This painting is a still life of a tea pot and a small padded box containing a stone “chop”. A chop is like a seal or stamp that you use like a signature on documents. It was given to me by some former students when I moved back to the US. The Chinese character on the red paper in the back is the word 福 which means fortune or blessing. It is upside down as a play on words. The word for upside down has the same sound as “arrived”. People put this on their doors at Lunar New Year in Taiwan as a way of saying Fortune has arrived.
This was just practice for me. I’m not crazy about it simply because no one would even know what the box with the stone stamp was unless I explained it. But my wife likes the painting though, so it’s hanging in my living room.
