Poof! Gone.

4:30am, my brain woke me up and started thinking all about the installation/performance for NYC gallery in Feb., of me braving through snow and subway crowds and small hostel rooms alone, of the Jan. residency/installation/performance with my first long hour drive alone, of husband, cats, families in Taiwan and possible frost in the yard.

9:30am, fell to the ground with one leg squashed under neath the heavy trash bin I was pulling.
Immediately it reminded me of those movie scenes in which a poor baster lays under a fallen roof beam with flame all around it. Not able to pull it's leg out, (s)he watched the flame swallow her/him alive.
Luckily I was able to save my leg and went on limping.

Yesterday, they dug up the bones of my 10-year-passed sister. According to Taiwanese Buddhist custom, we would to collect her bones, cremate and store the ashes in a Buddhist temple or the family cemetery. Could not cremate her 10 years ago because mom and dad could not bear watching her burned. I wish I was home to visit her once again, a sister who no longer holds a physical form. She must have a big skull, I think! According the our eldest sister, she bio-degraded well, has the lucky tan/brown sheen on her bones and smells like lovely wooden smoke, thanks to the high quality wood of her coffin. My dear sister, melted to the soil and devotes her new life nurturing trees. As smoke, poof! she is gone. While I am still here heat-packing my leg, manifesting relationship with the material world.

New Journey

Once a while, new and old works spill out like a short flood. They are sitting on pedestals, waiting for my visit on the openings. Then the shows end, everything goes back to a quiet normal. Artist's life, like frequency wave, up and down, loud and silent, rich and bleak, growth and death.

Opening November, 18, 2010

at Pacific Design Center, you will find

"Marriage is overrated" featured in 39NOW exhibition, curated by Sophia Louisa at d.e.n. contemporary. This piece is a comment on over-romanticized version of marriages. No, I don't have problem with marriages, in fact, I'm happily married. But we all know someone who lives her whole life for that one wedding day. Then what happens to life after 10 years of a marriage? This piece is made of burnt toasts over paperclay. The show runs until Dec. 17, 2010

and

"Color Based," limited edition of artists designed hand-blown glass bottles containing pepto-bismol, at Another Year in LA's Gift Shop. When pepto-bismol dries, it forms pink flake against the glass. Ever wonder why pink dye soothes uneasy stomach? or does it? The show runs until Dec. 11, 2010.

Opening November, 20, 2010

Several sculptures from the Soft Tissue show at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art find home at a local exhibition.

Old letter,

Samara (maple seed pods)

and SoCal Wildfires

will be featured in Art From The Ashes' Inspire exhibition, runs until Dec. 18, 2010.

While watercolor drawings

Sporangia,

Crab II

and Mothers in their Den will be in Los Angeles Art Association's AURORA holiday show at Gallery 825. This show runs until Dec. 3, 2010.

Feast on!

2010《少年金釵男孟母》口碑經典加演場

Innovative theatre production "He is my wife. He is my mother," written and directed by my sister, Katherine Chou. So proud of her!!!

A new production "Have Wok, will travel," inspired by our mother's army and domestic life, will be playing in Taipei's Experimental Theater December 2010.

Stories

so the story goes like this...

4 weeks working on a sculpture for a show, almost burned down the studio, destroyed a toaster over, the show was postponed, a cat fell from the skylight and knocked out one corner of the sculpture: collision damage.

2 weeks on family vacation, rescued a niece's wedding and three abandoned kittens. not able to find them a good home, we drove 16 hours bringing them back to LA. 1 weeks on business trip, survived!

3 weeks working on a sculpture for a show, 14 hour day and night, too stressed to think clearly, over spent on shipping, home depressed, even the sun disappears for 2 days.

Tossed out a sculpture in the trash...

In the afternoon I heard on the radio, an Indian guy once told Wayne Dyer:

"All you can do with life is to give it away."

Not about what you can get out of or what you will lose from a situation, that is all ego talk. It is not always about me, me, me.  Then I realized why it is.

But being an artist is a game of ego. Self comes first so inspiration can be materialized. Balance keeps me in check, with every achievement comes a sense of doom. Perhaps it is to keep fingers busy, so the mind can freeze.  Making to avoid thinking, because simply being is too difficult.

Soft Tissue catalogue is here!

After months of toggle war with file formats and uploading, I learned not to assume difficulties, instead embracing the simplest method.

Here she is, the catalogue in conjunction with the solo exhibition at Fort Wayne Museum of Art in IN.

Sarah Aubrey, curator at the FWMoA, wrote a beautiful essay for me! I'm ever grateful for having everybody along the journey.

Free download available here!

Take a look, savor what is happening. If you want a physical copy for your bookshelf, contact me for a discount!

Enjoy!

because US consumers don't care

Inject hormone in meat,
plant virus in vegetable,
grains bear moving arms,
my soup can blow up a biological war!
I am a mutant, I eat GMO foods!
I pay the government to lie to me, I also pay Monsanto to put me on free human trial.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

To Louise Bourgeois

Wish I was born at a time when I can meet Eva Hesse,
there you came along in dark grace.

I spin your threads,
inhale your red,
watch the glow in anger toward a betrayed father of my own.

They are large,
sit on heavy stumps,
we laugh as the marble spits blood.

Curl up I did,
"never let anybody put you down," you said.
A girl can swallow the pain, but she should never lower her head.
I, too, am a sculptor,
so they call us.

watercolor drawings in Soft Tissue

Here are some samples of the drawings in the show, in case you visit here for all-in-one service!

"Crab," 11"X15", watercolor and ink on paper.

"Squid," 11"X15", watercolor and ink on paper.

"Clam ii,"13"X13", watercolor and ink on paper.

"Autonomic nerve system," 55"x22", watercolor on paper

"Choroid coat of eyeball," 30"x30", watercolor on paper

Solo Show install at Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Day 5

May 14, 2010

Last day in Fort Wayne. I still have little touch up I want to accomplish today.

Docent tour guide came in at 10am to hear the artist talk. They had shown much appreciation of me being here and interests in the works themselves. Answered lots of questions, had a good time.

Finished working on the sculpture labels. Signage lady came and put up the title. It is huge... talking about ego boosting.

This piece is titled "Fort Wayne." I shipped the vessel here empty and plan on looking for local inspiration to fill it. Original idea as of Tuesday was to take a photo of everyone working with me and create a miniature scene inside. But while walking along the river Wednesday evening, I found tons of these fallen Maple seedpods. They have wings and fly like badminton. First I thought they were worms:) So here they are, because southern Californians like us don't have these falling from our maple trees.

My favorite piece "What if I fall?" air dry porcelain clay in artist designed glass vessel. John Burchetta in NC hand blown these pieces according to my maquettes. This one is modeled after pitfall traps, a kind of carnivorous plant; around the holes engraved: "what if i fall?" "what if no one catches me?" "what if i fail?" "when will the parachute open?" Now you know what I was thinking of when I work on shows...haha

this piece is a keeper, rather decorative, titled "Black Noise." Black glue on container with red beads strand inside. Jesse and I both love it so much that this will be the Only piece of mine hung in our home. I very seldom hang my own works in my living/working space because I am moving forward all the time, finished works hinder me. 

 

5pm, finished some little vine silhouette design at the bottom of the wall to interact with sculpture shadow. Sarah is walking us out of the door while Joe is still finishing up the last few sculpture labels. We have become friends with these diligent workers and lovely people, will miss them sooo much when we leave.

The show looks great. Wish I can stay another week to play and attend the big opening of mine, Cara and Smithsonian's show. But there are two more deadline to meet, got to get back to studio. Jesse has to go back to work, too.

 

Joe caught up on us, perfect opportunity to take a picture. Sun broke out to warm us up! Our smiles only tell half the quality of good time I had working with these nice, awesome people~

Can't wait to go back in August when we deinstall the show.

Special thanks to Durfee Foundation for granting me ARC grant so I can fly to Fort Wayne, stay a week, install the show and best of all, work with cool people. And more thanks to Sarah Aubrey (curator at FWMoA) and Charles A. Shepard III (executive director of FWMoA), who believe in me and gave me a show. A catalougue will be published soon for this exhibition, stay on the mailing list so I can tell you about it!

Solo Show install at Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Day 3-4

May 12, 2010

Spent all day hanging glass vessels. Jesse on the condor while I on the floor directing where they go. He ties monofilaments one by one onto hardware cloth. No time for pictures today.

May 13, 2010

Stomach protests this morning from too much outside food and tosses out all last night's dinner. I'm weak in the morning, plan on fasting all day. By 2pm, I'm already feeling better. A few pieces left to hang. Glad Jesse is here to help. I must have done lots of good deeds to deserve such a husband!

Twinkle twinkle glass vessels! Rush out of home and forgot to grab the camera battery charger... duh.

My stretchy rubber octopus resting in the globe, telling a poem I wrote if you approaches it.

Solo Show install at Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Day 2

May 11, 2010
Put on my ski suits, headed out to work. It might pour rain today.

Joe is measuring the space for a wood bar to go up on the wall. With 2 eye hook crews in it, we can stretch the steel cables tight and straight enough to hold the hanging sculptures. I'm still feeling fortunate that he has a good brain so I can remain cloudy.

This condor scissor lift became our best (machinery) friends and irreplaceable tool in the next 3 days. Meanwhile, I and Jesse cut up the hardware cloth squares to accommodate the hanging clusters of glass vessels. 

Joe knows of a way to split airplane cables and reweave them in so we can avoid using the costly ferrules to make a loop. Here Jesse is learning the eye splice and having fun. I lay on the chair and watch them making "Molly Hogan" come true. Conserve energy so I can perform when my time comes!

Curator Sarah and technical director Brian working on Cara Lee Wade's show next door. I took some spying pictures of them working together. Before I know it, all the photographs were hung. Brian is a speedy installer with 23 years of experience. I later learned that he has a military museum of his own. Cool~

Labels for the drawings came in. Ignorant me have never seen professional labels like these before, not paper nor mounted on foam core, they are hefty solid card stock themselves. I'm fascinated by the way museums make labels and how much emphasis they put on the artist. I guess when the price tag is let go, true value shows through. The question of who makes art is interesting. Some consider artists make the art, some consider the market price makes the art.

Historical moment came, Joe and Jesse each hold one steel cable, straightening the pre-woven-in hardware cloth. They pull the cables as tight as they can so the eye splits can go on to the eye hook screws (which was open at this point). Final steps is to close and twist the eye hook screws in order to tighten the cables even more. At least this is how I remembered it. Of course there are lots of details in between that my leaky brain forgoes... I had to focus on where which sculpture goes, so no distraction to what guys are doing up there:)

   

Solo Show install at Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Day 1

May 9, 2010

Arrived at Fort Wayne, Indiana at 9:30pm, from Los Angeles.

May 10, 2010

10:30am: Short walk to Fort Wayne Museum of Art, weather is cool and breezy. We were greeted by the registrar Leah Reeder at the museum.

Met curatorial assistant, Joe Rohrer, who had finished painting the walls in space I'll be in. Mr. Joe will be helping us get things done in the following week. He is a brilliant artist and thinker himself. If I were a wealthy artist, he will be instantly hired with good pay to be my studio director, not studio assistant, "Studio Director" :-)
I love the color curator Sarah Aubrey chose for me. Originally I had wanted it all black, but this dark charcoal works out better. Glad I did not end up with black:)

In the mean time, I realized that the space is taller than I imagined. It is huge and my brain went blank.

 Leah took us to bring the works out from vault. Drawings arrived 10 days ago, sculptures arrived last Wednesday. It is unrealistic to see them here, 2,160 miles away. Two weeks ago, some of them were still laying around in the studio like daily objects, now they are all wrapped up nicely in cozy boxes guarded by security alarms.

My curator Sarah came in, we talked about the logistics of hanging glass sculptures. Joe came up with the idea of using airplane cables instead of I and Jesse's old "hardware cloth stretched over wood frames." It will look so much more professional. "We are in a Museum," I have to constantly remind myself. What's better is that Joe will make the structure and all we need to do is to hang the pieces. Oh, I am so lucky! 

While Joe went to get the materials needed, I continue unpacking the works and start sorting the clusters. Jesse went on to tour the permanent collection exhibitions in the museum.

Long time no see busy me

have not stopped since coming back from my Chinese New Year vacation. so busy preparing for this show that there was no time nor space for jet lag.

Framed drawings and three large flat pieces went out today via U.S. Art. I said Goodbye to my first batch of children. "Will see you guys in 3 weeks. Be nice to each other on the road!"

at the last home stretch finishing up glass sculptures and installation components. Booked the flight and hotel tonight. Tickets are in outrageous prices. I'd really bawl in front of the screen if not for the aid of Durfee grant. Thank you, Durfee Foundation!
Feel more grounded now. Another 12-hour working day awaits...

characters from Twisted Romance

friend RoO wrote and illustrated this little book titled "Twisted Romance."
I pulled some characters out and made sculptures of them. These babies have takend on a life and personality of their own, even detached from the original stories.
I find much fun turning 2D into 3D, since I can not draw well, but, man, I can see space with my fingers:)

Roots (male)

Chimney Elf

Anti-Fur Cats

These sculptures and other paintings are currently on display at Indie Collective Gallery in Culver City, CA until Feb. 26, 2010.

Stay alive, Learn!

my favorite activity in this life time, except for eating, sleeping and submerging in water, is to learn new things.
I starve if I don't take a new class once a while. The topics to learn this year is machine/motor, paperclay and welding.
Also continuing from 2007 when I tasted the value of collaboration, I realized collaborating as a form of learning: learning something and someone fresh.
The first show in 2010 includes collaborated sculptures I did with one of my high school sweethearts RoO. In spring, we will go to Arizona for a joint residency~

And I was fortunate enough to squeeze in the last several spots in this project called

with a pencil in my pocket

Lea Redmond is the brains behind this Social Artwork project. Each month I will get a color pencil in the mail and do activity with the name of that color, document it and send the writing back to Lea. Back when Lea was making a project with clothes labels, I answered an ad in a magazine and exchange some of my collections with her designs. Since then, Lea had initiated a lot of fun oppoutinities for us. How exciting! If you like color pencils and creative activities as a group, there are a few spots left,
sign up here at 500 Color Pencils. If you want to exchange for her cool clothes labels and sew onto yours, you can visit here.

other than studio time alone, we can now work with unfamiliar friends all over the world. No, I'm not talking about pretending to know everyone on facebook and bombarding people to become you fans. Making friends with one's hands is more sincere and real, don't you think?