This Year's Goals + Cai Guo-Qiang

Photo Public Delivery via @Matthew McCormick

How is 2017 treating you so far? January is always a good time to talk about goals and plans for the year ahead, and with all that happened last year in the world, approaching 2017 has been a little bit challenging for us (how has it been for you?).



That is until we watched "Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang" (thank you Matthew McCormick for the recommendation we found on your instagram); a documentary out on Netflix which captures the work and thoughts of Cai Guo-Qiang, a contemporary Chinese artist (now living in New York) who has been exploring various mediums since 1986, but more specifically it's his fireworks (gunpowder drawings - that fill the sky with colorful smoke and shimmering light) which have exploded him onto the world stage (remember the Bejing Olympics Ceremony)?  In this documentary, Cai's (pronounced "Sigh") work and life's dreams are uncovered and how he applies it to the world stage, keeping his authenticity and integrity in check.  It has us re-examining our own work/ life goals and now inspiring us to take on the new year.

Photo by Zhang Feiyu, Cai Studio
With that said, we have been planning a few new series here on the blog for the new year which we think will be inspiring and can't wait to launch in the next couple of weeks.  We have also been thinking back on what inspired us to start the blog in the first place (almost 12 years now - this March) and we look forward to hitting the reset button and returning some of that essence as we look forward.

In the meantime and for the weekend, if you don't have time to watch the documentary, we leave you with Cai's explosion event (below), we found for the opening of Cai Guo-Qiang: The Ninth Wave exhibition at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai from 2014. Sure to inspire! And if you need more inspiration, we highly recommend "Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang" on Netflix.  Happy Friday and we hope you'll join us this year here on the blog!





Photo by Zhang Feiyu,  Cai Studio


Photo by Zhang Feiyu, Cai Studio

Jan Halvarson

2 comments:

Main Street Corner said...

happy new year and good luck with your adventure.
also, thanks so much for sharing these photos. i love them

Coco Cake Land said...

Happy new year, you guys! These photos are incredible. I've been thinking about what I want to do with my blog too this year - and that's write more, and just write whatever I like, accompanied by whatever I've been working on. Just to make it a place I enjoy working on again!! 12 years coming up - wild! XO