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!