The barbecue version for “ Take 5 ”
Time: 5:00 PM    24/07/2010.
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The planned exhibition for “take 5” opened at 4:00 PM on 11th of July. Since it was very hot with a temperature of more than 30 degrees and besides there would be the World Cup final between Netherlands and Spain in the evening, so we did not expect many invited guests could attend the opening ceremony. But the fact was that many of them had come, and among them there were a lot of familiar faces. Therefore we were kept busy indeed. Nevertheless we still couldn’t help running out twice to enjoy cigarettes in the smoking pavilion.

 After this busy day, I need to make a replacement for my lithograph works in a printing museum. Then afterwards I could temporarily relax for some time. I may then start my holiday to enjoy life!


计划中的5人画展《take 5》在11号下午4点开幕，天气很热，30多度，加上傍晚直播荷兰对西班牙足球队的世界杯冠亚军决赛，所以并没期待有多少人应邀出席开幕仪式，但最后还是来了很多人，也有很多熟悉的面孔，我们几个人有些应接不暇了，尽管如此，还是忍不住跑出去两次，到吸烟亭里享受烟草的香味。

忙过今天，到印刷博物馆更换一些石版画作品之后就可以暂时轻松一阶段了，开始度假，享受生活！


 

 "Wethouder van Cultuur" was presiding over the opening ceremony / Meppel主管文化市长主持开幕仪式

Friends Wilke, peter and I / 画展中与朋友在一起

In the year of 2007, I was invited to hold a solo exhibition on a quite large scale in the art exhibition department of the municipal hospital in Meppel. That exhibition was very successful. Early this year, in trust by Art Committee of the hospital,  an exhibition for ‘ taken 5 ‘ was organized by the artist Peter van der Veen, which would last from summer to autumn this year. I was again pleased to become one of the five invited aritists.

 As a matter of fact, the five of us are quite familiar with each other. And we have had already several co-exhibitions before. But this time since all of us attached great importance to this exhibition, we have had two meetings accordingly. We exchanged opinions on the quantity, the quality as well as the price for the exhibits and also discussed about the plan regarding to the opening ceremony. The first meeting was held at Jan’s home. Since every one had his own viewpoint and opinion, the atmosphere was quite warm. The room was full of the smoke of cigarettes and the smell of beer. During the meeting, Mark took his leave earlier since he had something to do at home. And the meeting had  become later a cocktail party of the remaining four. At last Robert was considered to be drunk as he kept on talking to himself in the toilet and fell down to the ground twice from his chair. I did drink a lot too, maybe about eight or nine cans of beer with half a liter in weight. But I was awake after all. It is said that when Peter, Robert and I had left, Jan opened again another can of beer … 

 Anyway in the time afterwards, many plans had been agreed by all of us.. So we gathered together again at Peter’s home and had a photo taken for the group in the garden. The photo was printed on the invitation card for the exhibition. And in the photo, everyone had a brilliant smile. 

The opening ceremony of the exhibition is in sunday 11th July .

 2007年，应邀在Meppel市立医院艺术展览部举办了一次规模较大的个人展览，那是一次很成功的画展。 今年年初，经艺术委员会 的委托，由画家 Peter van der Veen 邀请组织在该医院艺术展览中心从夏季到秋季的5位画家的联展，很高兴成为5名被邀参展的画家之一。

其实，我们5个画家都很熟悉，相互间有过多次合作展出，但是这次的5人画展大家都相对把它看得很重要，为此我们5个人进行了2次碰头会，针对画展的作品数量，作品质量和价格等交换了意见，商议了关于开幕式的一些计划。 第一次碰头会是在朋友Jan 的家里，因为每个人都有各自的不同观点和意见，所以与会气氛比较热烈，房间里充满了烟雾和啤酒的气味， Mark 中途因家中有事情离开了，剩下的４个人也由原来的碰头会变成了酒会，最后 Robert 因为在上厕所时自言自语，加上两次从椅子上摔到地板上而被判定喝醉了，我也喝了很多，大约８，９灌半升的啤酒，不过还清醒，　但是据说在我，peter 还有Robert 离开后，Jan 自己又打开了一罐啤酒。。。。。。

不管怎样，之后的一段时间里，很多计划得到了所有人的赞同，于是５个人又聚在一起，在画家 Peter van der Veen 家的花园里为画展的请柬拍摄了一张合照，大家笑得都很阳光。

画展开幕仪式将在7月11号举行。

 Sunny smile -  the invitation  /  请柬上灿烂的笑容

 Early in 2009, I took a part in an exhibition of a charity sell organized by Ms. Liao Zhanhong to assist a psychological rehabilitation for the Chinese orphans from the earth quake. After this exhibition, another art exhibition for Chinese national day of the 60^th anniversary was planned by some organizations and the local Chinese newspapers. The preparation work soon started in the efforts of Ms. Liao Zhanhong.  And again I was honored to be invited to participate in the exhibition.

2009年初参加了由廖展虹女士组织的援助中国地震孤儿心理康复的慈善义卖展览之后，国庆60周年画展在部分组织，华人报社的计划和廖展虹的努力下进入了筹备阶段，很荣幸再一次被邀参加这次国庆画展。

One day I churned for a long time in the store room in my garden, looking for something I needed. Finally I failed to find the thing I looked for, but happened to find a pack of “cat’s food” bought for Kitty a long time ago. ( Kitty was a cat I had raised before).

 At the time long before the day, my Dutch was extremely poor. Each time when I went to the super markets, I had to look at the goods first till I made them clear before buying. Of course sometimes I did blind shopping too. Then I had Kitty with me. Watching her growing day by day, I thought I could not always feed her with the milk either remained or expired. So I went to a super market to buy her some cat’s food. There was a zone special for animal food in the market. And there were a lot of boxes and bags there, big or small in various colors with different prices, which had really made me headache. All I felt was that the food for cats was more expensive than that for people. I was afraid that to feed a cat with the cat’s food might probably make me impoverished. Hesitated as I was, I saw a big bag nearby with a picture of a cat on the outside packing. In that picture there was a lovely cat in a status of satisfactory, proud and fully fed. This had made me confident that it was no doubt a kind of cat’s food. The price was only 2 Euros more, with no more consideration, I bought one bag of that, which I was sure would be enough for Kitty in the coming two or three months.

 Soon after I returned home, I put some “cat’s food” in Kitty’s bowl. She came and smelt it, then walked away. I couldn’t make out why she was not interested in the food. Maybe she had no appetite? So I smelt the food too, but really had smelt nothing. No wonder Kitty did not like it, the cheaper food was never good in quality. Thinking like this as I did, I poured some milk into the bowl. Soaked with milk, the “cat’s food” remained unchanged, hard still. Kitty walked towards again, licked a bit of milk then went away. I remembered that in my childhood, I often heard old people saying that cats were greedy. And people also like to call those picky children as “greedy cats”. So I murmured: ok, you don’t eat it now. And I will see if you eat it or not later when you are hungry.

 The next morning when I looked at Kitty’s bowl, I found the milk was drunk while the “cat’s food” remained still, not even a piece of it had been eaten. Well, the “cat’s food” might be too cheap to arouse her appetite I thought.

That afternoon my friend Geesje came to see me on her way back from a super market. She was very white. So I gave her a nickname as white rabbit. She always wondered why was it that a white thing should be a rabbit but not something else. When we had a free chat, she saw the “cat’s food” in the bowl. She was quite puzzled and asked me what I intended to do with it. I told her that Kitty would not eat the “food” as it was bad in quality. She laughed till squatted down and even could not stand up… As matter of fact, the “cat’s food” were sands for cats. The sands were used by cats to burry their excretion.

Actually I was misled by the picture on the bag. I had misunderstood the status of that cat on the picture. Maybe that was an expression shown by the cat after defecation.

Since then, Gessje always calls me jokingly as “a stupid artist from China”.  Of course I don’t think I am stupid.
 

因为要找到一件需要的东西，就在院中的杂物房里翻腾了大半天，东西没有找到，却发现了一袋很早以前特别给Kitty（曾经养过的小猫）买的“食物”--- 一袋 “猫食”。

 那时，荷兰语不是一般的差，所以到超市里买东西大多是先看，差不多看懂了就买，但是也有看不懂也买的情况。从有了Kitty 之后，一天一天长大，不能总是给它过期或喝剩下的牛奶了，于是就到超市里买猫食，转到专卖动物食品的区域，大大小小的盒子与口袋，千差万别的价格，让我有些头晕，只是觉得猫的食品比人的食品贵，算计着如此喂养下去，会破产的，犹豫间忽然看到一个大口袋，上面图片里的小猫很满足，很得意，很饱的样子，这让我判定，那一定是猫食无疑，看价钱只有2欧元多，那还考虑什么？一大袋子可以喂上2，3 个月，买。

回到家将“猫食”倒进Kitty的饭碗里，它习惯性地过来闻了一下，走开了，我很奇怪是什么原因它会不感兴趣，没有胃口？我也闻了一下，确实是一点儿味道都没有，难怪它不吃，便宜就是没有好货。于是加了一点儿鲜奶进去，被奶泡着那“猫食”竟然一点儿也不软，还很坚硬，小猫又走过来，舔了一口奶，走开了。

记得小时候总听老人说猫是最馋的，形容挑食的孩子也是用“馋猫”这句话。 不吃就不吃，看你饿了的时候吃不吃。第二天早上，看了一眼小猫的饭碗，奶，被喝光了，“猫食”一粒不少，算了，这“猫食”恐怕是太便宜，真的无法勾起它的食欲。

下午的时候，朋友Geesje去超市后过来看看，她长得很白，我给她起了个外号叫大白兔，她一直不解为什么白就非要是兔子，闲聊间，她看着碗里的“猫食”， 很不解地问我要做什么，我告诉她那小猫不吃这“猫食”，或许是质量太差，她笑到蹲在地上无法站起。。。。。。事实上，那是给猫用的卫生盒子中放的沙石，小猫排便后挠起那沙石将粪便掩埋起来。

我被那口袋上的图片误导了，误解了图片上猫的神态，或许，那真的是小猫在排便以后显露出的轻松愉快的表情。。。。。。

此后， Gessje 就戏称我为“中国来的愚蠢画家”。其实,  我自己觉得，我并不很蠢。

In the second half of 2009, I spent nearly half a year in a language school in Lisbon to learn Portuguese. I didn’t expect to be a linguist although I really wished to master a new language. In fact that was a need for life so I had to learn. All I would learn was just some basic Portuguese for daily life, with which I would be no more deaf in this Latin country.

 Lisbon is a city built in mountains. And the school was on the top of a hill. It usually took me about 20 minutes on foot to go up to the school from my residence on foot of the hill. On my way to school, I would pass a slope road everyday. Summer and autumn in Lisbon were usually very hot. Temperature around 40 degree C was common there. Each time when I walked up from the slope road, I’d felt my heart beating fast and blood flowing quickly. I felt extremely hot then with all my clothes soaked by sweat thoroughly. In the first few days, when I arrived at the top of the hill each day, I’d felt myself like a fish thrown ashore, breathing hardly with a wide opened mouth. Thank god I did not vomit blood, otherwise I would fail to attend the class. After a few days there, I got more and more used to it. Walking had become easier for me. At days later I could even walk fast on that slope road.

 Our teacher was a kind Portuguese lady named Helena Neto. Most of our students were immigrants from other countries. Among us there were several Indians, several businessmen from Zhejiang, China, a couple of Africans and a couple of Nepalese as well. There were always funs in our class time. Our teacher taught us in Portuguese.  But since most of us did not understand Portuguese, sometimes she had to make explanations in English. But problem was that not all of the students understood English. Those from Africa could speak French while those from India and Nepal could speak English. But for those from China, they could only speak Chinese (sometimes they even spoke dialects of their hometown. I wondered if they were graduates from primary school although they were shrewd businessmen in fact. It seemed that their material wealth and their knowledge were not in a proper proportion). So at the beginning days, questions in English, French or even in some other languages were often raised up to our teacher, and that was really a big headache for her. She could neither understand the questions nor could make any replies or explanations accordingly.  But she was very patient. She tried to explain the text in Portuguese carefully while using all kinds of body language that she knew. At that time we really felt like pupils in a nursery class.  Each time when we managed to speak a complete sentence in Portuguese, we would become so excited that we would keep on repeating the sentence again and again till our teacher stopped us by shouting loudly.

 In the months later, I was able to order dinners in Portuguese in small restaurants for myself. And I could even guide the way for others with this language. Sometimes I would go to the small bars nearby, and with a glass of beer in hand, I would hear the old men around talking and teasing each other, which often made me burst into laughter unconsciously.  By then I had a sigh, that was no matter what age you were in and how much knowledge you’d had, you were always a piece of paper with blanks. You could write on it whenever you wished to, and the paper would never be filled full.

09年的下半年，在里斯本用了近半年的时间到学校学习葡萄牙语，说是为了多掌握一门语言，但我并没有想成为一个语言学家，实际上是生活需要，必须如此， 所学也就是简单的初级葡萄牙语而已，让自己不置于在这个拉丁国家做聋子。

里斯本是建立在几座山上的城市，学校在一座小山的顶端，我的住所在小山的脚下，从住所走路到山顶的学校要20分钟，其中有一条街坡度很大，里斯本的夏季和秋季很热，40几度是常有的，每次这段路走上来，都会热血沸腾，浑身被汗水湿透。 刚开始的几天，爬到山顶，觉得自己像弃到岸上的鱼，张着嘴用力地喘气还觉得呼吸困难，好在没有吐血，不然连学也上不了了，几天过后，身体适应了，走路也轻松了很多，到后来觉得可以健步如飞了。

老师是一个慈祥的葡萄牙女士Helena Neto， 学生大多是一些外来移民，几个印度人，几个中国浙江小商人，几个非洲人，几个尼泊尔人，课堂上到也有乐趣，因为大家都不太懂葡萄牙语， 而老师的方法是只说葡萄牙语，实在不懂得时候，她也简单地用英语解释一下，但不是所有的学生都可以说英语的，非洲来的学生大都可以说法语，印度与尼泊尔及巴基斯坦的学生大都可以说英语，几个中国浙江人只能说汉语（时常还要夹杂一些浙江方言，我怀疑他们在中国的时候或许小学也没有毕业， 不过他们是很精明的商人，看来知识与物质财富不是成正比的），刚开始的时候，时常从教室的角落里冒出或英语或法语，或其他语言的问题，搞得老师也很头疼，因为她无法明白也无法回答和解释，但是她很认真，耐心地用葡萄牙语讲解，几乎也用上了所有的身体语言， 那时，真感觉自己就是一个幼儿班的小学生，会说一整句话之后兴奋不已，在那里不停地重复，直到老师喊着让大家安静。

后来的几个月里，可以在小饭馆里用葡萄牙语叫菜饭了，可以给人指路了，可以到小酒吧里叫上一杯啤酒听着泡吧的老人斗嘴并时常顺帮笑一下了，于是有了一点感叹，人不论在什么年龄，不论知识多寡，总是一张有空位置的白纸，只要你愿意去在上面写东西，永远都不会被写满的。

Waiting for the bus / 等公交
 

During a free talk with friend Jan one weekend, I said that in the face of history and nature, people are just like those grasses that are green in spring and yellow in autumn. But Jan said, he believed that people are rather like the dusts that are blown by wind here and there.

I have always in mind some boring questions which I could seldom find right answers. What am I doing now? What have I done for others? What am I living for? What kind of life should I have? Is life really something like a dream as people all said?  I know that many people wouldn’t think about these questions while some would not have the desire to think about them, because this kind of thinking may probably bring helpless or negative feelings. 

I remember in a Dutch website of artists, once someone had raised a common topic like this: what is art? I made an answer as this: Art is something and art is nothing. We know that art comes from the emotional needs of people. It is not a substance, but you can see, can hear and can feel it. The form of arts is only    something like a materialization externalized on the emotional needs of people. The emotion of people would exist or disappear upon the existence and disappearance of people. Most of artists like to over value themselves. They think they are more important then others in this world, as they are dealing with an extraordinary job and considering unusual problems… As a matter of fact, the real difference between artists and ordinary people is only the division of work. In the past I often reminded myself to make efforts, to struggle forward and try to become someone like those great artists. Now I would ask myself why should I act like that? What will I be even if I success?  I did choose the job in my life, and once I made the choice, I would do it well.  To be or not to be so great seems to make no sense to my life. By the time when I am blown away by wind like a dust, recalling my life, I would say it is OK as I have tried my best in my life and the process of my trying is satisfactory. 

Nothing is great or forever in this world. And no one is more important than ordinary people. Everything will eventually turn into dust, blown away by wind, and finally be forgotten. 
 

与Jan的一次周末闲谈中，我说，在历史与自然面前，人就如春绿秋黄的草， Jan说，他更觉得人就如被风吹过的一粒灰尘。。。。。。

大脑中时常有一些无聊的却又想不清楚的问题，我在做什么？我为别人做了什么？我活着为了什么？我怎么活着？人生真的如俗语所说如一场梦吗？ 很多人不知道想这些，很多人不愿意去想这些，想这些只能带来无奈和消极。

记得一个艺术家网站上，曾经有人发起一个再平常不过的话题：艺术是什么？我曾经回复：art is something, are is nothing.  艺术的产生来自于人的情感需求，它不是物质，但是你可以看到，听到，感受到，所有的艺术形式仅仅是人类情感需求外化的物化，情感随人的存在而存在，随人的消失而消失，大多数艺术家把自己看得很重要，觉得自己在这个世界上比常人重要，因为他们从事着非常人的工作，思考着非常人的思考。。。 其实，艺术家与常人，只是分工不同罢了。 曾经，我每天都鼓励自己要努力，要奋进，要做一个如那些伟大艺术家一样的人，现在想来，我为什么要那样，那样了又怎么样？我只是在我的生命中选择了这条路，既然选择了就做下去吧，尽自己的所能做的更好就可以了，至于会不会伟大，那又有什么意义。被风吹离得时候，回想一生，努力过了，这个过程让自己满足，就可以了。

世间本来就没有伟大，没有永恒，没有重要于常人的人，所有的一切在时空间终究都将变成灰尘被风吹离，最后被忘记。

At the end of 2008, an activity of donation was presided over by De Stijl Gallery, during which an auction was held for a painting work completed cooperatively by our 5 artists.  The income of the auction was a donation for Vedselbank. In fact that activity was also a part of our exhibition in Wintersalon that year.  Since I would go to Portugal to have my driving license replaced, I could only managed to be back to Holland two days before the painting was finished. Therefore I asked the other artists to leave me a blank place on the canvas for painting.

 To complete a painting on one piece of canvas by 5 artists was something I had never tried before. I had no idea how to do it. Maybe the other artists might have some experience I guessed. But I was wrong. They knew nothing more than I did. All we had in mind was the impulse and the desire for this co-creation. Then in the following days after I had left for Portugal, things happened were quite funny and theatrical. The 4 artists started their work together for the first day. And the work went on quite smoothly as they’d had a sketch in mind which had already been agreed by them all.  But later for the second day things became different. Since everyone had his own time for a day, it meant only one artist could continue the painting each day. But after one person’s creation for a day, the whole painting had been changed. Then facing the changed painting, the next artist had no idea how to continue the work. So he would lay over the previous painting with his own idea and a new painting thus appeared.  So the four artists took turns day after day to lay over the paintings of the others' till one day of all of them could not bear anymore. They had big difference in creation and none of them wished to cooperate with the others anymore. Moreover someone even suggested to cut the canvas into pieces and then to paint respectively…Finally in an atmosphere of discord they reached agreement as this: leaving the half done painting for zhongnai to finish with when he came back from Lisbon.

 Facing with the brush work in four different styles, I really felt at a loss and helpless. I had noting in mind and even had no idea what to paint and where to start…. All I knew was that I could not lay over the painting again and I must maintain the creating traces of them all. So I worked hardly the whole evening. And the next day five of us sat together and reached an agreement on creation. Actually there were no time for disagreement anymore. The painting was finally completed that evening. Two days later, the painting was successfully sold by auction in a party of a businessman club. 

 It is said that artists are the persons difficult to deal with. But to me, I don’t quite agree with it as perhaps I am not the one difficult to deal with by others.  In fact artists sometimes are the persons really difficult to deal with, as they usually keep their mind or thinking in their world of art.  Only in that world could they find and realize themselves, and they believe they belong to that world only. Their thoughts and their way of thinking might be the only element that constitutes their world of art.  Sometimes they might confuse their world of art with the life in the real world, thus they might from time to time bring their ideas and concepts of the art world to the real society. It is true that some artists fail to change their roles freely between these two worlds, and this might probably be the reason why they usually granted to be the persons who are difficult to deal with.
 

 2008年年末，由 De Stijl 画廊，主持进行了5位画家合作完成一幅绘画作品并拍卖的，一个对社会福利银行- 食物银行的捐助活动， 这次活动也是我们5位画家在2008岁末举行的“wintersalon ” 6人艺术作品展的一部分。因为要到葡萄牙更换驾照，所以只能在这幅作品完成日期的前两天赶回到荷兰，说好了让他们在画布上给我留一小块儿地方就可以。

在一块画布上5个人共同完成一幅绘画作品，对我来说没有尝试过，也无法想象如何进行，或许，其他几个人会有好点子吧。其实，我想错了，他们并不比我清楚多少，有的只是一个共同创作的冲动和愿望，在我离开的几天里，那里发生的情形很戏剧化，创作的第一天，是他们4个人共同开始的，因为事先有了草图并得到了大家的认可，进行的还算顺利，但是第二天就不同了，因为大家不能在同一天有时间，只能是每天来一个人继续这件作品，当这个人完成了一天的工作，整个画面也就完全改变了，接下来的另一个人，面对改变了的画面， 无法接着去深入， 于是就按照自己的意图覆盖了前面的作品，当他结束一天的工作后，看到的是截然不同的另一幅作品，就这样，几个人轮流着相互覆盖的工作，直到有一天，每个人都有些忍无可忍了，他们之间产生了矛盾，相互不合作，甚至有人要把画布割开自己画自己的，最后，在不和谐的气氛中，4个人达成了一个协议：等钟鼐从里斯本回来，让他最后收拾画面。

面对4个人留下的不同笔触，不同风格，不同想法的作品，我有些很手足无措，大脑中一片空白，甚至不知道要画什么，在哪里落下画笔。。。。。。我知道，我不可能再次去覆盖整幅作品，而且进行中还要保留其他4个人的印记，就这样稀里糊涂地进行了一个傍晚的工作。 第二天5个人陆续地凑到一起，统一了意见，因为没有时间去分歧了，一幅作品在傍晚的时候，就这样完成了，后来的两天里，这幅作品在一个商人俱乐部的聚会中成功拍卖了。

人们都说艺术家是很难相处的人， 就我个人而言，我到是不很赞同这个说法，或许我没有发现自身里很难被人接受的东西吧， 但事实上，艺术家确是很难与他人相处的人，艺术家的思想总是愿意停留在属于他们的艺术世界中，在那里他们属于他们自己，世界里只有他们自己，他们的思想和思维习惯是构成那个艺术世界秩序的唯一因素，艺术家时常将这个属于他们的艺术世界与现实世界混淆，把属于他们自己的观点和理念带到现实生活中来，一个艺术家很难做到在两个世界中随意自然地更换角色，估计这也是他们被认为很难相处的根本原因吧。

Seems going well / 进行中

Totally changed / 完全改变了

 Mr. Jan van Os / 工作中的朋友Jan

Try to make a connection / 面对作品有些茫然的我

after a successful auction.,waiting for a picture taken by a journal in cold, snot was frozen out / 作品拍卖成功，等着报社记者来拍照，很冷，鼻涕都冻出来了