忍 TOLERANCE
(Place cursor over picture for explanation.)
Chinese people have a saying, 百忍成金 - "Hundreds of TOLERANCES turn everything into Gold".

The character on this plaque is 忍, pronounced as 'ren', which means to tolerate, to resist or to endure. It is made up of two components - 刃('ren', edge of blade) and 心('xin', heart).

It is commonly used to encourage and 'remind' one that it is worth enduring a long, painful and miserable hardship. In return for doing that, there will be more peace (on earth) or great rewards.

This is the first and only carving which is of a 'pop-up' character. For all the other carvings, the characters were carved into the wood but in this one, the background was carved into the wood, leaving the character elevated!

It sure takes alot more effort to do the 'inverted' version. I had to be very careful to make sure that the area I carved on the background was even and uniform and the border of the sunk area was smoothly edged.

This piece of wood was actually the remainder of my artwork - Sharing the Moon..., in my previous post! Brian cut it into the shape I drafted on the 'left over' wood and since the size of this plaque is only about 10" x 6", I decided to carve just one character on it. I had also been wanting to tryout a somewhat different kind of carving : the pop-up character type, so I did.

I painted the frame of this plaque to resemble stone or granite. I was taught how to do this during one of my primary school art lessons. It was fun, really. First, I had to prepare different shades of grey paint. Then I simply dipped a toothbrush on the paint and brushed it onto a comb! Repeating the procedure with the different shades of paint results in the stone effect.

It is not easy to tolerate. However, it is the Chinese traditional culture that it is very important to be tolerant. If one can do that, many unpleasant happenings can be avoided. In fact, it is one of the beautiful parts of character-building in our social education.

In our life, we tolerate. Sometimes we even tolerate the intolerable.
At home, although we love our family, there are times when we must tolerate each other's behaviour.

At work, we have to deal with our duties, bosses, colleagues, clients, etc. We must extend our tolerance beyond the home and into the workplace. We have to control and adjust our temper, anger and dissatisfaction sometimes to avoid unneccessary quarrels, unhealthy arguements or ruined relationships.

In other situations, we have to tolerate or 'resist' temptations. We must resist unhealthy habbits, criminal acts and even the temptation of delicious desserts if we are dieting.

Happy Tolerating!

但愿人长久,千里共婵娟
Sharing the Moon...

'Even though we are thousands of miles apart, we will always cherish each other in our thoughts by appreciating the beauty of the moon together.'

This is one of my all-time favourite phrases. It is made up of two verses from the poem, 水调歌头(shui tiao ge tou), by a famous China poet, 苏轼(苏东坡) - Soo Tung Po.

This sentimental poem was written when the poet, Soo, was trapped at a place far away from his home during war time. He wrote this poem in the mid autumn(when the moon was the fullest) to express he thoughts for his brother. These two verses became a popular phrase used to describe the thoughts between separated parties or couples.

In the phrase, the word 'together', actually implies 'at the same time'. So knowing that both party are looking at the moon at the same time brings the two(hearts) closer. The poet wrote this poem to comfort his brother and to encourage him to keep an open mind and be positive about life. How sweet was that!

The 'ingredients' for this piece of artwork were quite interesting. It was made by joining two chopping boards I bought from the Value$1 store. These two chopping boards resemble the upper bodies of two people. I had my friend, Brian, cut a part out of one of the pieces and then joined them back but having one raised a little bit. So it looks like one is leaning on the chest of the other.

The wood actually has some unusual dark grain. I wanted to keep the grain visible but also didn't want the bodies to look 'bare', so I finally decided to stain the wood. I chose dark blue because the verses were about night time. Initially, I made a pop-up moon, with paperclay. After baking it, it became like inflated, the surface also crumbled and I had to remove it. Then Brian cut me a wooden circle. There it was, my moon(looks like an egg yolk!)

As the meaning of this phrase is so dear, I went with golden characters on the dark blue sky.

An ancient chinese poet bowing to the moon, inviting her to drink with him.

此物最相思
The Love Seeds


The verse is part of a poem written by a famous China poet, 王维(Wang Wei) - Red Seeds. The poem was about the seeds of a kind of tree which grown in the southern part of China.



The seeds are bright red and small that look like little hearts. Thus its nickname, love seeds. In the poem, it tells us to pick and keep the seeds for they represent the thoughts and love that someone has for us.

I am glad that I live in Singapore, a country that can be considered as located in the south . The good news is we have the 'love trees' on this tropical island. Hooray!

This piece of artwork is my boyfriend's favourite. The idea of having the carving framed up with the depth allowing some love seeds to be displayed makes it so special. There used to be a big old 'love tree' near the main entrance of the my school when I was young. Some of the love seeds I picked during then are still with me! However, many of those have turned into dark red due to age, almost like burnt seeds. The ones in this frame were from Botanic Garden when I visited there two years ago. I put nine of them because 'nine'(九) to chinese, sounds the same as 久, which means for a l - - o - - n - - g time!

The wood came from a piece of discarded junk wood. Boy, it really took me a while to study its grain to decide which part of it I wanted to use. Watch the photo closely and you will find that the first two characters, which means 'these thing', are on the grain that is pointing to the seeds! Cool huh.
Hmm...I have to say carving this one was a challenge as the characters were small and the having some of the strokes that fine - especially that third character, I had to be very very careful not to cause any 'diaster'. Whew!

真善美
Sinceriy, Kindness & Beauty

These are the three great properties I think it is important to have. Being sincere, or genuine, is the #1 to me. What could be more happy than to be your ownself and not having to act as a hypocrite. No lies, not fakes, but the true colour! :) Yes I know the truth hurts sometimes, still it is good to remain honest.

Kindness - be kind or be less selfish. I honour this greatly as I am a big beneficiary of it. I have received many helps and blessings from a bunch of kind friends. I am deeply grateful to them for their generousity. I believe it does pay to be helpful and afterall, what has one got to lose for being kind?

Lastly, it's beauty. Much as many would first be attracted by physical appearance, the real beauty actually comes from the 'inside'. I believe when one is truthful and kind, the inner beauty grows in him/her.

It all can be summed up in one line - Attitute is Everything

乐 JOY

This is the my very first carving artwork. I did this in 2001 when I started learning calligraphy carving in a community centre. During the first lesson, my teacher gave me a few chinese characters to pick for my first artwork. Among the choices were 乐(Joy, Happy),真(Genuine) and 福(Prosperity). I chose 乐 because of my cheerful and jolly nature.

This character 乐, pronounced as 'le', in the traditional font type I wrote in, symbolizes a man holding up two handful of food and is smiling. This piece of wood was a cutout from a wooden carton.

Well, almost two years later, I moved to my current home. I had all my carvings hung up on the wall and somehow I felt that the shape of this plaque was quite 'boring' and its colour didn't really look good... so had it reshaped and then repainted it!

See that transformation? I am sure I like its new look better :)