A Letter from Annie
“Dancing China”

Annie - Xiaoli Wang, the owner of the Lost in the Flowers Studio(Bach's Flower Remedies). The name comes from one of Lipo's poem about his trekking experience in a valley.

I met Caroline when I visited England in 2006. She told me that she was so longing for China, then I said “Come to China.” When I returned home, to Chengdu, the city in the belly of China, one day Caroline called me: “Annie, I ‘m coming.” This is Caroline, she is living in her movements.

Caroline got to know many local people when she lived in a suburb village Lotus Pond and Night Moonlight in Chengdu in 2007, from the villagers, the local village officials, the driver, the arts professor, the college students, business people and so on. Samely, and really surprisingly, we all like her paintings. There is something in her paintings which make us feel familiar and resonating, not the strong color, Chinese arts are quite quiet. Let me think, yes something about the feeling, we called it the rhyme of Qi in Chinese, the pattern of life force. Yes, it’s the energy movement from the dancing of her brush, this rhyme is close to how we feel from the calligraphy and water and ink paintings which have been coming through over 2000 years. In Caroline’s eye China’s life force is dancing in very modern costume or opera costume, but the main rhyme is still so China, the peaceful Qi containing varying poles from Tai ji gesture to the city people’s dancing.

I don’t quite understand most of images’ meaning in Caroline’s painting, but they are just beautiful and living, it’s enough for me. As she told me, her painting could be liked by the kids or the adults, you can enjoy from any level you like, that’s the magic of Caroline.

Sometimes she is a kid, simple, enjoying the life itself, she loves our spice Sichuan food. And most of time she is thinking in her own way, reading and working. She presented me a book The selected Poems of William Blake. I read this book occasionally because I only could smell William’s weird world when my soul is pure alone. Weird is something I like Caroline in my childish heart.

We do have a lot of daily dancing in China. Every morning and night in the parks, any public space even some street squares many retired women and housewives play taiji or dance in many different ways. In the daytime the retired people continue their singing and band-playing. Caroline is so interested in it. One Friday night Caroline and I passed a river park, and a senior citizen band was playing there with the violin, Chinese Erhu, the electronic organ and so on. The audience were the neighbors from the baby to the grandparents. The light was dim but the music was so confident and showy. Something touched Caroline and she said that she would like to come again, obviously I was blind to it.

The dark blue background which Caroline likes to use in her paintings about China is like a deep mirror, its’ containing many things we should calm down and look clearly beside our enjoyable movements.

Thank you, Caroline.