San Francisco, Berkeley to be Exact!

I'm sitting in a very nice room in a university guest house here in Berkeley and trying out Open Office software. So far I have only tried Presentation but it seems to work just as well with just as many features as Power Point from Microsoft. I'll continue to play with it and give it a test drive.

The weather here is great, sunny, warm, fresh. They say it will begin to turn for the worse tomorrow with cooler weather and rain by the weekend. Oh well, it still feels good to me.

All About Bhutan!

For those of you who are in the New York area and not too busy this Friday afternoon. Upcoming event sponsored by the Columbia University Bhutan Studies Initiative (CUBSI). On Friday, November 19th, 3:30 - 5:00 pm, Ariana Maki, a Ph.D. candidate at Ohio State University, will give an informal talk about her ongoing research on Bhutanese art and architectural history in Room 918 of the International Affairs Building, which is located on the Morningside campus of Columbia University. Ms. Maki is a former Curatorial Fellow at the Rubin Museum of Art, and has been working as part of the curatorial staff of the National Museum of Bhutan since 2009.

Jet Lag

It is 4:00 in the morning and I can't sleep. I did manage to get about 15 minutes a couple of hours ago but that was it. The image above is my idea of jet lag and sleeplessness.

I would have turned the TV on to use that to try and lull me to sleep but alas the box works but the cable has shut off. I fear the bill has not been paid. In the past this was a regular occurrence here in New York up until about three or four years ago. As many as three or four times a year the cable would go off because of lack of payment. No, I don't pay the bill. The cable comes with the apartment. I will have to check into it - pardon the pun. Hopefully the internet won't stop working as well. It and the cable are bundled together. However in the past only the cable TV would go down and the internet would stay running. How curious!

Now I am up and typing. I did a little work already and plan to do more - a few outline pages for HAR and then some cataloguing. I also put up two postings of updates onto the HAR News page this afternoon.

Art Lecture: San Francisco, November 18th, 2010

In conjunction with Himalayan Pilgrimage: Journey to the Land of Snows, on view through April 24, 2011.

- Lecture: Traditional Tibetan Art - Beyond Iconography and Religion
Confusions & Conflicts Regarding Late Tibetan Painting Styles
- Jeff Watt
- Thursday, November 18, 5 p.m.
- Museum Theater: UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2625 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94720-2250

(Image: Unidentified artist, Tibet: One of seven in a set of thangkas of the great fifth Dalai Lama and his lineage, c. 1815; from the Collection of Veena and Peter Schnell).

"In this illustrated lecture, Jeff Watt, leading scholar of Himalayan art, provocatively proposes that the study of Tibetan and Himalayan art rely more on art history—on artists and critics as well as art historian—than on iconography, religious studies, and even Tibetology. According to Watt, “Cultural objects can be religious icons when looked at as religious icons, ritual objects when viewed as ritually related, and art objects when viewed as art. The subject of Tibetan religion will still remain the domain of religious studies. The study of history will remain the domain of historians, and iconography will remain the domain of iconographers. None of this will change, but to move forward, the study of Tibetan art must change."

"Jeff Watt was the founding curator and leading scholar at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York — one of the largest collections of Himalayan and Tibetan art in North America — from 1999 until 2007. He is the director and chief curator of Himalayan Art Resources, a website and virtual museum that constitutes the world’s most comprehensive resource for Himalayan art and iconography. Watt acquired his prodigious knowledge of Buddhist, Bon and Hindu iconography from a longtime study of Buddhism and Tantra."

Back in New York City

Here we are once again in New York. The flight seemed a little long this time returning from China. The movies on the flight were good. A number of them were new releases that I hadn't yet seen. I really have to space out my flying so that they have time to change the movies. No, I don't sleep well on airplanes. My head stands above the headrest and if I stick my legs out too far then people trip over them and wake me up.

There was a lot of turbulence during the crossing of a certain section of the Pacific. A flight attendant asked the cabin crew about it and was told it was a patch of very high cloud that caused the shaking. I don't mind flying but violent shaking will scare the hell out of anybody. Aside from that it was a smooth flight.

Back from Chengdu - Hong Kong Airport

Well the trip is over. I could have stayed much longer. I had a place to sleep, roof, hot water, food and good company. The China Travel Blog has now been illustrated with some snap shots from here and there. I did very little in the way of photography on this trip - some art. Many collectors didn't want their pieces photographed. There was a lot more conversation on this trip than there was quick action camera play.

I am currently sitting in the Hong Kong airport - Cathay Business Lounge "the Cabin" - watching the planes come and go while I catch up with e-mail and uploading the decorative images to the Travel site. They have three Cathay Business Class Lounges at the Hong Kong airport.

It seems I am flying coach back to NY. I tried to upgrade with air miles but they don't have any openings. Oh well, it will be fine. The exit row aisle seat is actually very comfortable and allows me to stretch my legs out and trip all who walk by - especially after they turn all the lights out.

The image above is one of the buildings within the large Taoist Temple complex in Chengdu. The Panda photo is not mine but rather borrowed from the web. Chengdu is the main city closest to the Panda sanctuaries and also the gateway to Tibet.