MyBeijing hotel recorded wake up call roused me from a peaceful sleep at oh-dark-thirty this morning so we could catch our 7:10AM flight to Bautao. We then drove about an hour to Xian Sha Wan and settled into the hotel. After our fabulous lunch (I will not say “free lunch” because we all know there is no such thing.) we headed out to the Arts Palace. The six photographers that were there piled into the Red Army version of a Humvee and we took off for the Palace. We went down the hill, past the camel (two hump variety) corral, past the shaggy Mongolian ponies, across the frozen Yellow River and into what could only be described as a cross between Tatoonie and Degoba (Star Wars fans feel free to correct me). We were four wheelin’ in desert sand dunes on a trip to the Art Palace. To suggest the type of driver we had on this journey there was some talk the driver was a retired kamikaze pilot. The return trip in the dark was truly a religious experience. We did not follow the same route, because there are no roads in the desert.
Lan Yi told us the Arts Palace was the biggest yurt we would ever see. To be fair, it is a modern yurt, essentially , it is a domed structure made by a Canadian company. The floor is desert sand. The show will be hung with cords on a series of wooden posts that have been driven into the sand and connected with rope. It is a really big building, nestled in the middle of some sand dunes. Here’s what it looks like on the inside:
We then paid for our free lunch by matting and framing our thirty prints. We did have volunteers help us with this effort. The frames were in two sizes, 50 cm and 80 cm square. Our mats were pre-cut to a size specified by each photographer. All we had to do was assemble the prints, mats and frames. I started about one o’clock and finished up about 5:30 pm. I wound up having to tape my photographs to the masonite backing board of the frame. I will bet the exhibition didn’t buy the special low temperature masking tape.
I have no idea who these guys are. They spoke as many words of English as I speak Chinese. By the end of the day they were as tired as we were. Why were we tired? Did I mention the sand floor? It was sand. Walking on sand and standing on sand is not easy. Did I mention how cold a Mongolian winter is? How cold was it? It was so cold that my water bottle froze this afternoon. Now I can go back to the hotel room where it is a balmy 15 degrees C.
Zing you water.
Special desert water from Mongolia
Tomorrow morning I am going to go back over to the Arts Palace and sequence the thirty images for my exhibition. Then, I am going to decide how to treat the sand in my exhibit area. I think that one of the exhibition areas will have a sign that says, “Rake trap after you exit.” For the other part of the exhibit area, I thought I might rake the sand smooth, bring in some big rocks and make a little Zen sand garden. Then we will probably try to do some photography around the dome. We could do our own Mongolian version of Star Wars.
Whatever happpens tomorrow won't probably compete with what we did today.
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