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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

24

"Yea, I just gotta relax today. But I don't know how I am going to do this... always having to build big things. You gotta do what you feel led to though, you know. I just need to move to China, get a studio there and hire an artist assistant. It's cheaper that way," Ting retorted.
"You need to hire like three Chinese men," I said.
Then we both laughed... wishfully hoping we would, one day, be able to hire 'an artist assistant.'

Ting Ying Han is a good friend of mine and a talented emerging artist. Her works mainly deal with her experiences of coming to the States and inner-personal changes she has been going through. She works in sculptures, installations, video, and performance. Her rising consciousness of space and environment reveals her exploration in ideas of 'home' and 'comfort.' Leaving her family in Twain at the age of 20, she talks often her feelings of disconnected-ness with her family back home. Ting's personal investigation of her family relationships, changes, and growth is sometimes painful and revealing, yet beautiful.

She is currently building a corner of house (life-size) at Ox-Bow. I feel as though her process of making this body of work is becoming performative.

Passage, 2010

Passage, 2010

Self-Storage, 2009

Self-Storage, 2009





Tuesday, September 28, 2010

22, 23

Tiffany Sinnott and her family visited the other day. It's good to have friends visit you...

I started my installation on Sunday. It will be finished tonight -
Excited about a new direction and more possibilities...





Sunday, September 26, 2010

21

 "if rules of silence help maintain the real... then one takes considerable risk breaking them...
the child of immigrant parents... because they live in two cultures at once, such children have an unusual and instructive relationship to shame ...  vulnerable to several shame, several sets of eyes watching them."
Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde


In the 'road between home and school,' I am wondering... "where is my Gold Mountain? where is my fantasy land, a noble world?"



my parents

Saturday, September 25, 2010

20

We are going to play an idea ball later this evening. Have you played that game before? I will let you know how it goes.


Joelle was my studio neighbor. She left this morning -
Joelle Francht does mixed-media drawings that create an architectural space of intimate dwelling places. Her drawings are quite beautiful and the stacks of those drawings are layered...

To view more of her works, go to http://www.joellefrancht.com.


Hesitation/Acceleration, 2009

Untitled #1, 2009








Kazumi showed me this YouTube clip of 'dramatic maki.' Check it out. It's pretty amazing. Kazumi's eyes are as big.

Friday, September 24, 2010

19

On our way back to the residency from Wal-Mart, Mitchell told me something to think about -

A scale of thinking -


Instead of a mere performance or production, I wonder... how much I consider such a thing. A scale of my mind, my thinking... to tab into something of unfamiliar and horrendously beautiful.
 




Thursday, September 23, 2010

18

Nightmares are scary. I had a nightmare where I could not escape and wake up from my dream. I thought I could never return to my own reality. A weird drawback from watching Inception.

Last night after studio, I saw three humongous (that's right, Oli!) deers standing, staring at me... it was about 2:30AM and very dark. I gasped and quietly turned around to take a different route to my room. That was another scary moment.

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Visiting other artists' studio can be so nurturing and inspiring. That's what I did today.
Olivia is leaving tomorrow, so she was working hard today. Jojo talked about being patient, not trying to rush and succeed as a young artist. And I would like to introduce you another artist, Sam.
 

Olivia's studio
Jojo's Studio
Samantha's Studio
Samantha's studio
Samantha
Interaction of Color and Shape 3 and 4, paper glued to the wall
Happiness by the Pool, acrylic on handwoven textile
Zebra 1, acrylic on handwoven textile
Zebra 1 (detail)
Zebra 3, acrylic on handwoven textile



Samantha's paintings made me to realize an endless potential of pattern making and color painting. She studied textile at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and worked as a textile designer for a few years. Then she recently completed her MFA in painting at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Sam's paintings integrate a handwoven textile work and painting, therefore, often creating an interesting tension in perception. 


To view more images of her work, go to http://samanthabittman.com. 

 Oh, and Happy First day of Fall!





Wednesday, September 22, 2010

16, 17

Yesterday, I went to the Michigan Lake and swam. Then I got a haircut from Kazumi. Today is another beautiful day here. I'm spending most of my day in my studio painting and listening to Korean pop songs... being saturated by sentimental drama in the lyrics and tunes.


Kazumi Shiho finished her MFA at Stanford in 2009 and she currently lives in Tokyo, Japan. Her works are a combination of installation, sculpture, performance, and video regarding issues of space, perception, time... I am not quite sure how to put her works in one phrase. Just like her personality, her works embody a wide variety of subject matters and space. One thing I find interesting about her work is how she is able to insert objects or concept within an existing space to create a somewhat harmonious yet humorous tension.

Below images are one of her installations called The Kingdom Come. She set up about 4000 chalks on the aisles of empty church that became an artist studio.

To view more of her works, go to http://local-artists.org/users/kazumi-shiho.
 

Monday, September 20, 2010

14, 15

My friend Katie visited Ox-Bow yesterday. Ting, Olivia, Katie, and I spent a lovely time in downtown Saugatuck. Katie also brought me a green scarf to keep me warm. It's getting a bit chilly here.



I have been feeling quite liberated - in merely exploring the colors and being obsessed with 8 colors of 색동. They were used to celebrate... but also to cast out a bad luck. I feel as though I could swim in these stripes of colors.

My studio -

Currently reading -
A Rap on Race
 - In 1970, James Baldwin and Margaret Mead met for an extraordinary seven-and-a-half-hour discussion about race and society. Mead brought her knowledge of racism as practiced in remote societies around the world. Baldwin brought his personal experience with the legacy of black American history. They talked with candor, passion, rage, and brilliance, and their discussion became this unique volume. Here is Baldwin's creativity and fire. Here is Mead's scholarship and reason. And here, for all to see, are their prejudices, their pain, and finally theire shared desire to find the thread that binds us all.

"... And I have to do it that way because, for the moment, I know one thing. I am forty-six, okay? Whatever has happened to me has happened to me and that's all right; it doesn't make any difference now. But I have a great-nephew who is two years old, and he is not going to live the life I have had to live. If it demands blowing up the Empire State Building, or whatever it demands, I will not be a party to it twice.
In a sense that's my real frame of reference... I don't believe that the band of mediocrities which appear to rule this country now have any right whatever to tell him where to sit and where to stand and who he is and what he is going to become. And I won't let them do it. Really, it is as simple as that." - pg.92-3, Baldwin.


Yes, it is a discussion from 70s... a bit outdated. Yet I feel drawn to learn about what took place here with people of color and non, and what took place in their hearts and stories. It seems as important as my own story, it seems as relevant to me as my parents' experience of post-Korean War. They talk with passion, knowledge, and understanding of each other. And I want to be in that place, too...

I woke up late this morning, and haven't gone to my studio yet. Today is... a thinking day.


Saturday, September 18, 2010

13


We had a wonderful time at a fire pit last night. It rained very hard this morning and trees look greener and fresher. 


I met another wonderful artist Olivia Valentine. She studied Photography at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and completed her MFA in Fibers at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) this year. Her meticulous and delicate hand work of lacing manifests in architectural frames and drawings. I find her works poetic. Each installation gives a new dimension to an existing architecture and space. 
 
To view more images of her work, go to www.oliviavalentine.net. 
 

Punto in Aria (Pilaster)
Punto in Aria (Pilaster)
50mm Lens at 22 1/2 feet
50mm Lens at 22 1/2 feet (detail)
Table Cloth (detail)
Table Cloth

Friday, September 17, 2010

12

Tonight, we are going to have a fire pit.


Ting is constructing a house.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

11

I saw 7 deers running around my studio. 


Here are some work images of Kaylee Rae Wyant. She completed her studies in painting (BFA/MFA) at School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and she currently resides in Chicago, teaching at SAIC and making work. During her artist presentation, I was refreshed by the language of painting - such as gaining confidence in brush making and finding colors and lines that hold a painting together. Her progression of paintings over past years reflected a persistent practice as an artist - i.e. making a painting / a mark every day. Her collaborative work with her husband (first two images below) is interesting, to see two intimate dialogues exchanged in language of aesthetics.

To view more of Kaylee's work, go to www.kayleewyant.com.

Here Hear, Collaborative show with Jerome Acks at Julius Caesar
"Making Faces" (portrait of Simone de Beauvoir)
Untitled, 2010
Slide, 2008
Mud & Lace, 2008
Sucker Punch, 2008

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

9

Oreo Box, oil on canvas

Arranged Oreos, oil on canvas
Oreo, conte crayon on paper
Praying Stone Towers (during her trip to Korea 2006)
Soojin

Soojin Kim is a Korean artist from Boston. She originally came to the States to study electrical engineering, then eventually changed her pursuit to painting and finished her degree at the School of Museum of Fine Art. Her paintings of American candies and cookies reflect her father's obsession with them. He was a young boy during the Korean War, and he would stay around American soldiers who would give him candies and cookies. As if she is stacking praying stones, Soojin stacks these cookies and paints them in remembrance of her father who passed away few years ago . She says her art making is also actualizing her father's dream, who once wanted to become a painter.

You can view more images of her work at http://www.soojinkim.net.


. . .
 
Last night, Soojin, Ting, and I sat in our dining room, just talking for hours. We talked about... artists we love, paintings we abhor, authenticity of art making, our parents, origin of our language, dynamics and history of Asia, conspiracies, our own assumptions about governments and politics, money, Tibet, colors...

Things Soojin shared with me were incredibly valuable. She had so much more knowledge of Korean history and culture... I realized how some of my understanding of Korea as a Korean-American (I came to the States at 13) are somewhat distorted and almost fantasized. I was astounded when she told me our Korean language originated from Altaic people. People who lived in Alti Mountains (central Asia) either migrated towards Europe (Turks) or the Korean Peninsula / the island of Japan. So we can find much common language structure with Turks and Mongolians. http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_altaic.html.

Soojin left the residency this morning. I am very honored that I was able to meet her.