Today, while trying to divest myself from excess files counted toward my Google allowance (tip: keep an eye on this; it can get you). I noticed this image, taken in a lull during a photo shoot of some of my workplace colleagues for a local advertising campaign:
Afternoon clouds and rain in LaG City …
Yesterday, season opener for the Downtown Farmers Market in WaWaWA. About two or three times larger than similar events in LaG City. Not a broad range of produce (yet, I’d guess), but lots of plants and other growables, wine tastings, jewelry and other artisan creations, and made-on-the-spot food (mostly south-of-the-border kind of stuff). But one unusual exhibit/booth caught my eye: Artificer Forge. Here a young man displayed his blacksmithing artistry, with a live forge, anvil, smoke and fire. He started with a blank length of metal, then proceeded, step-by-step, to fashion it into a stylized bottle cap opener. At every stage, he explained the physics and chemistry involved, along with his actions to transform the blank into a special object. He plunged the metal bar into the fiery coals, then pounded and shaped it at the anvil, one bit at a time. After each step, he held the changing object in his hands, walking around the the edge of the crowd to show his progress up close. In about twenty minutes, he had transformed the blank bar into a functional object d’art. Some pics of the process:
You can see more of Benjamin’s work at the Artificer Forge website’s gallery. I was especially taken by his wall-mounted wine racks, one of which is is shown below:
The Sixth Tone website explains itself in part as follows:
There are five tones in Mandarin Chinese. When it comes to coverage of China, Sixth Tone believes there is room for other voices that go beyond buzzwords and headlines to tell the uncommon stories of common people.
Through fresh takes on trending topics, in-depth features, and illuminating contributions, Sixth Tone covers issues from the perspectives of those most intimately involved to highlight the nuances and complexities of today’s China.
We are a team of writers, editors, and researchers from within China and abroad. We belong to Shanghai United Media Group, and share our offices with our sister publication, The Paper.
What came to my attention was a four-part series of archival photographs that show a historic China in ways seldom seen:
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001925/the-foreign-missionaries-who-first-turned-a-lens-on-china
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002053/seeing-red-chinas-communist-revolution-captured-on-camera