Ztampfilicious

“What sort of idyll have you wandered into?” my husband wrote in his email to me recently…

My 3rd Week in VSC is reaching its end soon! How time flies! I’ve been having so much fun here: making new friends, meeting fellow artists and writers – enjoying their company, making art, attending Resident Slide Show, Resident Reading Night and Visiting Artists Slide Show, enjoying good meals, relishing bon fire night – tasting my first ever S’More (it’s yummy!), visiting Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory to see how they’re made and get a taste, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day drinking Guinness while listening to Irish folk music played by a very talented young boy with his fiddle and dancing to a live band playing James Brown music afterwards… I’ve been much more sociable than I’ve ever been in the past few years! Oh boy!

(More pictures at my flickr site: http://flickr.com/photos/fhung/)

And this weekend, more fun is a-brewing! We’ll have a dance party at the Life Drawing Studio at the Kahn Building this Saturday! Yay! And before that… there’ll be a puppet show by the famous Peter Schumann’s Bread & Puppet Company. I have never seen their performance before, but from what I heard from people here and seen from books – they sound like a fantastic visual feast! Their puppets are huge and extremely artistic they could be sculptures belong to museums of art or something. And guess what! They need 10 volunteers and I have signed up! I was hesitant at first since I didn’t want to miss the show… However, I figured that I probably will get another chance to see their show. But an opportunity to take part behind the scene of such great puppet theater? It will be an interesting experience. I heard that we’d get to help with the puppet’s strings and singing etc. We’ll see! The show will be at 8 p.m. this Saturday and all the volunteers have to arrive at 4 p.m. How exciting!

Oh and did I tell you that I’m volunteering to assist teaching art class for 1st graders in Johnson Elementary School every Friday morning? Well, I don’t really do any teaching, I just give attention and help whenever needed. Last week was my first time ever and it was quite overwhelming in the beginning. There were about 20++ children aged between 5 and 6 y.o. and there were only 1 real teacher plus me. It was very interesting and fun though!

So no wonder that I’m exhausted! Now I’ve gotten back to my ‘normal’ schedule which is staying up all night working in the studio and sleep in in the morning. It’s fantastic; I could bang my hammer at 2 a.m. and sing along loudly while working in my studio and no one will be bothered! Cool eh! Here are some pictures of my work-in-progress that I’ve been working on since I got here:

All this doesn’t leave me any time to do any Ztampf! things except for some customer service emailing – unfortunately! But I’ve been collecting ideas and inspirations to work on once I manage to get the time to do them so worry not :).

It’s snowing heavily today… since last night, actually. I love watching the snow flakes falling from the sky, I love walking on soft fresh snow alternating with crunchy ice beneath. I feel so very fortunate and privileged to be here; so very grateful. The VSC people is doing an excellent work running this place. Positive vibes resonate so warmly – life is good. I am happy.

And thanks to each of you who has sent me emails or left messages here :). Thank You for all your kind words and well wishes! And to Tracy (http://worksbytracy.blogspot.com), I’m staying at the upper floor of the Red Mill itself so it’s super convenient! Downstairs for meals and slideshows, a short walk across to the Schultz Sculpture Building for my studio! Awesome! Re the Laundromat, some people told me the one with the card is cheaper so I went there but later on I heard some other people said the one with coins is cheaper! Oh well! I’ll email you more about VSC later! How cool is that you found my blog entry and you’ve just been to VSC!

Well, that’s it for now, folks :). Have a wonderful weekend!

Yes, I am in Vermont Studio Center now! My flight went smoothly enough: from Hong Kong non-stop to O’Hare Chicago then continued on to Burlington, the closest airport from Johnson, where Vermont Studio Center (VSC) is located. I stayed overnight at Anchorage Inn in Burlington and the VSC people picked me up the following morning.

I was lucky to get a window seat which enabled me to take aerial photos as the plane was lowering down for landing in Burlington. The view was just so pretty… so much snow I almost couldn’t believe it! The lower our plane was going, the cuter it all looked. Just like a giant maquette – only much more detailed and cuter!

Today is my 7th day here and I love it so far! It’s such an amazing place… They really do a great job running this place. There are about 40 artists and 12 writers at a time – they came here on various different programs/fellowships/durations so there are always people coming and going all the time. It’s so exciting!

For those who wasn’t sure what VSC is all about, basically they are a non-profit organization: from artists for artists. They are funding artists and writers from the US and all over the world to come here to create in a non-competitive community-based environment. They house us in simple and yet cozy rooms, feed us three times a day with excellent meals (the desserts are killers!) and provide us with private studios to create in. Some of us are here on full fellowship (like me – funded by the Freeman Foundation) which means we don’t pay for anything – we’re even given some stipends. While others are here on partial fellowship in which they have to pay a small amount and do some community work i.e. helping with washing the dishes, etc. VSC does not offer training programs nor courses although from time to time there are some lectures or presentations from Visiting Artists and Visiting Writers. To learn more about VSC, you can visit their website at http://www.vermontstudiocenter.org. If you are an artist or a writer, I encourage you to apply for their various grants/fellowships.

It’s so nice here – everyone is so friendly and eager to help each other. I’m a hermit but I must say I do enjoy socializing with others here. Meal time is the time to meet others and chat; it’s very interesting learning about what they do, where they come from, etc.. These are a bunch of very creative and talented people of all ages. Some of them are so young and yet so accomplished! This is such a wholesome community – I am very impressed!

It’s no wonder then that I’m settling down well. I love my studio too – it’s so spacious with plenty of natural light coming through the three windows. It took me a few days to set everything up; and I have started working in it now. I’m not sure what I’m going to make yet. Got some ideas but they keep on changing. Originally I wanted to continue working on my To Breed Or Not To Breed project currently in progress, in Hong Kong. But later on I decided to do something entirely different. Or, it could be exploring the same theme, but with a new approach or something. So I’ve been experimenting. My challenge is to create with what I got here – which is quite limited as naturally I couldn’t bring everything from my studio in Hong Kong! So far there is nothing I’m really pleased with, but I am hopeful. Maybe within the next week I’ll be able to come up with something more definite.

The other day, for the first time ever in my life I got to do a ‘Laundromat’ thingie! It was interesting! haha! Walking on the snow is also interesting – I actually like it! What is tough is walking on melting snow or sheeting icy ground – so slippery! Oh and I also got the see snow falling for the first time too! And I’m turning into a morning person here! Got up very early without any difficulties. It could be just jetlag though… but I’m enjoying it – the ‘morning person’ bit, not the jet lag! :)

And there was a Resident Slide Show – it was very interesting to see others’ work. This is done every Wednesday – my turn will be on the 19th.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and some of us went to the nearby town, Morrisville to get some materials at the big hardware store there. It was fun!

Last night, I attended the Writer Reading, there were about 5 writers reading their work: some are poems, some are short stories, some are excerpts from the book or article they are working on. It was very interesting and enjoyable!

This weekend, there is a snow storm warning – and I’m excited as I’ve never been in a snow storm before! Silly eh!

Well, that’s it from me for now :). Have a wonderful weekend!

Well, things have been extremely hectic! I’ve finally managed to get my packing about 85% done… but I’m worried that it might still excess the baggage allowance limit. It’s so tough because I need to bring my art tools and some materials… Hmmm… we’ll see…

This post was supposed to be about the Beckett’s play I saw… when was it… feels like ages ago! So.. the play is called “Fragments” – it’s a series of 5 short plays done consecutively, directed by Peter Brook who is Beckett’s long time friend and is a renown director. The short plays are: “Rough for Theatre I”, “Rockaby”, “Act Without Words II”, “Neither” and “Come and Go”. We’re very lucky to be able to see the play! It was very funny and very good. The actors were simply amazing – there were 3 of them: Jos Houben, Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni. It’s hard to say which one is the best – they’re equally excellent. My favorite piece is probably the simplest one – it was actually a poem recital, but it’s done in such a way that it stays with me long after. It’s called “Rockaby” and performed by Kathryn Hunter.

At first I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t catch the spoken dialogs/monologues well – English is not my native language and when watching DVDs I would prefer to have subtitles – just in case. But in this case, I’m happy to say that I did understand what was said! I was so relieved to be able to fully enjoy the play without any problem :).

If “Fragments” is playing where you are, do go see it! Even if you didn’t know Beckett’s work, I’m positive you will find it thoroughly enjoyable. It brings heavy matters in such a funny, light-hearted way – without undermining its deeper meanings.

Last night my husband treated me to a Björk Concert! YAY! My first ever major concert! And I was such a fool – I didn’t know about the no-camera rule and I was carrying my DSLR camera in the open so I had to put it away at the concierge (and paid for it too! Ugh!) while other, more-experienced concert goers had their cameras safely hidden in their bags. We managed to get some low-quality pics and video using our mobile phone, though. So at least there is some memento! LOL! Although the stage design was quite a disappointment… We expected something more artistic and other-worldly from Björk – naturally. But her singing was fabulous, of course! And she sang my favorite piece too: Bachelorette.

And tonight, we went to see Pina Bausch dance performance – another treat from my husband before my departure. Though the timing is too tight, we had no choice. “Vollmond” (Fullmoon) was a powerful performance – it’s amazing what you can do with your body. The movement of the dancers and the water element widely used were just fantastic!

Now it is 3 a.m. – I finally finished packing and copying files from my iMac to my MacBook Pro. My flight is at 11:40 a.m. I will stay overnight at Burlington first, then they will pick me up on Sunday, March 2nd to my final destination: Vermont Studio Center. My internet connection will be quite limited while I’m there – but I’ll check for emails etc. at least once a day – or I will try too anyway – we’ll see! I will try to regularly post at my Ztampf! blog about any Ztampf-related news and about my stay in VSC too – so drop by often :).

That’s it for now… Wish me a trouble-free journey :).