One summer, I was able to work in my studio almost every day. In the morning, I usually prepared clay slabs, let them sit for drying, and finished them up by the late afternoon when clay was at leather–hard stage. While waiting for my slabs to dry, I found much time to read, write, think, dream, sketch and drink tea.
One day, I discovered that leather-hard slab's surface can be an ideal sketch book. Ever since, I started to write on the inside of my slabs before I closed the form. When finished, they become space containers which embody many of my thoughts. Like a diary, it recorded my happiness and sadness, love and hate, affection and hostility, motivation and passivity, involvement and loneliness, up and down, and dreams...... Maybe, in many years later, someone will accidentally drop and break a piece of mine to discover this.
I heard the following story a while ago and it goes like this:
The Yellow Emperor went wandering north of the Red Water, ascended the slopes of K'un–Lun, and gazed south. When he got home, he discovered he had lost his Dark Pearl. He sent Knowledge to look for it, but Knowledge couldn't find it. He sent the keen-eyed Li Chu to look for it, but Li Chu couldn't find it. He sent Wrangling Debate to look for it, but Wrangling Debate couldn't find it. At last he tried employing Shapeless, and Shapeless found it.
The Yellow Emperor said, "How odd!–in the end it was Shapeless who was able to find it!"
– Chuang–Tzu (C. 370 BC)
