serves functionally as a ramp for visitors going up the floors (there are lifts too for those who do not choose to walk all the way up), and at the same time allowing them the special experience of leisurely walking up a similar ramp in most modern car parks, without fear of the impending danger of a sport car racing down (or alternatively enjoying the thrill of such imagination). In short, it is signified with different layers of meaning, in addition to its impressive organic outlook.

My Dancing Roses were designed with a modernistic sculptural concept in mind. The structural base is as much aesthetically appealing as being functional. It serves to conceal the gadgets responsible in making the roses dance. Design-wise, it is therefore more Wright than Gaudi, though it looks as colorful as the Casa!

The special meaning of my Dancing Roses was discussed in my previous post Dancing to Jazz, interested reader can click on the linkage to access the article.

Sabina Lee - Dancing Roses

Making an old tradition alive

Good pieces of jade have always been collector items for many Chinese, in particular members of the wealthy families. Jade is also considered to be a symbol of blessing, good luck, health and longevity, the names of goodies for all Chinese, and for as long as the history of their culture.

Hong Kong has been a prominent centre of jade trading for many years, centering around the district of Jordan, near the then Jordan cross-harbour Ferry terminal, where some traders, mostly Chinese, from South East Asian countries eagerly made their bids and takes using ritualized hand signals hidden by the palm of their counterparts. Today the Government run Jade Market is still a major tourist attraction, where you will probably not be able to get the best bargain nor the best pieces, but certainly some good souvenirs at the right price.

During recent years, the jade business has been booming in Mainland China because of the prospering economy there, driving up, in particular, the prices of the more expensive pieces. And with it comes the demand for jade jewelries with good designs. A few months ago, I was invited by a national banking corporation to give talks in Hangzhou on jade appreciation and jade design. Being rooted in Chinese culture and a jade lover since childhood, I got the benefit of having become an expert in appreciating the special greenish tones that Chinese value for the stone, as well as creating jewelries that respect and enhance the traditional jade culture for my customers.

Sometimes my work, like the jade pendant below, will develop from a cultural theme that touches the heart of Chinese. And in all cases, I will put the piece of jade as the focal point, with my design enhancing the value of the stone, as well as giving it a modern look grounded in rich cultural soil. The value of the materials added (precious metals, like 18K gold, and precious gem-stones, usually point-size diamonds) will also need to match the value of the jade piece itself, so as not to overshadow or undercut the value of the centre piece. Only by respecting culture, can a designer truly make an old tradition alive.

Blessings 五福臨門 by Sabina Lee

What mask do you wear?

In theatrical art, the use of masks or mask-like painted faces are common, especially in traditional art forms. Peking opera has a special character type with a wide variety of painted faces for male roles, they are called Jing (净) and, to a lesser extend, the comedians Chou (丑) too. It makes the life of the audience easier, lest they might find it difficult expecting what to expect from the many characters on stage.

And the same in Commedia dell Arte, Italian for ‘Play of Professional Artists'. They were travelling troupes performing at streets or market squares where it would attract viewers. It was a popular form of theater developed in Italy. Its popularity lasted from the 1500s through to the mid 1700s during which time, it spread through out Europe. They usually did physical comedies involving exaggerated and boisterous actions, a precursor to Charlie Chaplin, and a theatrical form still being taught in today's drama schools with performance being moved from streets to theater halls. All stock characters wear masks except the lovers - guess romantic love is the only area that no mask is allowed!

In our common everyday language, we don't like being labeled as wearing a mask. We like to be considered as truthful, honest, baring our soul, instead of wearing the mask of a peddling salesman, even when we intend to convince others to take our views. To make our life easier (off-stage), we do expect people to wear mask in their different roles. Given the possible negative connotation of hiding behind a mask, we credit such behavior as being professional. A waiter or waitress is expected to wear a happy mask, whereas a customs officer at borders is expected to wear an intimidating mask. Both acted professionally.

Sometimes a mask will fail on stage as well as off stage, the former we call "poor performance". Many years ago, a friend told me that he had this lousy secretary who filed his letters incorrectly and faxed his correspondence to the wrong number! He finally couldn't bear it any longer, and asked her into his office to confront her in person. Having educated in the best Univeristy, he acted in the most professional way of being a benevolent manager and wouldn't want to hurt the feeling of his secretary. He talked to her in a smiling face, and always explained her shortcomings with the classic "yes, but". Get the affirmative first before delivering the negative. After one hour of counseling, the boss became very nervous. He began to sense that his secretary was expecting he gonna tell her that he would give her a raise! In all desperations, he changed his mask and turned into a solemn face: "You're fired!"

Jackson Pollock and Chinese calligraphy

A few days ago, Paul and I visited a couple, two of our very best friends, at a hospital and their new born baby boy aged 2 days. Nowadays hospitals in Hong Kong encourage family members, friends and relations to express their love through touching and handling a new born. Good for his psychology as well as for the development of his immune system, I believe. Babies always win our hearts!

We can immediately be touched by people and things imbued with meaning derived from a common language or signifying system. In arts, it is called representational form, representing something we are familiar with, like a human portrait or a piece of familiar landscape. And the linkage is immediate. I was almost moved to tears by the baby that day at the ward by his mother's bed side. Non-representational abstract art forms, on the other hand, are not so immediate. Here, the artist employs his special method of communication. Without knowing or appreciating his communication method, a viewer can't easily understand his art, not to mention being moved by it.

Jackson Pollock, the greatest American abstract painter is an example. His paintings were non-representational, and his method was splashing colors onto his canvas, a pioneer in abstract painting. Pollock was special, even without understanding his communication method, a discerning art lover oftentimes can identify his special paintings out of many abstract ones, and with the viewer's inner passion being stirred up by them!

Pollock loved to use big canvas. He drew with dedication and passion. To understand his art, one needs to recreate how he did his work, how his splashed his canvas with his brushes and buckets of paints, how he viewed his canvas as his inner self, as he impulsively filled every corner of it with variations of his distinctive and distinguishing color patterns, signifying his inner emotion, which may or may not be triggered by some representational objects, and his urgency in expressing it, which he probably found impossible to represent in any representational form.

It's like Chinese calligraphy, especially the running style (草書), where the literal meaning can't be easily deciphered (or can't be deciphered at all). Sometimes I would wonder, if a viewer can easily grasp the linguistic meaning of a great piece of running style calligraphy, would he be as much focused on the emotions thereby expressed or on appreciating the art-form itself? And isn't it the same with Pollock? The greatness of his abstract painting is precisely due to its being abstract!

Jackson Pollock at work

Iphone5 and a matter of perspective

I find the Cheese commercial of iphone5 on local TV very interesting. Years ago Paul had his frustrating experience making panoramic image using Photoshop Elements' photomerge tool. Kind of difficult to maintain steady movement and it would be too late to do a retake after finding out the images wouldn't merge, "now that we are home". Parallel lines from different angles of perspectives are unforgiving, when they won't vanish to the same point, they won't. Perspective 101.

A student of Drawing will take his (or her) drawing board and a piece of charcoal, go to the country side, find a scenery with curves and vanishing parallel lines, preferably huts with gable roof, and off he goes with his creative drawing from a single viewing point, usually with two vanishing points where the parallels join. He is not allowed to move, because it will change his viewing point and with it a new drawing and a new perspective. In our everyday language, in particular in our democratic society, we say, "we need to hear (or see) different perspectives". And our everyday language doesn't lie.

A photomerge image intends to trick the viewer into believing that an image composed from images of multiple perspectives has been taken by a camera from a single perspective. Artists have been using this concept of multiple perspectives for a long time, most notable for those in Hong Kong is traditional Chinese landscape paintings. It is interesting to note that straight lines that might defeat the trick are seldom used in those Chinese paintings (otherwise it will be like paintings by Picasso and other Cubist painters whose artistic objectives were quite different).

The greatest challenge in art is of course not to trick the viewer but to capture the full beauty of reality for the benefit of the viewer. Monet was a genius here. In the area of multiple-perspectives, Monet insisted his mega water lily painting to be displayed in an oval room in Musée de l'Orangerie (see image below). If a viewer can stand at the centre of the curvature, turned his body slowly in either direction to scan-view the painting, he can recreate the reality of the scenery painted with multiple perspective. Monet didn't trick the viewer, he had succeeded in presenting the reality, imbued with his passion, to the viewer, and presented it in Einstein-like curved space! Of course, you have to visit the museum at odd-hours to avoid other viewers walking around.

As for iphone5's Cheese commercial, the art director did a great job in making taking a panoramic image looks so easy with iphone5 - by using a white background.

The sound of the bamboo forest

When Tan Dun (譚盾) premiered The Map, Concerto for cello, video and orchestra in Hong Kong in 2009 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the concert was introduced as "Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun’s multimedia adventure across time, space, and cultures". It was a thrilling night of musical extravaganza, counterpointing between the cello solo and video orchestra and video, solo and ensemble, text and sound, and multichannel video and playing of stone.

Contemporary music never gets a big fan in Hong Kong. The Map was destined to be a single concert, but Tan was happy to stay behind to shake hands with fans like Paul and me.

Tan's theme score in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is however very popular, made unbeatable with big names like Director Li An, Cellist Yo-yo Ma, and an unbeatable cast of Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen. Tan will always be the oscar-winning composer from then on. Tan's music came back to my mind almost in reality when I visited one of China's best preserved eco-towns Anji (安吉) where the movie was shot. Last year I was invited to give a talk on art and jewelry to an audience of alumni members of Hangzhou's Zhejiang University, and the same host brought me to this beautiful town some day before the event.

I love nature but very often I would be frustrated by the noisy and jostling people around popular tourist attractions. Luckily it was a weekday, and the place was quiet, quiet and clean, with clear running stream from mountain top, a few locals leisurely fishing, almost like a cozy Japanese town deep in the mountains. The famous bamboo forest park was surprisingly calm and quiet. Tan's music belongs here. The man at the park complained to us that the crews left behind loads of rubbish after the shooting, but they were grateful that the movie attracted many visitors. "It's good for business".

We had our dinner at a local farm eatery where they served whatever they liked to cook for you, with the nice concept private dinner (私房菜). I enjoy cooking and am convinced that working with the freshest ingredients is a prerequisite to a good dish. We got the freshest ingredients that day, the freshest home-grown vegetables, the freshest local fish from the running stream, and, we also had an excellent dish with a kind of meat that I hadn't tasted before.

There was no tiger, nor any dragon around. Just an unlucky rabbit, I was told.

Bamboo forest in Anji

The sound of the bamboo forest, interpreted by Yo-yo Ma and Tan Dun

Dancing to Jazz

Modern concert hall jazz is not the same as the original jazz at noisy and busy bars and clubs in US in the post-war forties and fifties, where working class, mostly blacks, gathered for some alcohols, some fun, chit chat, food, and...music to carry the hours, after a frustrating day of hard labor. I would imagine the jazz musicians were almost half-drunk, trying to grab the attention of the audience amidst the noise and chaos created by the patrons as well as those serving the tables. "Gotta grab those folks' attention with these non-chords", which after hearing repeatedly, finally became pleasing to the ears one day, and the musicians were honored to have created a new harmonious chord!

The rhythm and chords, broken or not, were always there, half-drunk, a jazz pianist will strike a few pleasing, free-flowing notes here and there when the noise was too loud. O man, when the noise began to subside a little, our pianist would immediately catch the moment, adding more and more notes on top of the continuously running rhythmic patterns. And virtuoso as he was, his hands worked like magic, perhaps helped by his occasional substance indulgence, that substance nowadays was commonly known as recreational drugs. His audience was electrified. When he couldn't do it no more, he would pass the spotlight to the drummer who had been waiting for his turn eagerly at all times.

Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at Lincoln Center New York was a clean version of the original jazz club. Two years ago I was there, the audience consisted of mostly jazz-loving tourists, including me and Paul. We were up close to the musicians, with seating arrangement simulating the original jazz club, the ticket came with a drink, and a chef ready to do light meals, with occasional orders. Otherwise, the place was as quiet as a concert hall. The musicians played virtuoso music, probably better than the original jazz musicians, now that they are clean, with better musicology and more time to practice. What remained the same was the basic rhythm and chords patterns, overlaid with free-flowing notes at high speed, creating passionate and more subtle music catering for a new generation of more discerning music lovers.

I created my Dancing Roses line of jewelry almost 10 years ago. I was inspired by the changing role of the modern woman, an efficient manager at home and in office, yet, can freely express her love and passion meeting her loved one. I expressed it through creating a minimalist geometric form, the always there rhythmic patterns, and inside freely moving petite roses, of single or multi-color, crying out for attention in different combinations. The same year I was the only Hong Kong jewelry designer being invited to exhibit at the prestigious Designer Hall in Baselworld, Switzerland.

I danced to Jazz.

Dancing Roses by Sabina Lee

Listen to Jason Marsalis at Dizzy's Club Coca Cola, Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York

Love tree

A few years ago I was approached by the editor of Lark Books asking me to submit a design to their new publication: 500 Wedding Rings. I was told that 500 designs would be jury selected from international submissions, and the judge would be Ms. Ursula Ilse-Neuman, the curator of Contemporary Jewelry at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York.

Modern arts are all about concepts, one delivers an unique artistic concept, rather than what we commonly called beauty, jazz rather than pop, wine rather than Pepsi. Professors at arts school do best in creating conceptual jewelries. As a commercial designer, I have to create beauty and value. I have to deliver jewelries using good gem-stones, with pleasing and lasting look (after all, a woman doesn't throw away her fine jewelries after the season!), and last but not least, a piece has to be finished with superb craftsmanship. Good enough as heritage of value.

I didn't want to create a piece of conceptual art just to be included in the publication. As such I had a formidable task: my creation has to to meet the high standard of contemporary art (otherwise it would not be selected), and yet, it must also look lovingly good to the lady next door (otherwise it could not be sold).

For this project, I got my inspiration from a romantic line of a famous Chinese poem written in the Tang Dynasty by Ba Juyi, his Song of Everlasting Regret (白居易：長恨歌):

That we wished to fly in Heaven, two birds with the wings of one; and to grow together on Earth, branches of two trees as one.

在天願作比翼鳥,
在地願為連理枝。

I created an intertwining knot-like structure in 18K white gold set with VS quality white diamonds with matching black diamonds. Half of the white gold I plated into black. Woman and man, Yin and Yang. I called it Love Tree, and in Chinese, 連理枝.

Love Tree by Sabina Lee

Listen to Takako Nishizaki playing Violin concerto Butterfly Lovers (Finale: Butterfly transformation)

Stunning Monet

I love Claude Monet. Every time I exhibited in New York, at the Inner Circle Pavilion of JA Show, a visit to MoMa, the City's Musuem of Modern Art, was one of our highlights, and a memorable highlight of the Museum visit was its Claude Monet room. Monet is special. He only painted a handful of subjects during his lifetime. He was obsessed into rendering alive his subject matter, for example his beloved waterlilies, in the fleeting light and its reflection which changed moment by moment. And he would wait hours on end for the same fleeting moment to come again, and did it day after day.

As a jewelry designer, I have to work with minute details. What impressed me most was Monet rendering his strong colorful strokes into minute details at every single area of his huge canvas. Why he cared about the details, after all these are huge paintings? The reason was that he was mesmerized by the process of delivering the richness of nature as he experienced it faithfully to his viewers. For example, it was mentioned in MoMa's document that "In this triptych (200 x 1276 cm) Monet depicted his Japanese-style pond covered with water lilies, at center, shimmering with reflections of clouds overhead. The water's surface fills the expansive composition so that conventional clues to the artist's—and the viewer's—vantage point are eliminated. Monet wished for the paintings to encompass the viewer: in his designs for the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, he specified that the Water Lily canvases be displayed on curved walls." He did not intend to deliver anything he invented, instead, his creative problem and passion was to recreate truthfully his feeling or impression of the scenery that he saw, through his paintings. Rather than egoistic, as most people would imagine a fine artist to be like, Monet cared very much about the response of his viewers, because he wanted so much to share his passion with each one of them!

Monet devoted to his passion for decades. He was consumed by getting it right. While he could have been resting peaceably on his estate in his later years, he continued his rigorous exploration of light and color. Once started, a journey of this magnitude is never entirely satisfactorily concluded. There is always more to do and more to perfect.

In this regard, Monet is my mentor!

Monet's Water Lilies

Some French Impressionist music: Debussy's Clair de lune