Besides “Bean art“, another unique craft at the fair was black ceramics.
The Chinese black ceramic (中国黑陶) dates back to about 5000 B.C. and the Chinese invented this art form 3000 years before china.
Here’s a really quick look at why this handmade blackness is like no other:
A very important material is the mud, which can only be found at the lower reaches of the Yellow River in China.
The gloss black surface is neither glazed nor painted but obtained through a special burning technique which carbonizes the mud mold while burning in the kiln. Afterwhich the handmade mud mold must be left to dry for 2 days before a craftsman uses selected sea shells to press onto the mold inch by inch for 4 times in order to achieve a smooth and shiny appearance.
Under different lightings and from different angles, the metallic luster will reflect light to show off hues of purple, grey or blue. It produces a pleasant sound with a light knock on the ceramic.
It contains activated charcoal which is known to absorb odor and purify the air from toxins such as formaldehyde, benzene, ammonia, chlorine, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide.
There’s another thing, it’s not easy to mirror this form of black so the inferior pieces in the market today are blacken using…(make a guess?)…paint!
Meet the Chinese food artist, 崔淑敏, the creator of 崔岩豆画 (bean art).
Her adzuki bean drawings undergo a cleaning and preservation process to rid bacteria and to keep the beans from rotting. In China, her bean art received a patent and won several awards, including one from a handicraft design contest.
She was in town for the “Unique Chinese Artifacts and Crafts” fair held in a mall, as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. I was at the fair last Saturday before it ended yesterday.
Tomorrow marks the first day of the first lunar month, i.e. the celebration of the Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival ) will also begin. So Thursday and Friday are public holidays here, where new year home visitations will take place. The Chinese character below means spring.
I bought this new blooming outfit for the occasion.
Just finished knotting this long necklace to go along with it, using 3 knotting methods, in a repeated fashion (2 of which are featured in this shot). Will explain about the knots and their names in another post.
As I was about to make my usual cup of tea, I got interested in the box divider…just wanted to see how simple (or precise) it is.
It is simply taking the inner length of the box multiply by 1.74 which is equal to A (variable for the total length of divider); divider is folded into 3 sections where the length of 1st and 3rd sections = 28% of A, middle section = 44% of A; the middle section is then folded into half to form the actual barrier. The height of the divider is 0.1″ shorter than the box’s height. Width is the same as the box.
Nothing like a little distraction for today. (^-^)
It was probably the third time that I got off from my seat and roamed around the duty free shop that I stumbled upon magnetic building sets and that occured while waiting in transit (for many hours!) in Doha airport in Qatar some 3 years ago. Since then, my level of interest for magnets has multiplied.
Not only can the rods and bearings be turned into complex 3-D structures such as a ferris wheel, helicopter, rocket ship or even the Effiel Tower, it’s also perfect for much simpler designs. These magnets do come in metallic pastel pink, blue and even lilac.
Playing with magnetic attraction is pretty fun. I like to use 2 like poles to pursue one another or force them to attract towards each other. Just having fun with physics.
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