by Janet Blixt
Originally published in the Duluth News Tribune
Strong personal relationships are everything when it comes to international exchanges. Lake Superior College’s program with visiting Chinese art faculty and students is a thriving example of how the common language of art crosses many boundaries.
“Our collaborations with Chinese artists have evolved without formal structure. They are based on mutually supportive relationships,” says Dorian Beaulieu, LSC’s art department faculty member and ceramicist. “In the arts, ceramics is the most personable common language system with earth and clay. We have a great bond with other potters around the world. We are used to surprises and disappointments in the creative process.”
LSC’s connection to Chinese artists began six years ago when Beaulieu met Ji Ye at a conference and invited him to do painting demonstrations at LSC. Ji Ye is an accomplished watercolor and oil painter whose style joins Asian brush stroke technique with Western-style realism. He graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art with his master’s degree in art education with an emphasis in watercolor. He served as an associate professor for nine years at Guangzhou University and later taught at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. His paintings have been exhibited in the National Art Gallery in China, Taiwan, and Poland and are held in many private European and American collections. He has had several exhibits in the Midwest. His work was recently exhibited in St. Paul at the Office of the Chancellor for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and at St. Cloud State University for a symposium on China where he also presented.
Ji Ye has taught painting, watercolor and Chinese calligraphy at LSC for several years. “I enjoy teaching American students who are taking art classes as general courses and not necessarily as art majors,” explains Ji. “It is difficult in the beginning for students who have never painted or drawn before. The students relax and gain confidence as we learn fundamentals in a step-by-step approach. I want to encourage students to have a lifelong interest in art.” Ji Ye has been intrigued by the natural beauty and history of Duluth and Lake Superior since he and his family moved here. He has painted many landscapes and portraits reflecting that interest. “I am devoted to expressing the beauty I see between people and nature,” he says.
In the fall of 2002, Dorian Beaulieu attended a World Ceramics Conference in Foshan, China by invitation of Wenzhi Zhang. That was the beginning of an exchange of ideas, support, and faculty between the Lake Superior College Art Department and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
Zhang first came to LSC in 2003 and returned in 2004 to demonstrate ceramic sculpture as a professional artist. She is internationally known for her large-scale ceramic sculpture and is considered one of the top contemporary ceramic artists in China. She earned her master’s degree in fine arts at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. “It was a very competitive degree program,” she explains. Two thousand people applied for the master’s program; seventy-six qualified and Wenzhi was awarded the opportunity. “The government paid for everything so you could concentrate on your art. There were no teaching duties.”
It wasn’t until Zhang returned to LSC in the spring of 2005 that she first taught art. “American students are very different from Chinese students. American students have their own ideas – they come to me in class and say, ‘I would like to do a teapot or I would like to add flowers – please show me how to do this.’ Chinese students are used to all working on the same idea. Chinese students get very stressed. They do as they are told, even though things are loosening up in the classroom,” explains Zhang.
After teaching at LSC, Zhang returned to the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts to build a ceramics department modeled after LSC’s ceramics studio. “I had shelving and carts built like the ones at LSC. It made me feel at home, “says Zhang. Her American-influenced approach to teaching created a word-of-mouth reputation for her classes at Guangzhou Academy as a relaxed environment to study. “Students were crying because they couldn’t get into my class,” said Zhang. “It’s become very popular which is unusual for Chinese ceramics.”
Beaulieu was invited as a guest artist to the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in the spring of 2006. “When Dorian came and demonstrated pottery making, it made the classes even more popular,” says Zhang. He taught raku and worked with students and craftspeople to build a raku kiln. Glazes were developed with the help of a chemistry company in time for a school-wide demonstration in the courtyard at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art where hundreds of students and faculty attended Dorian’s demonstration. “I was treated like a rock star,” jokes Beaulieu. “The Chinese take their artists very seriously.”
Zhang will participate as one of the guest artists in the upcoming International Wood Fire Conference at LSC July 16-26. Her students from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art will attend. Professor Lu Pinchang, a high-profile Chinese ceramics instructor, will also participate. Lu Pinchang is the head of the sculpture department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He will bring his students with him to participate in the conference. The official Chinese television network will come to Duluth to document Pinchang’s journey to LSC with his students. WDSE-Channel 8, the local public television station, has been working on a documentary on the exchange between LSC and China.
LSC student Ryan Horton has taken oil painting, watercolor, drawing with Ji Ye and ceramics with Zhang. “My style in painting and ceramics has been influenced by Wenzhi and Ji Ye’s approach. I worry less about being perfect but work on pleasing myself. I would watch Wenzhi start a sculpture and not be sure of what she was doing. It seemed like a mistake to me but it was not a mistake. I am much more open-minded to new ideas as a result of watching Ji Ye paint. It seems the Chinese are much freer in their painting style.”
Zhang and Ji Ye have been teaching a free Mandarin Chinese class open to the public this spring. They are motivated by their enthusiasm for Chinese culture and a desire to expand the exchange program to include Chinese students at LSC. “We now have an agreement with Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art to bring a group of LSC students over to China in 2008, “says Beaulieu. “We hope to see Chinese students coming here on a regular basis to attend courses, too.”
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President Whenhueng Wang (far right) represented Nankai University Binhai College at a special signing ceremony on June 6, 2007. Dahl, representing LSC President Kathleen Nelson, signed for Lake Superior College.
