Our Chinese colleagues and Julie have diligently filling the minor voids along the join lines in the main segments. They use a mixture of an acrylic resin, glass microballoons, stone powder from a quarry near Xi’an, and dry artists pigments. The results are wonderful, as can be seen in the accompanying example. The joins are still visible at close examination, but they no longer interfere with the viewers’ appreciation of the carver’s mastery. We are still discussing whether the lines between the large segments (red on the annotated photograph in the earlier post) will be filled with a removable material.
