David and Xiao Niu in my apartment. David is an artist living in another village not far away and Xiao Niu (literally meaning little ox or little cow is his studio assistant). Xiao Niu and I are exchanging Mandarin and English lessons and I had them over for an "American" dinner after they cooked me a Chinese dinner. I made Spaghetti and Meatballs (more Italian but same idea...Xiao Niu had never had it and he likes meatballs...) and brownies for dessert. This picture was taken as they came up with a Chinese name for me....Leo Xiao Yue (Which is translated as six little moon, (the last name being "six" and the first name being little moon). Xiao Niu insists the last name "six" is a very good and beautiful name for girls....so six it is!!!!
A picture of the sun setting outside of my apartment.
A large housing development near the highway and the expat grocery store.
Me and the mini Christo Denise and I found.
A bigger picture of the Christo. There is some sort of construction work going on and the tarp is covering plants or something but it looks like a miniature Christo and Jean Claude.
This is Denise an Australian artist who lives in another compound not far from me and who's studio I will be renting for part of May. We went to the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing and here Denise is pictured on their field...no grand fields at art school in the U.S.!!! Denise and I went there to see a print show and the invitation advertising it had one fatal mistake in its spelling. It said "work show" NOT "work shop"....so we showed up expecting a show and instead got a workshop. But it was fun nonetheless, they gave us a tour around and a catalogue of the exhibition and we met a bunch of Chinese and German artists etc.
This is me, David and Xiao Niu at David's place having the "Chinese style" dinner for Gerry's last night in Beijing about a week ago.

This is David and some of his sculpture work.