May 18, 2012
friday love note!
From the spectacular Yoko Ono.
Enjoy!
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5/18/12 love note // words of yoko ono // juliekesti.com
May 17, 2012
mats’ series of eight
Mats is an acupuncturist and all-around-interesting-person-and-B52s-super-fan back in Minneapolis. When I first arrived in Shanghai, he asked me to do a series of drawings for the hallway at his clinic. We settled on eight drawings, since eight is so lucky here. I finally finished them at the end of April and sent them on their way!
Commissions are unique projects. I must consider the needs of the person who commissioned the work, their space, their style, while still createing in my usual spontaneous style, allowing a work of art to grow into itself. In this case, I chose a style similar to my home-for-rocks drawings I did a few years ago, one of which Mats owns. The process involved lots of collage and also chopping-up of collage. I wanted to capture the experience of my early days here, my understanding of the spirit of Shanghai, and include ideas related to Chinese Medicine, since that is the environment in which the drawings will live. You can read more about my process below. Some scenes should be familiar to you, if you’ve been following the blog.
I think it will be interesting to see, months down the road, how my impressions of the city will have changed. Thanks Mats for this intriguing challenge. Let me know if you have a favorite! And check out Mats’ website to read about his skills.
Enjoy!
This series reflects Mats’ profession, our shared interest in Chinese Medicine, and the business of me finding my way during my first two months living in Shanghai.
It is series containing abstract images, bright colors, images of Shanghai and Chinese traditional medicine. The series reflects my feeling of Shanghai as a puzzle for me to solve–an endless puzzle, with not only many pieces, but also many layers.
I often incorporate stitching into my drawings. It’s an attempt to mar and re-shape a drawing, which shows its interaction with human hands, and makes it less precious. In this series it also references the use of the acupuncture needle. With a needle an acupuncturist may stimulate a point to bring energy to it, or he may break up tension with friction in guasha or tui na, or he may use an herbal formula to alter the structure of tissues or fluids–breaking down and building up the energetic and physical to create the harmony called health. It also occurs to me that as I go in and out of the subway system, I am like a needle traveling up and down through the surface of this city, trying to keep the thread going.
The images in this series layer and mix together in a way similar to how we create our health through a mix of foods, habits and environments. The imagery blends the curving and asymmetrical edges of the organic with the structural lines of the man made. The skyscraping efforts of modern architecture are juxtaposed with ancient foods and medical practices, the tomb of an old scientist from the 1500s, and the old past time of playing games in public places.
Let's Go to the Park by Julie Kesti 2012
Let’s Go to the Park 7.5 x 11 inches
This image is from Xu Guangqi park, my favorite park in Shanghai, just a few blocks from my apartment. The park is in memory and honor of Xu Guangqi, a famous agricultural scientist (and Catholic!) who the area is named for (Xujiahui). His 450th birthday just passed, and he will be beatified as a saint in early May of 2012. There are always people playing cards or chess by the mound of his tomb, pictured in yellow. At Qingming people brought flowers with streamers to display in front of it.
Discovering the Territory by Julie Kesti 2012
Discovering the Territory 8.5 x 9 inches
This piece is more abstract and represents the weather (rain and wind) and general feeling I had in my first weeks of wandering around Shanghai. Gradually the rain brought flowers, and if I wandered long enough I was able to find patches of greenery tucked within the buildings and busy roads. On the edges are metro ticket slips, receipts, and my cell phone activation, all early activities that helped me start to locate myself within Shanghai.
The Pharmacy by Julie Kesti 2012
The Pharmacy 9 x 10.5 inches
This is a Chinese herbal pharmacy. I’ve seen a few while here. Usually in a grand setting, there are rows and rows of red drawers holding different natural elements–plants or animals dried and waiting for use in prescriptions. On the counter in front is a paper onto which the herbs are carefully measured using the hand scale. They are then wrapped into a bundle so the patient can take it home and make a tea. The way I have painted it, I also hinted at the prescription floating on water, as if is coming to you across the waters of time, which it is.
Greetings from Shanghai by Julie Kesti 2012
Greetings from Shanghai 6.5 x 10 inches
This was the first piece completed in the series, reflecting the layers and climbing towers seen of Pudong from the Bund side of the Huangpu River. Looking across you see the futuristic landscape, and if you turn to look behind you, you see the old European buildings leftover from colonial empires. One of the things that makes Shanghai so complicated and overwhelming is trying to identify what’s old and what’s new and make sense of it. It feels like jumping around on a timeline.
Harnessing Energy by Julie Kesti 2012
Harnessing Energy 8.5 x 9 inches
This piece is about the ways in which traditional medicine attempts to harness energy–guiding it, controlling it, building it, or keeping it in check. The method may be food or moxa or herbs or needles or acupressure or lifestyle. Again there is a lot of layering in this image. What is Chinese medicine? What is TCM? What are the “true” texts, methods, and teachings–these are the questions being asked of students of Chinese medicine in China today.
The Medicine Gourd by Julie Kesti 2012
The Medicine Gourd 9 x 10 inches
The only one of these I have seen here so far was in the form of a ceramic vase in the window of a furniture store. I first learned of these vessels at an exhibit at the Walker Art Center, oddly enough. These gourds were hollowed out and used as receptacles for carrying herbal medicines, by doctors who travelled in rural areas. To me they are a powerful image of a fertile hope for healing and the power of the medicines, protected within a natural form.
Moxabustion by Julie Kesti 2012
Moxabustion 7.5 x 10.5 inches
This is another image about harnessing the power of nature–in the form of the herb artemesia, used in moxabustion. The diagrams are pulled from a moxa how-to book I found at a chain grocery store. The girl using the moxa on herself is taken out of the book and placed as if she is in nature, harnessing it’s power to create harmony in her own microcosm.
Deciphering Shanghai by Julie Kesti 2012
Deciphering Shanghai 8.5 x 9 inches
In this piece I again refer to the mysterious feeling of this city. The sleuth image is actually a movie poster–Shanghai has many modern amenities, like 3D movie theaters with VIP lounges. Also pictured is an economical food tray a local might enjoy, a zebra and many patterns and colors. I have not seen a live zebra here, not yet, but there are constantly larger-than-life, back-lit images of luxury brands and glamorous models in exotic locations, beaming into your eyes and hoping for your pocketbook, by day and by night. Strange city, nothing should surprise you, after awhile, but again and again it does.
TEDx Shanghai so far
I returned to the “bottle opener” building yesterday for the first day of volunteering for TEDx Shanghai. The event was the rehearsal for today’s TED Global Talent Search for “The Young, The Wise, The Undiscovered.” We volunteers provided moral support to the speakers, acting as a fake audience, nodding along and applauding at the end. They only get 3-6 minutes, so the pressure is ON.
Today will be the real auditions, with a real audience. I can’t wait to tell you more about it. In the meantime, here are some links to a few projects or people I learned about yesterday.
Enjoy!
> Lei Lei/Ray: super-animated animator from Beijing–watch some of his vimeo clips, they are beautiful! and funny.
> The Poverty Line Project: a photographic exploration of what food people eat, if living at the poverty line, in various places around the world.
> 1Kg Box: a project to bring science and art projects to rural schools, and to foster creativity through social media sharing of the projects.
> and yes, there were puppets! (because I hardly go anywhere without encountering puppets) An 82-year-old, third generation puppeteer from Taiwan flew in and demonstrated his skills!
what ideas will be shared in the bottle opener today?
May 16, 2012
julie’s bookshelf
I’ve been reading a lot in Shanghai and IT IS AWESOME! You can’t read while driving a car, but you can read while riding the metro! Mass transit has helped increase my reading time. When I read a real paper book on the subway I feel very old-school, as most of my subway-riding peers are staring into their phone or iPad.
My flexible schedule has allowed for some truly indulgent reading. Like the time my friend Deborah posted about a book on twitter, and I downloaded the e-book and thought, I’ll just read the first few lines to see what it’s like. . . and 15 hours later I finished it! That is a pretty fantastic way to spend a Sunday.
You’ll see there is no real theme to what I’ve been reading–but there have been some threads between the books that I’ve enjoyed discovering. Some are books I brought with me, a couple are books friends have told me about and I happened to find them in Shanghai, and some are e-books. E-books are new to me, but I have to say they are kind of nice, especially for reading in bed–easier on the hands.
Have you read anything good lately? My list of latest reads is below.
Enjoy!
Bird by Bird Anne Lamott (a book about writing. this had way more content and good advice than i’d anticipated. and she is always funny and full of heart.)
Arcadia Lauren Groff (this is the one I devoured in one day. about the rise and fall of a hippie commune. what’s not to love?)
Leap Days Katherine Lanpher (don’t you miss her laugh on MPR?)
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen (old books are FREE on e-readers!)
The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides (if you don’t remember how your brain was working in college, read this book. . .)
An Unquiet Mind Kay Redfield Jamison (a bipolar researcher’s story of her bipolar disorder)
The Writing Life edited by Marie Arana
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (even if you were anti-Eat, Pray, Love? there’s still tons of great info on the history and evolution of the cultural/religious/legal state of marriage for you in this book)
When Things of the Spirit Come First Simone de Beauvior (i read this alongside Committed and it was super interesting to see how the concerns of middle class women have/have not changed)
A Long Way Down Nick Hornby (it’s sort of about suicide, but i laughed out loud a lot!)
MAIL CALL!
This is a three-pack posting, though they did not all arrive on one day. News of grandkids, swimming, tae kwon do, babies and gratitude, and a beautiful painting and kind words.
mail from MN!
mail from CA!
beautiful art from MN to inspire me! by espiralart.com
May 15, 2012
visit from a friend: savita’s tips for skin + pollution
Shanghai pollution can be tough on the body. I asked Savita Bettaglio, a wonderful artist, esthetician, and friend, to share some easy at-home ingredients for dealing with this new interaction between hair, skin, and smog. Luckily she was up to the challenge. Many of the items work both externally and internally–nice!
Enjoy!
P.S. Minneapolis folk–Savita’s work will be at Art-A-Whirl this weekend! Stop by and tell her hello from me!
Greetings from Espiral Beauty!
I must admit that I am a huge fan of the biodynamic Dr. Hauschka products and have only dabbled in making my own masks for fun because the Dr. Hauschka line has so much to offer when it comes to pure, well made and effective skin care. But perhaps you are feeling creative and want to make your own product, are on a budget or you’re traveling and can’t find your favorite skin care supplies. You can make up your own wonderful potions, tinctures, salves, teas, baths or infusions with some of the items on this list!
If you have any further questions on how to use them, feel free to email me. Also check out Healing Skin Disorders Natural Treatments for Dermatological Conditions by Andrew Gaeddert.
–Savita
Cleanse: Calendula (marigold), oatmeal + sugar, oil (castor, sunflower)
Tone: Egg White, Witch Hazel, rose or chamomile water
Hydrate: Raw honey, cucumber, avocado, olive oil, almond oil
Exfoliate: goat cheese, yogurt, milk, fruit enzymes (such as papaya pineapple, grapefruit)
Protect: St Johns Wort oil
Fight Free Radicals: green tea, vitamin E, OMEGAS
Mask: Clay, oatmeal, aloe, seaweed
Acne: Tea tree, clay mask
Aging: Grape seed extract
Julie’s note: That’s Shanghai recently featured some home recipes you should check out, too. You’ll notice they utilize many of Savita’s suggested ingredients!
May 14, 2012
keeping me company
One of the benefits of making art is being able to listen to podcasts while I work. I can’t listen to them when I’m writing, but when I’m making things there is often a good synergy that occurs and helps me make new connections, or at least be inspired by the lives I hear about. It also fills my daily MPR/NPR requirements from across the seas.
Here are some of my favorites:
old stand-bys:
> Fresh Air Terry Gross is my hero
> Sound Opinions — music show out of Chicago
> New Yorker Fiction Podcast an author reads one of their favorite author’s short stories and sticks around to discuss
> This American Life you must know about TAL, right?
recent discoveries:
> Here’s the Thing Alec Baldwin’s new podcast–chats w varied famous people. I recommend the Kristin Wiig interview. (I may have listened to it more than once.)
> Harvard Press Podcast interviews with the latest people they’ve published. I enjoyed the one on 4/16.
> Writer’s Almanac a dose of Keillor for you–I used to hear this all the time when I lived in Fairbanks and was delighted to rediscover it–little bits of poems and writer biographies
> The Conversation — this is actually a new TV show, but I watch it online when the internet is feeling strong. I encourage you to take a look. It’s filled with honest conversations about women’s lives–guest so far have included Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Gaga, Jane Fonda, and Sarah Silverman. It features famous women, but talking about struggles many women experience related to work, family, bodies, etc. I read about it on Welcome to Ladyville.
Let me know if you check any of these out. Enjoy!
P.S. What are your favorite podcasts?
- partial view from my desk
May 11, 2012
friday love note!
The world lost a wonderfully inspiring person this week–Maurice Sendak. If you haven’t listened to his Fresh Air interviews before, you must, must, must make a point of listening. You might want some kleenex handy. It’s one of the most moving things I’ve ever heard.
P.S. Get hand-written notes in your real-life mailbox, by subscribing to the Monthly Multiple!
5/10/2012 love note / Maurice Sendak on Terry Gross / juliekesti.com
May 10, 2012
welcome to the party welcome to the show
This week’s unofficial official word is ‘play.” I don’t always have a weekly word but somehow this week got one. It’s turned out to be fitting in several ways. Two sad ways–the loss of both MCA and the wonderful Maurice Sendak. Both of these artists influenced the role of play in many of our lives. But the third way “play” came into the week is less sad and more ridiculous.
There are DVD shops all over the place in Shanghai. Some of them are real treasure troves. Need the full series of Full House in a house-shaped box? You got it! Need the episodes of Downton Abbey that just aired last week at home? There they are! Need the entire Fellini or Jarmusch repertoire? Here you go. On and on until you find a special edition DVD of Purple Rain and need to search no further.
Now and then I see sets of Zumba (TM) workouts. My friend Paula is a big Zumba fan and she always made it sound fun, but also a little challenging to my midwestern reserve. But I also thought, if a workout is a little bit like Paula, it will probably be hillarious, so I made the purchase. The workout was campy and super-fun, and, ah, kind of interesting. There is a cartoon on each disc, and they say things like, “Isn’t it neat that we all come from different cultures and have different languages?”
I don’t disagree with that sentiment but it seemed odd. I finally googled the name of the DVD and it turns out I’d purchased the KIDS Zumba DVD! So funny. It’s still a great workout though–it may not even be that different than the ah, grown-up version, I have no idea. I feel almost as silly following along as when I was introduced to yoga by VHS and Dixie Carter (from Designing Women) in Middle School. While developing my yogic aura, I simultaneously feared that one of my brothers would come home and catch me imitating her extra-fierce Lion’s breath, and I would never hear the end of it. In the case of my new Zumba hobby, I glance across the way to see if the people on the 30th floor of the next building are home. If they are, I might pull the shade, or perhaps I should just yell out the window the greeting extended by the Zumba faux DJ, dressed in yellow from head to toe. “Welcome to the party! Welcome to the show!”
So. . . this week’s word is play…. let’s dance!
P.S. How did you play this week? Share in the comments!
May 9, 2012
beasties/bikes/rubble/pagoda
Sunday we slept in (ahhh…) and then went to the most magical place in the world, Maan Coffee Waffle and Toast. It’s in a mostly Korean neighborhood near the jimjilbang. It has two floors and large trees installed inside, and you can sit for a long time enjoying R&B music and coffee and reading a book. But I’ve told you all this before.
After that we took the train back to Yishan Road station and hopped on our bikes. We had a loose plan to make our way to the temple, where I planned to burn some incense in memory of MCA (Adam Yauch) who left the world on Friday. He’s Buddhist, and I really love the temple, so it seemed like it would be nice to mark his departure, and celebrate his gifts to the world. We listened to the Beastie Boys and read about Adam/MCA throughout the weekend.
Music is an anchor to time and place, but also a thread that provides continuity through one’s lifetime. I clearly remember first hearing the Beastie Boys when I was probably 7 or 8, and my brother Greg and his friends would take a boombox onto the driveway while they played b-ball. When I listen to Nonstop Disco Powerpack and Make Some Noise I can feel last summer like it was yesterday. I played that album nonstop as I drove around town and prepared to move out of our house, which was a stressful time, but with the music on I felt super alive, not stressed at all, so content to be alive and moving through the world.
I’ve been reflecting on the impulse to do something to honor and commemorate MCA. I am not the the biggest BB fan in the world, but his death still hits the heart in a singular way. There is the feeling of loss of a sentient being with positive cultural influence, the loss of someone young who leaves a family behind, the loss 1/3 of a musical force that pushes edges and brings together ideas and people across boundaries. I think there is also some narcissism in how this loss hits my heart–someone who shaped my pop culture world has left the scene. In addition to losing a person–which is terribly sad–there is a change in the expression of creativity, life, art, fun, that made the world I know.
So we were on our bikes and Sean had an idea of the general direction we should head, and so, of course, he led us in a slightly different direction. The route took us on a detour over a little bridge and soon we were in the giant field/wasteland/something I can see from our bedroom window. The field has been a mystery to me–how can there be that much empty space just sitting there in Shanghai? From the 30th floor it appears to be dirt and emptiness–though it’s been greening up a little as Spring moves along. However, when I saw it at ground-level, I realized it is another rubble field like the one we walked through on Saturday, but much bigger. We biked along a path until it dead-ended. I wonder how long it will remain a rubble field before construction starts. I don’t know yet of whether there is a typical span of time between tear-down and new construction, or whether tear-down always means that new construction is ready to start.
We biked on and took a wide arc to the temple, seeing garden parks and high rises we’d never seen before. The weather was warm (30 degrees) and sunny and it was a great day for biking–the smell of fragrant flowers out-stunk the less pleasant smells that tend to linger, and it wasn’t very windy.
When we finally got to the temple, it was closed. The gate was actually wide open, but a security officer inside turned us away. Hmph. The incense burning cement vase thing (to use the technical term) was a mere 50 yards away. . . We walked out to see if we could get incense from one of the nearby shops and hatch a new plan. The incense/firecracker/plastic lotus lamp shop featured a jovial old man at its entrance, who joked with Sean about the price of incense. We got 5 kuai worth of incense and they threw in a box of matches.
We tried the security guard again. Sean said, “Someone we know just died, could we burn incense for him?” “Oh,” they said, “you only do that in the morning.” Sean interpreted this for me, and I said, “Really? Ask them why.” as I always suggest Sean should ask. Sean consented. I thought maybe there was a Buddhist thing about not doing rituals for those who have died in the evening, like how in Thailand they ran away right after a funeral, so as not to entice the spirit to stay. However, this was not the case. “Because in the morning the booth is open and you can buy a ticket” was the reply. Aha.
So…plan B. We lit the incense by the decorative rocks near the old pagoda which sits outside the temple, one for each of us. I suggested we circle the pagoda until the sticks burned down, and we did. We talked about the point in our childhoods when we “met” the Beastie Boys, and how they grew up in the public sphere, some of the bizarre things they’ve done, and the good things MCA gave to us and our world in the living his life. We circled and circled. Occasionally a speed-circumambulator lapped us. At one point two women took a bra out of a bag, at one corner of the pagoda route, and seemed to be discussing its construction, or perhaps one was selling it to the other. Colorful flags flapped between us and the main part of the temple, the sun dusked, and the supermoon, or maybe the-day-after-supermoon rose. We got on our bikes and rode home.
My Name Is M.C.A.
I’ve Been Coming To Where I Am From The Get Go
Find That I Can Groove With The Beat When I Let Go
So Put Your Worries On Hold
Get Up And Groove With The Rhythm In Your Soul
And Now I’d Like To Pass The Mic. . .
(Thanks to my friend Cate for posting the lyrics on facebook).
Photos of the day below–enjoy.
