light, short, scattered

Chapter 108 "The Value of Art" Part [-]

My name is Jock and I am an artist.

He is an artist from Dashan Village, but I don’t think anyone in our village understands art.

When I was a kid, my friends were still playing in the mud in the field.

I was already making various shapes out of mud, although these things were a laughing stock to me in the eyes of my companions.

But I don't care at all.

When the volunteer teacher in the village accidentally mentioned that fire can harden clay and shape it, I felt confused.

After class that day, I took the little man I made and went to the home of the supporting teacher.

The support teacher frowned slightly when he saw the clay figure in my hand.

But I still said happily: "Teacher, this thing will crack when it dries in the sun. Is it true that you said in class that it can be hardened with fire and will no longer crack?"

The teacher smiled and said, "How about you put down the things first and go home first. I'll finish it tomorrow and show it to you?"

"But teacher, I want to learn." I said.

The teacher said helplessly: "It's time to tutor you in a few art classes alone. You must be too embarrassed."

"But teacher, you are the one pinching me," I said.

That day, the teacher borrowed the stove from the neighbor’s house next door.

And reshaped the little figure, and squeezed out the bubbles and lumps on the surface.

In front of me, he lit a fire and put the little clay figure I made into it, and four hours of busy work followed.

The teacher took out the little pottery figure with a stick, let it cool and stuffed it into my hand.

I looked at the little pottery man in my hand and was speechless with joy, while the teacher smiled and said, "Do you like this?"

I nodded my head excitedly and smiled.

The teacher thought about it and said, "Then you can come to me for half an hour every night when you are free, and I will teach you some art."

. . . . . .

The volunteer teacher has stayed in our mountain village for three years.

According to the teaching teacher, in the past three years, we have been taught from illiterate people to junior high school education level.

And I am the teacher's favorite student.

The teacher taught me a lot individually, such as viewing angles and the golden ratio.

He also told me that there should be no air bubbles when firing ceramic products.

And during the Chinese New Year, the teacher returned home and brought acrylic paint.

"These pigments can be used to color clay, but the shelf life is only five years. Do not leave the lid open when not in use, as it will harden off." The teacher said with a smile.

Before the teacher left, he left me all the acrylic paints on a board, but I have been using them sparingly and cherishing them very much.

I was making more and more pottery and it was looking better and better.

Children in other mountain villages start working and farming when they are fourteen or five years old.

And now I am seventeen years old and still holding on to the dirt. Although my parents talk about me every day, they are never in a hurry to really let me work.

Because the things I make can actually be sold for money, and it started with my dad.

Every year, Dashan Village goes to the town to exchange goods, and my father is one of the buyers.

A few years ago, my father tried to take two pottery pieces I made to the market. When he came back, he was very happy with a blue note in his hand.

I recognized it as 50 yuan, even though there is no money in the mountains.

My father said with a smile: "There was a tourist group among the people visiting the market. They saw the pottery and looked at it for a long time. They immediately asked about the price and wanted to buy it back. During the period, the two of them even argued. The price kept getting higher and higher. I should have I’m talking about something more expensive.”

Later I found out that a tire burst on the side of the road when a tourist group passed by.

On a whim, the tour guide took the tourists to a local market to relieve the boredom in the car.

The tourists just happened to like the pottery in front of the father who was bartering for things, and they matched the prices with each other.In the end, I bought two for 51, and my father used a fifty to buy a lot of things from other villages that were richer and had more money.

In the following years, my father changed his strategy and stopped bartering with other people in the village.

Instead, he just pulled the cart and took a dozen pieces of pottery to a farther place.

There is a rest stop on the tourist route, and the buses that come and go every day will be organized there.

At this time, my father would pull a cart and sell pottery, and the money he earned would buy supplies in the markets.

In the beginning, people from rest stops would come after my father.

But over time, after learning about his father, he developed sympathy after learning that he was thousands of miles away.

And my father also started selling goods once a year to once every six months.

Then it was once a month and I was just asked to have ten pieces of pottery in a month.

This is too simple for me who loves pottery, but I cherish the use of acrylic paints.Several of the commonly used colors have gradually bottomed out. Helplessly, I talked about this matter with my father.

While chatting with his father, he thought about going to a rest stop to see some wise people.

My father asked the driver at the rest stop, and the driver agreed to bring him acrylic paint.

But the price offered was a bit unacceptable. The bus driver pointed at the price on the screen with his mobile phone, which shocked his father.

A small jar of more than 100 acrylic paints was presented in front of my father. Of course, the bus driver smiled and said that he could use the pottery as collateral.

When he said this, his father felt that the bus driver was cheating him, but he was helpless and could only accept it sadly.

Every month my father would take ten pieces of pottery to the rest stop and give five to the bus driver in exchange for acrylic paint.

After selling five pieces to tourists in exchange for banknotes, it became his daily routine to go shopping at the market.

But this journey is about [-] kilometers round trip, and the father pulling the cart almost has to leave early and come back late to make it.

My elderly father finally became too tired one day and left this matter to me.

The first few times my father took me, I pulled a cart to sell.

Later, the third time, my father completely handed it over to me.

When I came to the rest stop that day, I found the bus driver.

The bus driver said to me: "Where's the old one?"

"My father? I can't do it anymore. I have to do all this from now on. Do you still have the red acrylic paint?" I asked.

The bus driver entered the lounge and I looked at him from outside the door.

Only then did I realize that he had taken out the acrylic paints from the cabinet, which was now full of piles.

This made me wonder, aren't these things very expensive?

The driver came to me, held two cans and said to me: "Two two hundred, or five pottery."

After reluctantly exchanging it again, I had a great chat with a customer during the sale.

He said that he was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts and was very interested in the ceramics I made.

I immediately asked him about the price of acrylic paint.

When he opened a software called Taobao on his mobile phone, he showed me the real prices of these acrylic paints.

When he did, I couldn't suppress my emotions, so I immediately got up and ran over to the driver and beat him up.

The other rest stop employees pulled away from the driver and I had a falling out with the entire rest stop.

After returning home, I cried and told my father the truth. My father was so angry that he took a hoe and wanted to go to the rest stop to take revenge.

When I stopped him, my father was so angry that he didn't sleep all night.

The next day, my father took out a small bag and said to me: "Son, go to the city. This may not be suitable for you, but that's where you should go."

I opened the bag and inside there were ten 100 yuan bills.

(End of this chapter)