What do you do when you are not making art?

"feeling guilty about not making art."

This is pathetic.

I went thru the most hellish day yesterday, because I didn't want to make art. I traumatized myself with deadlines and far-reaching goals so I could once again approve how lazy I am.

Therefore I was irritated, by paper, by brushes, by the table, by the phone, by the peaches and the watermelon, by cats, by husband and by oxygen. Nothing mattered, I rather die.

One article in Artillery magazine saved me from my torturing hell. The exact same words my loving gallerist has told me several times suddenly reverberated in the article. At the brink of vacuuming myself into dust, I, for the first time, heard the message.

You should take all the time you need. Don't let outside pressure stop you!

That's exactly what I did in the past 2 years, let the pressure to show stopped me. Interesting how life lessons repeat themselves over and over again until we learned it. I bit down my lips to make some fundamental changes of my attitude toward myself. I have to say to the fear in me, "I'm not afraid of you any more. Thanks for the advice. Please go away now!"

So I wrote this, to share with all the fearful minds in the world:

You’re in this for a long run, correct unhelpful habits so you can last long.

Everybody has a different path, universe has a different plan for every one of us.

What am I here for?
Being stressed out while working for commitments, and missed what my heart really desire?
Or be at ease and stay true to myself so that I can hear what is being said in my heart?

Fundamental changes can help me deal with stress.
Indeed, there will be no intense moment when I’m connected.

Create what I want to create; do not live from show to show.

The order should be,
take all the time I need, accomplish what means to be me. After that, the universe will match my intention with opportunities.
The dysfunctional, deceiving order is to live from show to show, in order to empower my insecurity.
I do not feel true when I lived the latter way; I was more like a lying politician trying to win people’s approval by detouring off what I’m really here for.

Art is life, you can’t lie about it. Art is life, you can’t speed it up. Art is life, do what do you have to do now so you can still make art while you’re 92 years old?

Showing is not the answer; fame is not guaranteed; contracts don’t last a lifetime; money will be spent. YOU are the answer.

“Be a person of value rather than a person of success,” Albert Einstein.

Corporate Food, what's in your bowl?

US Corporations continue to fascinate me. Where there is money, there are US corporations. Does not matter if one has to introduce illegal child labor, break human dignity or poison the innocent people.
Over 5,000 Latin American farm workers are suing Dole, Dow and Amvac for poisoning them with pesticides that caused them to go sterile. Pepsi Co finally admits that Aquafina is not spring water, but from tap water. Not surprisingly, if you eat cadmium, lead, mercury, and hexavalent chromium from your food containers, you shall thank for the glory corporations!

Dr. Phil Howard from Michigan State Univ. offered us a glimpse of how the giant companies are buying out small organic food labels. Now our organic food are processed with chemical waste, pesticide, herbicide and countless of human tear drops. I guess it is only natural that humans are greedy when it comes to profit and power. Shall we just call it ORGANIC?

Permanence with no time

Should have updated some photos to you from my perfect vacation, yet this article about Ai Wei Wei (艾未未)'s work in Documenta, Kassel, sparked resonance.

"I don't believe there is anything we make that can permanently stay as it is,'' he says.

Not any more, maybe used to be. What is permanence? The frozen instance in time, the stillness in space or the spontaneous pause in our perception? We consume and dispose physically, culturally, mentally and metaphysically. Forgot the specific tune from that song, didn't recall the conversation with other humans, not aware when the childhood memory got trampled, didn't care to wait for the real answer, not allow self and others to stop for a moment, why do we want things that last long when our mind lapse in time?

I no longer take too many pictures while on vacation, because the concentration on camera operation replaced my joy to feel the moment, touch the landscape, experience the once-for-all. This second can't not replace the last or next second, while we are busy texting, checking email, surfing on the web while the TV, music and stove are both on, do we hear what is inside?

His doors collapsed in Kassel; Los Angeles is still wondering about how to preserve gummi bears.

The real permanence, is in you!