Happy New Year! 新年快樂！

Happy Chinese New Year!
It's the Year of the Ox (牛 níu = cow; ox in the Chinese zodiac).

Since I'm still in Egypt, I thought these Egyptian representations of oxen would be an appropriate way to recognize the new year:



In Ancient Egypt, the ox basically served 3 separate functions:
1. They were used for their strength as agricultural draught animals.
2. For food purposes, they were kept for milk and slaughtered for meat.
3. Finally, there was a spiritual side, most notably represented by the Apis Bull. I don't fully understand the mythology behind it, so I'll leave the explanation to the collective wisdom of Wikipedia.

The Apis Bull, an incarnation of the god Ptah:




The ox as draught animal in Egypt:



And so that we don't stray too far from the Lunar New Year, here's a traditional Chinese representation of the ox:

I'm Back

今天我有弟一中文課，所以我一點緊張。
If I got that right, I wrote: Today's my first day of Chinese class, so I'm a little bit nervous.

This is my fifth semester of study, so I think I should be able to write that sentence with a bit more confidence. I have a new teacher this time, so that adds to the anxiety a little bit, but I think it's good to study foreign languages with different instructors, so that you can experience different teaching styles and get accustomed to using the language with a variety of people.

So, I'm back to my Chinese studies. My job at the Institute of Fine Arts is back to being busy again, now that summer is over and classes have begun. And I'm back in my studio with a new determination (which was previously waning), so after a bout of laziness, I'm going to try and resume posting with more frequency now.

Year of the Rat

新年快樂！ 恭喜發財！
(Xin Nian Kuai Le - Happy New Year)
(Gong Xi Fa Cai - Wishing you prosperity)

Happy Chinese New Year! It is officially the Year of the Rat. I'm taking this weekend off from my regularly scheduled studio time to celebrate the new year with my wife's family in NJ.

I only made it to my studio one day last weekend and I was looking forward to starting my new drawings, which will now have to wait until next weekend. However, I can't really complain about 2 days of eating home-cooked Chinese food. In China the festivities last for 2 weeks. Plus, I'll get a chance to practice speaking Mandarin before my first class on Monday.

image: Year of the Rat, 2006 by H.H. Wong 黃可鏗

At least the studio is ready, even if I'm not there

When I woke up today, it was snowing pretty hard. It wasn't sticking, and I knew it wouldn't last long, but the forecast is predicting rain for the afternoon. I rely on my bicycle to get to my studio and even though bad weather doesn't normally stop me from riding, I wimped out today. Probably because I hate cleaning my bike after riding in the rain, and I recently got soaked really bad on Friday night's downpour. Now the weather isn't even that bad, but it's a bit too late for me to go.

At least I finally finished getting the studio set up. I also started building support panels which I will use for mounted drawings, similar to these. I was planning on mounting the paper today and starting some small studies. Instead, now that I've decided to stay home, I will do some sketches in my book and work on some ideas I've been thinking about for new sculptures...more info on that in the near future. I think I'll also study Mandarin for a bit. 下個星其一晚上我有第一中文課。(Next Monday evening I have my first Chinese class.)

因為我太忙了，所以我沒有空

One of the things I still need to figure out is how to manage my time. I go to my job 4 days a week and don't get home until nearly 8 PM. My plan is to spend at least 2 of my 3 free days in the studio, leaving 1 day off every week. I like the idea of spending all 3 days in the studio, but that might be too ambitious.

Soon I will also need to fit homework into my schedule. In mid February, I will be starting my next semester of studying Mandarin. Fortunately my class will meet after my office hours, so it will not interfere with one of my studio days.

Since my time is limited, I think I will focus my studio efforts on simply making drawings (after I finish getting the space organized, which I will hopefully finish this weekend). Until I have some new work, I will not worry about sending out applications.

Translation of title: "Because I am too busy, I have no free time." (Stupid, I know, but my Mandarin is limited.)