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Flo Oy Wong kindly invited me to make a pie for her 75 x 75 installation in honor of her 75th birthday. The show will take place at the Luggage Store Gallery in mid-November and will feature "pies" made by 75 different artists. Flo's instructions are to create pies that tell the extraordinary story of an ordinary person or address the deconstruction of stereotypes that have impeded our lives. My recent driving trip in Pennsylvania gave me some time to ponder over what to create and who to feature. I was on my way to celebrate the life of a good friend who passed away in 2011. I had been making several art pieces to process the long friendship we had, the years of letters and postcards that changed hands. I just couldn't imagine making a pie about her. But another close friend who died less than 5 months after my Pennsylvania friend was a possibility. She loved food, and much of our time was spent exploring restaurants and cooking. Like myself, she was Eurasian. Unlike me, her parents were displaced from their homes, their comfortable colonial lives disrupted. They went from being wealthy to refugees. Their lives in the new country never went beyond lower middle class. Still, my friend grew up rich with stories of opulence, adventures, memories of survival and accomplishments. And the complexity of being "half" plays a part in her life. She identified with the European side of her heritage, minimized the Asian. But she was conscious that her skin color, a lovely golden brown, prevented complete acceptance by fair-skinned Caucasians. I just took the first steps towards assembling her delicious life. Yesterday I purchased a stoneware pie pan at Goodwill. I cut up wafer liners for chocolate boxes into pie slices. What will fill the spaces in between? Will the blackness of the wafers dictate my color palette? Or will they simply be fillers for my friend's multi-hued life? My second iteration of Wind Traveler at the FE Art Gallery in Pittsburgh. This work was curated by Jill Larson and the show, Alabaster Blast, is in honor of my friend, Jacqueline who passed away in October, 2011. The piece will be burned after the exhibition. I met Jozef Bayuz, another artist that Jacqueline was good friends with, and got to know Jill thanks to the show. Though Jacqueline is gone, it seems that this exhibition will open doors for future collaboration with both Jozef and Jill. A new beginning, so to speak.
As usual added texture to the canvas with crepe paper, then painted the bridge. Drew the gojira on top of the bridge painting but was not satisfied with the flatness. Added snake sheddings. Learned from previous trial that sheddings are brittle and easily broken until moistened with water spritz. Then they become pliable and give off a slight odor of human skin. Affixed with gel medium. Prepared two canvases for a diptych on the theme of Golden Gate, this year's studio artists' show. It is the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge and we decided it would nice to celebrate it.
San Francisco landmarks haven't been a theme for me since I stopped taking photos. My busy schedule hasn't give me time to work in my studio. As with most creative problem-solving, the idea for my piece came in between dreams. I will be borrowing a couple of toys from Gallerist Jack Fischer for my next step. Just finished a new piece titled "Winter Rain." I love painting index cards. After a few layers this simple material acquires the texture and patina of polished leather. I cut thin strips of collaged paper and created sharp rainfall patterns. I realized that I don't have to glue the entire strip - leaving the bottoms free allows for the paper to rub together and create a pattering sound, similar to rain.
Finished this work just in time for Momentum, a juried show with WCA. Had a hard time conceiving of the subject. What finally resonated was all the bad luck I've had this year - with death and loss. This piece is about laughing out loud at all these superstitious things like the paper clothes as burned offerings to the dead, the cut hair not properly disposed of, and subject to voodoo spells, white bandages representing wounds and pain. I am working on my second ArtTag piece on the subject of Patterns. Must confess I drew a blank on this topic. The first piece was a groping in the dark piece and I hope Miriam will forgive me for the failed piece. Received an interesting piece from Harriett, which helped in the right direction. This is as far as I've gotten so far: painted a dozen index cards in black acrylic. Affixed images of cigarette boxes on one side. On the other side, mouth images. Applied a coat of gloss medium to mouth image side to marry the cutouts to the index cards. Rubbed out air bubbles. The next step is smoke and cigarettes, which is where I am likely to make a mistake. This is one reason I am protecting the image layer with medium first. I am going to bring my WIP to Howard Munson's book arts salon. Thinking of pulling all together in a book structure of some sort. I recently participated in a land-art project in Pescadero. My piece is called Wind Traveler. I made sacs from calligraphy paper, filled it with seeds, pods, snail shells, dried weeds, pebbles. Each pod was strung with stick and waxed linen thread. The pods make a dry, husky sound when the wind blows through. Their shapes are reminiscent of breast icons strung by women in Tono. The frail membranes will release their contents on the ground and into the air as the Elements dictate. Inscribed on each is Basho's haiku, the last he wrote before his death: Tabi ni yande Falling sick on a journey Yume wa kareno o My dreams circle round and around Kakemeguru In withered fields |
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February 2024
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