Delineating Art

Prints, Prints for Everyone!!!!

2012-01-23T22:05:00.000-08:00

Yin Yang Dragon by Elaine Cheung after Hokusai

All's quiet on the... I've been incommunicado for awhile. For good reason. I have been rethinking and reworking my approach to art. I have been so long a stickler for one of a kind pieces that I think I've been blinded. I could not see beyond the original work of art. I still of course believe in the original and feel that there never could be a replacement for working in oils on canvas, but there is this whole other side to art as well. And, that is the concern for reproducibility. That certain types of art are meant to be reproduced, like the book (discounting calligraphic manuscripts). With that in mind, I spent the last few months thinking about how to reproduce beautiful books. But, before I go any further, above is a graphic I did, completely (and I mean completely) digitally. There was no paper or pen involved. I made it for my Cafe Press shop.

Back to what I was saying, the concern for reproducibility. I used to make linocut prints so my first thought was to make either woodblock or linocut prints. These could work for small print runs before the block deteriorated. There is no need for a printing press which is very costly. The problem, though, is that if you wanted a design with many colors, each color would represent carving another block and then the printing of them would necessitate having the blocks and paper in register. Again, all doable, but downright tedious. Certainly it is an option, but one that I do not personally relish.

My second thought was to make black and white drawings which would then be scanned, printed on a laser printer, and finally transferred to the final paper with xylene, a neurotoxin.... again, not something I relish working with since I don't really want brain damage. But, if there were a better transfer method, I think this one could work out. The black and white image could then be hand-painted in watercolors, pencils, etc. and the final product would be an original work, yet be somewhat reproducible. In other words, it wouldn't be a clone, but more of a multiple. Kind of a monotype, but kind of not at the same time. Ultimately, I think this is the best approach for reproducing original works, if I may. But it was at this point that I had a revelation.

It occurred to me that there are many reasons for art and often it is not for that original. In fact, most often it is for mass production. Even the prints that we admire so much today by the artist Hokusai were nothing more than that. They were prints made for the masses to enjoy. In fact, that was the whole purpose of printmaking, of woodblocks, of lithography, etc. It was to widely distribute the image itself. But, now that we have computers, images are instantly accessible. Woodblock printing seems to the modern mind like a quaint method that is now considered only for the production of "real" art, when in fact its first and main purpose was a utilitarian one. One could almost say that printers today are the modern equivalent of the woodblock. But, I wouldn't go that far!

And so on and on about woodblocks and monotypes and transfers.... my mind was spinning... 'til, being unable to let any of this go, I had to teach myself vector graphics for the very sake of its infinite reproducibility in any medium to any scale without pixelation! My god.... the possibilities. This time, as opposed to the last time I tried my hand at anything digital a couple of years ago, I liked it so much that it brought to mind an exchange I had once long ago about snail mail versus email. I had said at the time that I could not imagine using email to correspond with anyone. I insisted that snail mail was far better. One could hold a letter, feel its weight, appreciate the handwriting, ink blotches and feel that you were receiving something of the person. While I still wholeheartedly love letters, I do not write letters any longer. Email and texting is my preferred mode of communication. I even despise telephone calls... to the point where I will glance at my phone and maybe even turn it off if it so happens to ring. But, I digress...

My final point is that even though I use this program to generate art, it did not change my aesthetic in the least bit. I still like wildly intricate drawings. I still obsess over seemingly inconsequential lines and colors that to most people probably wouldn't even see and probably wouldn't make a difference on the whole. I do notice, though, that it has made me even more meticulous when I am doing non-digital work... for instance, I've just spent three months painting a landscape that is still not done... dab, dab, dab. That's it in a nutshell: the medium matters not, only the artist.

Astral Extension

2011-09-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Schiavonetti, 1808, Soul Leaving the Body

Just bear with me a moment. Some of you will think, "she's off her rocker," but I have to relate an experience that I had a few years ago. I was living in an apartment in Tokyo. It was a three story house about a ten minute walk from Ikebukuro station. The house was brand-new; the previous house that stood had been torn down. So, obviously, what I'm trying to say is that it was a new house. I slept in the lowest floor of the house, mainly because I liked that it was a tatami room with futons. For some reason, I also found that the other rooms in the house were creepy. But, again, remember, this is a new house, so I chalked it up to my overactive imagination. Suffering from jet-lag in that first week, I found myself frequently awake at odd hours, unable to sleep. I found myself staring up at the wood ceiling, admiring the aesthetics of the room. Then, I noticed the light with its dangling string. At the end of the string was the metal bell-shaped pull. As I lay there, on my futon with the sun filtering through the shoji screens, I started to think that I could see the light-pull start to move; it was a pendulum, after all. Indeed it started to swing in a circular fashion clockwise. Then, when I wanted it to stop, it did so. And, when I told it to swing counter-clockwise, it did so as well. I did this for about an hour and perhaps thought I was going insane. In the following days, I moved this pendulum again and again, and it responded. I did not mention this to anyone at the time because surely they would have looked at me and promptly checked me in to a psychiatric institute.

Well, so I've looked for explanations into this. I've come up with several:
1. It was a figment of my imagination
2. The place was haunted
3. It was my astral body extending itself

1. It might have been a figment of my imagination. But, I have never been able to replicate this particular imaginative episode anywhere. Believe me, I've tried. Of course, one could never rule out this one, but I know that I am not loony nor do I suffer from delusions. I am a sane, grounded individual, not prone to flights of fancy, and believe in logic and scientific explanations.

2. The place was haunted. I have never first-hand experienced a haunting. I have woken up once when I was about five and thought I saw something in my bed. It looked like the face of a clown (and yes, I have a fear of clowns), but in retrospect, it was most likely only my mind playing tricks on me. It was most likely a stuffed toy in my bed that I saw. I have known people who have seen ghosts and spirits, but I have not. Also, if it were a spirit, then this spirit would have had to read my mind to know whether I wanted the pendulum to swing clockwise or counterclockwise or stop. And then, if spirits had the power to affect physical objects, why do the swinging of a pendulum? Why not go all out and stack chairs and stuff?

3. So I was reading the other day this book written by Swami Panchadasi entitled "Clairvoyance and Occult Powers." It is the first book that I have read that offers a comprehensive explanation of supernatural phenomena. Swami Panchadasi explains the ability to affect distant objects by what he calls astral extension. He says, "they first picture the astral extension, and then will the projection of the astral and the passage of the prana (or vital force) around the pattern of the mental image. ... their body becomes so charged with prana that it is able to move physical objects." (from "Clairvoyance and Occult Powers" by Swami Panchadasi). In effect, oddly enough, he offers a non-supernatural explanation. It is our astral bodies, our non-physical bodies, that can cause phenomenon that seems supernatural. (But, you might argue that the "belief" in an astral body is already something of the supernatural....) Take for example the very famous 1970s Philip Experiment whereby a group of people conjure up an imaginary ghost. Their imaginary ghost, named Philip, causes the table around which they sit to move and levitate. The researchers believe that this is due to some sort of mental activity of the group; their psychic (or mental) abilities as a group created a physical result, the movement of the table. These mental projections also explain the "supernatural" phenomena of mediums. The mediums, in some cases, may not actually be conjuring spirits so much as reading the thoughts of those present and thus creating a psychic entity from their collective thoughts. In essence, in order to understand our minds and the world as a whole, we must also take into account the as-yet-undeveloped ability of our minds to work as a collective whole. So, instead of arguing whether or not we have astral bodies or what not (all a matter of semantics), why not simply say that there is something that our minds are capable of, but of which most people have not developed yet. Let us work towards developing these mental capacities.

Quan Yin posing as Lord Shiva

2011-08-29T00:28:00.000-07:00

I came across this beautiful painting today and had to share it.
On Wikicommons, the quote is as follows:

"Quan Yin Posing as Lord Shiva.

Performing a divine dance of creation and destruction Surrounding flames represent the manifest Universe Upper left hand holds angi (fire) - signifies destruction Upper right hand holds a ḍamaru (hourglass drum) - creation Stoic face of Shiva & Quān Yīn represents neutrality and balance Second right hand shows Abhaya mudra - protection from evil & ignorance Second left hand points towards the lifted foot - signifies upliftment & liberation

Dance position performed is in which the universe is created, maintained and resolved."

Paper Ingots and Hell Bank Notes

2011-05-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

Paper folded into sycee to be burned as an offering

Death has always been an important aspect of my life though I do not think that I have an unhealthy preoccupation with death and the afterlife. It is simply that I grew up thinking a lot about death. In Chinese culture, we have Ching Ming which is a holiday when we go clean the graves and burn incense and offer food to our ancestors. Colloquially we call it "bai san" which means "pray (or worship) the mountain." In this case, even though "san" is literally "the mountain," in this meaning it is also of the burial site. When I was little, my extended family and I would visit the grave of my great grandfather and great grandmother at the Chinese cemetery. I cannot even remember where it was because I never drove there myself, otherwise I would put a link to the place if anyone were so inclined to check the place out... it was the creepiest place. It is not like the beautifully landscaped Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston nor like the meditative Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. It was a smallish cemetery with bubblegum pink walls. There were small, crooked tombstones in the oldest section. The graves there were so old that the names were completely worn away. Some of the tombs were sunken. In the center of the cemetery stood the crematorium. Even at the age of five or six, I knew what a crematorium was. There were few trees so the sun was always blazing down on us as we children stood in front of the graves with sticks of incense in our hands. With my eyes always closed, I said a prayer, mostly along the lines of, "please take care of me and help me to be good... I promise to be good, just don't do anything bad to ruin my fate." As I looked at their photographs on their tombstones and admired the sparkly granite, I poured out the offering of wine on the grass in front of me. All the while, the boiled whole chicken with its head still attached and the various pastries and dim sum were spread in front of their tombstones. When everyone had their turn praying, we took the food to the trunk of the car and stood there eating it. All of this was done to appease the dead and to make sure they were well-taken care of in the afterlife. We ate the food at the cemetery so that they would know not to follow us home. There was always the fear that if you pissed them off, they would come get you somehow. It was never very specific.... I guess it was kind of like what parents tell their children about Santa Claus. If you don't behave, you won't get any Christmas presents. Except in this case it was more like, if you don't behave, your dead great grandparents will haunt you. Eh, whatever works... I mean, let me tell you, I tried really hard to behave.

It wasn't just Ching Ming, though. There were the burials themselves. We used to visit L.A.'s Chinatown on Saturdays quite frequently. I remember watching numerous funeral processions roll down the street. The coffin of the deceased would ride in a fancy black hearse with a large photograph of himself mounted at the front. Then, on loudspeaker, they would announce the name of the person who died. There would follow a line of cars escorted by police. When my great grandmother died, limousines were hired for our family. I remember going shopping for my black outfit which I was told should not be too nice since it was to be burned afterward. The thought of burning my clothes really bothered me. They said it was bad luck to ever wear that outfit again. In fact, anything worn to a burial must be burned.

Then there were the superstitions. Color was a big one. For instance, we were never allowed to wear only black or only white as both signified a death in the family and was bad luck. My mother used to do the Chinese equivalent of crossing herself. She would say, "Dai gut lay see" which translates into "Big tangerine lucky money." It was impossible. Almost everything we asked or said would prompt my mother to mutter about big tangerines. When my uncle listened to the song "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, my maternal grandmother pounded on his door to get him to stop playing the death song. The word for death in Chinese is "say." Which also happens to be the word for the number four in Chinese. And that is why Chinese people avoid fours. Fours are bad. Four is death. Everything is death.

Hell Bank Note

So you see, while most American children are told lovely stories about angels and heaven, we were told about angry vengeful spirits that could make life really tough for you. It is the reason to give proper burials and to regard the dead with respect. And even with all of my efforts to rid myself of superstitious behaviors, I cannot easily let these pass. When I buried Mamaa, my paternal grandmother, in 2006, I followed the Buddhist priest as he told us what to do. I bowed and I put my hands together with incense. I folded the little gold papers to resemble gold ingots that were then placed in her casket. Some were burned after the open casket viewing. As the ashes of the paper gold floated into the air, I spoke her name so that they would be sure to be deposited into her bank account at the Bank of Hell (I guess this means everyone goes to hell). At the cemetery, I never looked back at her grave. I had been told long ago by Mamaa that if I were to look back, I would see the spirit of the deceased. It was then that it finally occurred to me that all of these customs and rites were done out of respect for the person who raised you and taught you how to do a million things and who helped you become the person you are today. Sure, there were some confusing scary nightmares, but ultimately, these traditions help me to remember the ones I loved best and to remember to live and not fear the inevitability of death.

The $pending Habit

2011-04-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

Detail from a US Dollar Bill... should make one's heart flutter???

I was lamenting to the bead store lady the other day about how there was no such thing as a bead store when I was growing up. We did, however, have Newberry's. I like to think of it as the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink store. You could buy plastic flowers, pots and pans, crafty things, and little piggy banks in the shape of Santa Claus. It was where my grandmother went to buy fabric to make blouses and yarn to hand-knit sweaters for us... which, incidentally defined much of my wardrobe throughout my childhood (fashion has never been my strong suit, no pun intended). All of my allowance and birthday money went to that store. I bought embroidery floss, cross stitching kits, latchhook pillow kits, beading needles, and lots and lots of yarn. This craft habit started at the tender age of six. I could knit like there was no tomorrow by the time I was 12. I never had money in my little safe and frequently tried to borrow from my older sister. My mother rightfully thought I had no ability to save money and accused Grandma of instilling in me bad shopping (and useless crafting) habits. It was the family joke... like, hey, you Chinese girl should be thrifty and money-saving, but you're not and *gasp* you use money to buy things!!!! They would look at my palms and see that money would slip through my grip, like water leaking out through the wide spaces between my fingers. I was accused of having a too-generous nature (a trait one must, of course, strive to eliminate from one's personality) because I would give away my toys to anyone who asked. I was lectured about the virtues of saving money. I was told there would be some joy from watching numbers rise on my savings booklet. My parents even forced me to open a CD account which literally trapped your dollars in an account for a year.... in exchange one would earn (back then) 8%... (I know! Unbelievable rate!). I even invested in a utility company in my teens. So, by all means, I should be well-versed in saving and investing money. I should be a wildly successful business woman today, what with all the money talk, right? But.... oh, the buts! But, it was truly yawn-inducing. Looking back, I know my parents meant well. They wanted me to be money-savvy. I just never really got it, I guess. I mean, where is the fun in watching numbers go up and down? Even after all that "education" I basically have the same spending habits as before. I think it must be something in the genes, some kind of recessive gene that reared its ugly head in the face of all those money-saving genes so dominant in my family... I like to blame the genes. I was born that way. The way I see it is that some people are spenders and others are keepers. And no amount of convincing or education could ever sway them to the other side.... believe me, they tried!

Back to Paper

2011-03-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

Dagon, 2.5" x 3.5" by Elaine Cheung

Sooo... I gave it a go. I don't like technology after all. Confirmed. Fini. Done. It was great for awhile. I did a portrait of my friend's dog.... so, it's not da Vinci. Then I did a few sketches while out and about and I have to say, I don't like the feel of it. There isn't the friction of the pencil on paper, there's no tactile sensation. I can't get my lines fine enough. The picture that comes out is way too colorful and because of the back lighting from the screen, everything glows. It's just all wrong. I give up on technology. Technology is great for word processing. It's great for watching netflix and looking things up on wikipedia, but for art, it is lost on me.

I think technology and I were doomed from the start. Even when I was in school, taking notes for run of the mill classes, I would only write with a fountain pen. No modern ball point pens for me! It had to be ink. And I preferred the non-cartridge type pen, the ones with the ink bladder. I would have used a quill and ink at the time, but I couldn't find a source for tail feathers and it would have been burdensome to be sharpening quills in the middle of class anyway. Still, I have to say, it was very, very enjoyable to write with a fountain pen, a pleasure.

So, these last few weeks, I've completely gone back to just pen and paper. It's simple, portable, infinitely more pleasurable than tapping a stylus on a glass screen. And, there up above, to my utter relief, the simplest of pleasures, is my latest work... Dagon.

From Watercolors to Pixels

2010-12-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

Sketch for The Last Supper, Juda's Head by da Vinci

Many artists in the past used watercolor and pen as a sketching tool out in the field to record roughly major shadows, shapes, and line. They would then return to the studio with their quick watercolor sketch and work up an oil painting from these sketches. The choice of oils in the past was mainly for its durability (or permanence) and also for its flexibility as a medium. Watercolor, on the other hand, being done on paper, was lightweight, not permanent, a rather fleeting medium. It was also less expensive and more portable. Hence, it was the perfect thing to take into the field to use for a quick study. At some point, watercolor became more than just a tool; watercolors are now finished pieces, beautiful in and of themselves. Maybe the invention of more permanent, fade-resistant colors, archival papers, and treated glass/plexiglas allowed people to display these more fragile works of art.

So... I was thinking about this today as I was doing a digital sketch, instead of a watercolor one... *gasp*... and I... liked... it... yikes! I never thought I would ever say that about anything digital. Technology has so progressed that I was sketching with a stylus on a touchscreen. Pixels are evermore portable, flexible, and in some ways, more permanent, plus infinitely pliable. What's not to love? I'm going to work at it until I can sketch like Master da Vinci up there with my stylus. Will post my work later!!!

Gypsy-esque

2010-11-22T22:44:00.000-08:00

Ship Clouds by Ciurlionis 1906

J called me a gypsy once because she said I had the "disease of moving." (Her exact words) It isn't so, I argued at the time. I was settled, I thought. Yet, as I gaze out on the ocean, I feel that familiar tug. I like leaving things behind. I like starting over. I like moving. I know I complain about the packing and about having to learn all over again where the markets are or where the post office is, but the fact is that it is kind of fun. And then getting to live in different apartments or houses, each with its own character in different neighborhoods; well, it's charming, interesting... and I feel as if I am assuming someone else' life for a little while.

I suppose she is a little bit right. She herself has lived in the same place for decades, hence her observation. I keep asking myself why it is that I want to move in the first place and I cannot seem to find the reason, other than maybe I just feel restless, and that is really not even an answer. It doesn't faze me in the least to pack it all up (or sell it all), plane ticket and passport in hand to some faraway place I've never been and calmly settle there... maybe forever this time? It seems a bit callous. What about roots? What about family? What about friendship? Maybe it was because of my own father who left home one day, at the age of 18 (I think), and sailed the seas for years and years. From Hong Kong, he sailed all over the world: Europe, Hawaii, America. I admire that about him and maybe I inherited some of that restlessness too. There is something about the sea that makes us wonder about what lies just a little beyond. Maybe it is that we cannot comprehend the vastness of the ocean and so need to seek other lands. Or maybe the water is a little bit hypnotic... perhaps the movement of the water awakens in our deepest subconscious a need for movement and change. Is it possible that land-locked people prefer to stay put?

Of Operas and Language

2010-10-12T02:49:00.000-07:00

Mary Cassatt in de Loge

What are the chances of having mentioned in conversation, twice in the same day by two different people, the composer Wagner? I am no musician, though I've dabbled in various instruments. And, I generally do not go around talking about composers or operas.
Yet, on that very same day, I struck up a conversation with an older fellow at the bookstore (which, I must emphasize, is quite extraordinary in and of itself as I usually have my headphones on...). At first, it was the spiral staircase in Chambord designed by Leonardo da Vinci, then it was Wagner, the German composer and his militant style of music. He was convinced that Wagner's music could only have come from the German language with the majority of its words in consonant endings as opposed to the Italian operas which are far more beautiful, owing, of course, to the Italian language with its vowel endings. I have never studied Italian, but truly, thinking of the few words I know, it does seem that there are many words which end in vowels (fettucine, alfredo, spaghetti...). The reason for Italian being the most suitable language for opera is that operas tend to need long extended notes. Vowels lend themselves quite well to being extended indefinitely (one can sing aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh) while consonants end most abruptly and cannot be so extended. He is absolutely correct. Of course, when I mentioned this to a friend, she said, of course, I thought this was common knowledge.... Well, maybe to Europeans who must as a matter of course be polyglots! But to an American, who generally isn't... I thought it was a poignant observation. Add to that, that Italian operas are more beautiful. Besides, Americans are biased when it comes to language; we do not like to strain the language centers in our brains and thus pronounce that the world should only have to learn English, it being the "universal" language. I'm sure the French thought the same thing once when the French language was considered to be the educated language. According to wikipedia, "from the 17th century to the mid 20th century, French served as the pre-eminent international language of diplomacy and international affairs as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe." And, where will we English speakers be tomorrow? Are there great operas in our future? Nope, too many consonants!

I love Vienna!!

2010-09-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

Jacob Jordaens, Feast of the Bean King, 1640-45

I had an extraordinary amount of free time last Wednesday. So, I sat on the beach in the morning, gazing out at the ocean in relative quiet. Kaimana Beach is my favorite mostly because the hotel shades a good portion of the beach well until noon. And, because most people like to sunbathe, I get the shady part nearly all to myself... I mean, who goes to the beach to sit in the shade anyway? But, then a woman with her son came over and we struck up a conversation. It turned out that she was from Vienna, doing a home exchange. I told her Vienna remains dear to my heart, being the first European city I had ever visited. The one thing I missed the most was Viennese coffee. Throughout all of Vienna, from the hotel to the grocery to the cafés, without fail, the coffee is the best I have ever had. It is bold, aromatic... but not like the ubiquitous Starbucks, burnt, too strong, with a horrible acid aftertaste. After drinking Viennese coffee, I could not touch American brews for months. And the memory of it after all these years is still there. We were living in Boston at the time and Boston was not a Starbucks city. It was a Dunkin' Donuts city. The coffee is weak, sweet, and creamy... and delicious with a nice donut. Vienna ruined it for me. I could not drink Dunkin' Donuts for months afterward. It tasted to me like hot water. A little on the chemical side. I admit, I go often to Starbucks nowadays, as well as Seattle's Best (owned by Starbucks, of course) and Coffee Bean, and I order my iced concoction or latte... but something is missing, something else. The coffee is bland or burnt, but more than that it is also the coffee house itself. What is missing is the Viennese decadence, the gilding, the elaborate decorated interiors, the beautiful cakes evoking a long history of cake-eating and coffee drinking on slow slow afternoons, discussing art and life with friends. American coffee houses have become work places, second offices, not places to gather and chat. I can't tell you the number of dirty looks I have gotten when I disturb the quiet at one particular place (which I won't mention the name of). And, I hate it. I hate that people use it for study and work instead of a place to socialize. Our society has gone completely cock-eyed. It is no longer a refuge for pure relaxed socialization, or maybe it never was? Is it any wonder why Americans feel so isolated? Or overworked? Or feel that having that nice beautiful cake is a "sin"? Why, as a matter of course, people won't order an "eis caffee," which is not an ice coffee, but rather a cold coffee with two scoops of vanilla ice cream? Hmmm.... I dream of Vienna!

David Hockney, continued

2010-08-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

The Orrery by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1766
Take a look at the painting on the left... does it not remind you of a photograph? Could you not imagine the scene staged and lit?

If David Hockney's theory has merit, then there are many implications. Take, for instance, our veneration of the Old Masters. I never thought they used lenses and/or cameras to project the three dimensional world into two dimensions. We were taught that they were great masters of drawing, that they could draw anything by eye-balling, and it was this skill which they built upon that allowed them to become masters of painting. It also means that the chiaroscuro effect that we associate with many Renaissance artists, namely, Caravaggio (as Hockney points out), was simply an artifact -- that in using a lens, subjects had to be strongly lit in order to be seen, and thus cast deep shadows which were then simply captured in painting. In other words, this rather sudden concern for realism was the consequence of a technological innovation and not a purely aesthetic movement. Ironically, it was the invention of the photographic print that spurred artists to found the Impressionist movement. Artists did not want to imitate a print... in a sense, they wished to remain relevant and prove that they could do something only a human being could do, and not some piece of machinery. So, if Hockney is correct, then artists of the Renaissance were capturing the two dimensional image they saw projected onto their canvas.... they were the "developers" of the image. They fixed the image onto paper or canvas using paint/pencil/ink, and were then replaced by a copper plate and some mercury and silver when the daguerreotype was invented. Ironic, isn't it? Could it be so? Were artists simply performing a mechanical type of work? Were they simply trained to paint... by numbers, so to speak? Is art as expression of an aesthetic sense only a "modern" concern caused in part by inventions such as cameras and now computers? Is art (and literature and music and dance and all other creative endeavors) all that is left to assert our humanity? And, if so, shouldn't we prioritize these endeavors instead of pushing them aside, thinking that they are useless, frivolous pastimes for the elite? Isn't it time to reclaim our humanity?

David Hockney

2010-08-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

Caravaggio, 1598-9, Judith Beheading Holofernes

I just finished David Hockney's Secret Knowledge, cover to cover. Intriguing. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it. I don't totally agree with everything he writes, but certainly, his thesis merits deeper investigation, even more than what he has already found. Basically, he claims that early in the 15th century, artists used lenses (a camera obscura) to help them draw and paint the world. And that even if they had not actually used the lens to draw, certainly they were influenced by paintings that were drawn with the aid of a lens; ultimately, paintings have a certain "look" when painted with the aid of a camera obscura. From my own experience, I can tell you, that certainly painting from a photograph is absolutely, 100% different than painting from life. There is a certain look to it that betrays its photographic lineage. It could be that when one is working from a photo, it feels as if there is no time limit... so, naturally, the hand slows down, the lines become static and too sure. Live models are fleeting. Muscles settle and move, expressions change, fruit decay, light fluctuates. But, mostly, you see differently. I see objects and can feel they are dimensional, they continue beyond what one can see, they continue to exist in time as well. Photographs are flattened and the dimension of time is lost, and it shows even when one tries to paint them. Hockney says the "look" of the camera obscura is the chiaroscuro, the dark deep shadowy background with the intense lighted foreground, all figures nearly lined up on a plane. Also, the sudden development of the fleeting expression, such as the smile. And, now when I see paintings, I cannot help but see them in this new light. I used to go often to the Norton Simon in Pasadena and think the same thing... why weren't there smiling people in paintings? Then again, a smile is a little disturbing. It would seem a little psychotic if a smile were perpetually frozen in a painting since smiles are supposed to be fleeting. Smiles are natural expressions of joy/menace/deceit... Why, even Pepperidge Farms had to leave some goldfish unsmiley. So, why is it that people always want to capture people smiling in photos?

Jungles and Cities

2010-07-13T14:31:00.000-07:00

Alfred Russell Wallace

Where to travel to...? I do not have the time or money to travel to any region in the world. Not many people have that luxury, but I was thinking about where I would like to visit in the future and I just realized how much I've changed. I used to dream about walking through deep jungles, looking for beetles for my bug collection and bird watching, kind of like Alfred Russell Wallace, not Darwin, but Wallace. Here is a man after my own heart, studying spiritualism and coming up with spectacular theories about the origins of life. Yet, he is not famous the way Darwin was. Why is that? Was it because of his interest in spiritualism? Did the scientific community reject his work because they thought he was just a bit loony? It is as if he were swept under the rug and became a mere footnote in the history of science. But... anyway, I admired Alfred Russell Wallace and thought I should like to travel as he did, through the jungles of the Amazon and through the Malay archipelago, coming up with all-encompassing theories about life. Certainly, I think that is where science fails today. It is completely disjointed and fragmented. No longer are scientists supposed to even think about theories. They are supposed to work on one minute problem for their entire career... for instance, one might spend one's life studying metabolic rates of emperor penguins or tortoises... And, this is problematic in the sense that one cannot see the forest for the trees. But that is exactly what modern man has become, a specialist in the worst sense, completely missing out on the entire problem because he is so focused on one small minute aspect of this entire universe.

What was I saying.... yes, I just figured that I no longer have the willingness to go through jungles. Suddenly, I think I can no longer endure such things as mosquitoes or humidity. Suddenly, visiting cities sounds more than attractive and being in a cool place is bliss. And, how in the world did this happen? What is it about getting older that makes me less willing to traipse through a jungle? Theoretically, I would love to visit Thailand or Bali or Vietnam, but every time I look at a map, my mind wanders to the cities of Europe where it is cooler and I can get a cup of coffee in an over-priced cafe in the middle of a busy sidewalk. I dream of walking through manicured gardens, looking at marble statues. But... then, what of the wild places? Have they fallen away to an irretrievable past?

Wishes

2010-06-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

Divination board, Yoruba peoples, possibly Owo region, Nigeria, Late 19th to early 20th century, Wood
According to Wikimedia, "For serious problems, the Yoruba go to an ifa diviner to consult Orunmila, the god of fate. A numerical pattern is obtained and recorded on the divination board. The diviner then recites the verses related to the numerical pattern." Two things. First, that in many cultures, there is the link between numbers and destiny (for example, numerology, birth dates in astrology, certain numbers being cursed or divine, etc.) Second is the pattern. And is that not what physics seeks to find? Patterns? Formulas to predict an action, a mathematical relation to things in the universe. And that is essentially what physics has always sought to predict or divine: the future. I wish someone had put it to me that way years ago. I think I might have chosen to become a physicist. Instead, we were just taught the inane... parts of equations, waves, particles, etc., but never a mention of the real goal, the true reason behind it all. You see, even though we claim to be "modern," and we like to think that what divides us from periods in the past which were fraught with superstitious behavior, the fact is, we are all still searching for the same thing as someone a thousand years ago, asking the same questions. Where does our future lie? Our solution is to go about it in a scientific fashion. We will use those same numbers, but now we plug them into new equations and try to find new patterns. We have not changed all that much, have we? We think that if only we could determine all the variables, then we would finally not be troubled anymore about what lay ahead. But then, where would be the surprise, the fun?

It's a funny thing, in years past, I would imagine something or think, wouldn't it be funny if... and then maybe a little later, that exact thing would happen. It seems strange. When I was about ten, I used to play with the globe in my father's study and I would spin it around and think about the countries in the world. The countries were colored in yellow, pink, purple, and orange. I always thought the smaller countries looked more inviting than the larger ones. They seemed as if they would be more friendly places to visit because you could probably walk around them easily. (In those days, I had also a fantasy of walking everywhere. I even thought it would be fun to be a walking mail person because then I would get to walk in the sunshine and say hello to everyone instead of sitting in an office under florescent lights. I would be outside in the middle of the day while everyone else was locked away at work.) Anyway, the smaller countries seemed more walkable and I wanted to visit these little places and walk around picking wildflowers. One day, I was just spinning the globe and I thought, I'm going to stop the globe and wherever my finger lands, I am going to live there when I grow up. I landed in Hawaii. And, years later, here I am.

Then, years and years ago, one odd day, I was talking to my friend R-- and we were talking about what we would do with our lives and I said, if only I could paint, then I wouldn't have to get a real job... (what a goal..!!)

So... what I mean is, do we make these things happen? I'm certainly not a planner. I don't plan out my life very well at all. In fact, I would say, life happens, opportunities come up, people... arrive. Is that the way of the world? Or is this at some level one's subconscious driving our decisions, however small, towards some direction that we may have wished for long ago?

Teaching, A Most Noble Endeavor... or not.

2010-06-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I had considered teaching art on the side, to fill the time when things were slow. So, I told J about it. And she said, well, DON'T do it. Just don't do it. O...K.... and why would that be? She said that people just sign up for "art" lessons so they don't have to buy your work. What??? Yes, apparently, our friend G-- used to offer lessons to these older women and they would just copy what he painted. Well, they didn't copy it. They would just sort of copy it and then he would "fix" it and voila, by the end of several lessons, they would have a genuine G-- painting. They would hang it up in their homes, tell their friends about it being a G-- painting, and probably brag that they paid thousands for it at the gallery. What a load of... All this, just $20 a class!! Personally, I think he even undercharged them for the class, but it was a way to keep himself busy while he was trying to establish himself. See how artists are exploited? There is just no justice. I see all the time posts for the "opportunity to build your portfolio" which should read "artists are saps and should give their work away for nothing."

The Lines of Fate

2010-05-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

Destiny by John William Waterhouse

I have a weakness for things related to the supernatural. Maybe it's not healthy, maybe it's wrong, maybe it's superstitious... or maybe it's because it's real. I was reading Jung the other day and in one of his essays, he told of this "vision" that deeply disturbed him:

"In October, while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low lying lands between the north sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realised that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilisation, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. Then the whole sea turned to blood . . . two weeks passed; then the vision recurred . . . even more vividly than before, and the blood was more emphasised. An inner voice spoke. "Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. You cannot doubt it." Soon afterwards [June 1914] I had a thrice repeated dream that in the middle of summer an Arctic cold wave descended and turned the land to ice . . . the entire region totally deserted by human beings. All living things were killed by frost."

This vision he had was in October of 1913, World War I broke out in August 1914. When war broke out, he finally realized that this dream was a foretelling of this event, of the death of millions of people. He thus conceives of this idea of the "collective unconscious," and that mankind is capable of accessing this connection through dreams. BUT... why does he not then go further and say that these types of dreams are actual prophecies? What I mean is, if people can have prophetic visions, then it follows that future events are already set to occur, that the future is already fated. This, of course, follows a linear view of time, that there exists a past, a present, and a future (as an aside, most language has evolved along this line of thought). However, if we believe in the changeability of the future, then we would have to accept the version of the universe that is split into an infinite number of universes, otherwise known as multiverses or metaverses. By exercising free will and choosing one path over another, there suddenly exists another existence. And, each choice, compounded with millions upon millions of souls... Still, even in this scenario, the existence of prophetic dreams is possible. For instance, what if it were possible to see sometimes these various universes; what if there are people amongst us that possess this gift? The unfortunate thing is that in our modern world, we do not allow for such things. We are comfortable with just one possibility, but alas, one that is not fated. We want to think we are not destined to live out life along a certain path, yet we are also not willing to accept the existence of the multiverse. These dreams and prophecies, even lines of fate inscribed on the hand are deemed the ravings of madmen. Maybe that is why Jung came up with the collective unconscious, because the collective unconscious deals with the present condition of mankind as a whole and not the existence of a predetermined (or completely infinite pre-existing) future... avoiding altogether opening this can of worms.

I'm Not Really a Conspiracist.

2010-03-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

One thing that we need to grasp is the duality of this world. What I mean is that as much as we may wish it, we cannot have good without evil....

I wrote this sentence about a month ago and I've lost my train of thought, but here it is, here it is... the world as we live it is a bunch of lies. Like I've said before, I'm not really a conspiracy theorist. I don't really believe that everything is a conspiracy, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, well, damn it, then it IS a duck. Take for instance what it means when one says American Dream. One would picture a house, a family consisting of a young couple, 2.5 kids, and a dog, preferably golden retriever (certainly not a pit bull), nice manicured lawn, etc. AND, it is not just any house, but it is a Cape Cod. Now, what the hell is a Cape Cod? Well, let me tell you. It is the house that every single five year old draws when you tell him/her to draw a house. All across this United States, ask ANY child to draw a house and you will get a Cape Cod. So ingrained is this American ideal that all children (city children, country children, California children, Hawaii children, and of course New England children) will draw the same freaking house. If you don't think that is in any way bizarre... It also happens to be the house that was miraculously mass-produced in the late 1940's in New York. Of course, it wasn't invented back then (it was actually brought over from England in the 17th century), no, but it was the first house that allowed the "masses" (meaning all of the people who really had no chance in hell of ever becoming a home-owner unless through government intervention via FHA or VA) to become homeowners and THUS to BECOME middle class. By the very definition of homeownership, one enters the middle class. Think about this... the government actually created a middle class by allowing mass production of housing. It spawned satellite industries (such as real estate companies, mortgage lenders, home inspectors, pest control companies, etc.) and it created an unsustainable consumer-driven economy. AND, we are ALL supposed to strive towards this ONE goal. Why? I think it is so that we become so preoccupied with the attainment of all of these material things that we cease to think. When one has a house and garden and "toys," there is no anger, no injustice to right, no rebellion, no revolution. We have become mere drones. Then years pass, nothing significant is done with one's life and people only then may wonder, what was it all about anyway? Oh, but wait, the government doesn't want you to think.

The Nature of Man

2010-02-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Sin of Adam and Eve, The Fall of Man, Fresco at the Vatican, Sistine Chapel
But then, what exactly is evil? Is it really so easy and clear to define? Or is it simply a point of view? Evil is intentional. After all, predators kill prey for food, but we could never rightly say they are evil. Are humans inherently good or evil? Is evil made or born? Is good made or born? According to the Chinese philosopher, Wang Yang Ming, man is inherently good. He says, "when it [the mind] sees a child fall into a well it naturally knows what commiseration is. This is intuitive knowledge of good, and is not attained through external investigation. If the thing manifested emanates from the intuitive faculty, it is the more free from the obscuration of selfish purpose. This is what is meant by saying that the mind is filled with commiseration, and that love cannot be exhausted. . . ."

But, when we compare this philosophy to Christian theology, it is the complete opposite... man is a sinner because of original sin. Man is corrupt, selfish, and depraved, saved only by divine Grace.

What is interesting is that both philosophies (religion, philosophy, so closely linked...can we not call one the other and the other one?) speak of the passions of men. In Eastern thought, man is born whole, good, upright then corrupted by passions (from Wang Yang Ming):

"The mind is one. In case it has not been corrupted by the passions of men, it is called an upright mind. If corrupted by human aims and passions, it is called a selfish mind. When a selfish mind is rectified it is an upright mind; and when an upright mind loses its rightness it becomes a selfish mind. Originally there were not two minds. A selfish mind is due to selfish desire; an upright mind is natural law (is true to nature). . . .Someone said "All men have natural endowment (mind), and the mind is the embodiment of heaven-given principles (natural law). Why then do some devote themselves to virtue and others to vice? The mind of the evil man has lost its original nature. . . .There are no crises and problems beyond those of passion and change. Are not pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy passions of men? Seeing, hearing, talking, working, wealth and honor, poverty and lowliness, sorrow and difficulty, death and life, all are vicissitudes of life. All are included in the passions and feelings of men. These need only to be in a state of perfect equilibrium and harmony, which, in turn, depends upon being watchful over one's self. . . ."

So accordingly, evil is the result of not being watchful over one's self, yielding to the temptations that so readily present themselves in life whereas in Christian thought, evil is something we are born with and have to remove from our very souls by divine Grace... divine intervention?... that we will absolutely be doomed to evil... it's such a pessimistic view.

Good vs Evil

2010-02-14T22:31:00.000-08:00

Peter Paul Rubens, 1618, Head of Medusa

Nearly an entire month has passed in the blink of an eye; I did not mean to neglect writing, but some things needed addressing, dotted my i's and crossed my t's, all that good stuff that makes up life. I'm trying not to be sarcastic, though it's difficult not to be. I've been thinking about good versus evil. J has kept two constant friends in her life, through decades of turmoil, through thick and thin. She admits to not being able to philosophize with either, to not really confiding in either, but they've been her friends now for decades. Her oldest friend, let's call her Bambi, is pure innocence, naive today as the day she was born... happy-go-lucky in life, not particularly well-to-do. Then there is her other long-time friend, let's call her Medusa. Medusa has been married at least six times (all for money), was at one point a "madame," and is now quite wealthy from her dead husbands. Based on this, J believes that evil wins out in the end; all the scheming and plotting of Medusa, after all, has netted her a fortune, while the carefree, good-hearted Bambi lives a most ordinary life. But, this is where we disagree. From my point of view, I think Medusa is most miserable. She spent her entire life, deceiving people, telling lie upon lie until she can no longer recognize truth from fiction... certainly there must be some psychosis there? She trusts no one, not even her own children. She desires adoration from the "common people." She desires things and has spent her entire life feeling as if it were never enough... maybe just a little more. Bambi, on the other hand, lives in complete bliss. Life takes care of her; she wants nothing and so never feels that she needs anything. She has spent her entire life... well, happy, I suppose. Most people, of course, are neither extremes. I asked J why she is friends with either one since she confides in neither. She says she keeps Medusa around to remind her who not to be and Bambi... ignorance is bliss.

Silkworms, continued.

2010-01-10T22:53:00.000-08:00

Kitagawa Utamaro, Ukiyo e, silkworm moths

In this day and age, we take it for granted that we can hop on a plane and be in another country in less than a day. Even with all the hassles of flying, it's really no big deal anymore. But, back in the day... back in the day... (no, I'm not going to talk about walking ten miles to school, through the snow...) I mean, back in the time of Lafcadio Hearn, before there were airplanes, before the famous first flight of the Wright brothers, the only way to really get around the world was by ship. And, it wasn't a pleasant journey. One could be overrun by pirates, the ship could be lost at sea, tossed in storms, sunk; it was a rather dangerous way to travel. So, it's particularly remarkable, I think, when someone from the late 19th century went from Europe to America, and then finally settled in Japan. And, then to top it all off, he learned the language and customs and settled down to write and share it with the Western world. Language is not an easy thing. Learning basic phrases for travel is easy, but actually learning a language and the nuances and cultural references take a lifetime. His thoughts on Buddhism as compared to the Judeo-Christian traditions stemmed from an old Chinese proverb. He writes, "I WAS puzzled by the phrase, " silkworm-moth eyebrow," in an old Japanese, or rather Chinese proverb : — The silkworm-moth eyebrow of a woman is the axe that cuts down the wisdom of man. So I went to my friend Niimi, who keeps silkworms, to ask for an explanation." From here, he goes with his friend to see the silkworms and eventually he comes to his musings:

"First of all, I found myself thinking about a
delightful revery by M. Anatole France, in which
he says that if he had been the Demiurge, he
would have put youth at the end of life instead
of at the beginning, and would have otherwise so
ordered matters that every human being should
have three stages of development, somewhat cor-
responding to those of the lepidoptera. Then it
occurred to me that this fantasy was in substance
scarcely more than the delicate modification of a
most ancient doctrine, common to nearly all the
higher forms of religion.

Western faiths especially teach that our life on
earth is a larval state of greedy helplessness, and
that death is a pupa-sleep out of which we should
soar into everlasting light. They tell us that
during its sentient existence, the outer body
should be thought of only as a kind of caterpil-
lar, and thereafter as a chrysalis; — and they
aver that we lose or gain, according to our be-
havior as larvae, the power to develop wings
under the mortal wrapping. Also they tell us
not to trouble ourselves about the fact that we
see no Psyche-imago detach itself from the broken
cocoon : this lack of visual evidence signifies
nothing, because we have only the purblind vision
of grubs. Our eyes are but half-evolved. Do
not whole scales of colors invisibly exist above
and below the limits of our retinal sensibility?
Even so the butterfly-man exists, — although, as
a matter of course, we cannot see him.

But what would become of this human imago
in a state of perfect bliss? From the evolutional
point of view the question has interest; and its
obvious answer was suggested to me by the history
of those silkworms, — which have been
domesticated for only a few thousand years. Consider
the result of our celestial domestication for — let
us say — several millions of years : I mean the
final consequence, to the wishers, of being able to
gratify every wish at will.

Those silkworms have all that they wish for, —
even considerably more. Their wants, though
very simple, are fundamentally identical with the
necessities of mankind, — food, shelter, warmth,
safety, and comfort. Our endless social struggle
is mainly for these things. Our dream of heaven
is the dream of obtaining them free of cost in
pain; and the condition of those silkworms is the
realization, in a small way, of our imagined
Paradise. (I am not considering the fact that a vast
majority of the worms are predestined to torment
and the second death; for my time is of heaven,
not of lost souls. I am speaking of the elect —
those worms preordained to salvation and rebirth.)
Probably they can feel only very weak sensations:
they are certainly incapable of prayer. But if
they were able to pray, they could not ask for
anything more than they already receive from
the youth who feeds and tends them. He is their
providence, — a god of whose existence they can
be aware in only the vaguest possible way, but
just such a god as they require. And we should
foolishly deem ourselves fortunate to be equally
well cared-for in proportion to our more complex
wants. Do not our common forms of prayer
prove our desire for like attention?' Is not the
assertion of our "need of divine love" an
involuntary confession that we wish to be treated
like silkworms, — to live without pain by the help
of gods? Yet if the gods were to treat us as we
want, we should presently afford fresh evidence,
— in the way of what is called " the evidence from
degeneration," — that the great evolutional law is
far above the gods.

An early stage of that degeneration would be
represented by total incapacity to help ourselves;
— then we should begin to lose the use of our
higher sense-organs; — later on, the brain would
shrink to a vanishing pin-point of matter; — still
later we should dwindle into mere amorphous
sacs, mere blind stomachs. Such would be the
physical consequence of that kind of divine love
which we so lazily wish for. The longing for
perpetual bliss in perpetual peace might well seem
a malevolent inspiration from the Lords of Death
and Darkness. All life that feels and thinks has
been, and can continue to be, only as the product
of struggle and pain, — only as the outcome of
endless battle with the Powers of the Universe.
And cosmic law is uncompromising. Whatever
organ ceases to know pain, — whatever faculty
ceases to be used under the stimulus of pain, —
must also cease to exist. Let pain and its effort
be suspended, and life must shrink back, first
into protoplasmic shapelessness, thereafter into
dust.

Buddhism —which, in its own grand way, is a
doctrine of evolution — rationally proclaims its
heaven but a higher stage of development through
pain, and teaches that even in paradise the
cessation of effort produces degradation. With equal
reasonableness it declares that the capacity for
pain in the superhuman world increases always
in proportion to the capacity for pleasure. (There
is little fault to be found with this teaching
from a scientific standpoint, — since we know
that higher evolution must involve an increase
of sensitivity to pain.) In the Heavens of
Desire, says the Shobo-nen-jo-kyo, the pain of death
is so great that all the agonies of all the hells
united could equal but one-sixteenth part of such
pain.

The foregoing comparison is unnecessarily
strong; but the Buddhist teaching about heaven
is in substance eminently logical. The suppression
of pain — mental or physical, — in any conceivable
state of sentient existence, would necessarily
involve the suppression also of pleasure; — and
certainly all progress, whether moral or material,
depends upon the power to meet and to master
pain. In a silkworm-paradise such as our mundane
instincts lead us to desire, the seraph freed from the
necessity of toil, and able to satisfy his every want
at will, would lose his wings at last, and sink back
to the condition of a grub. . . . "

In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn

2010-01-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

Lafcadio Hearn was an extraordinary man with an extraordinary mind. The wikipedia entry briefly summarizes his various endeavors as a journalist, writer, and thinker (I actually did not know about his collection of Creole recipes). However, he is best known for his writings on Japan, dealing mostly with the supernatural and religious aspects of Japan. You may have seen the collection of short stories that was made into the 1965 film Kwaidan. In Ghostly Japan, he writes about myths and legends of Japan, many of which stem from a mixture of Buddhism and Shinto. One particularly curious piece was his own musings on Western and Eastern religion. He conjectures that a belief in heavenly paradise replete with a divine, benevolent being leads human beings to eventually succumb to the fate of the domesticated silkworm whereas a life based on karmic principles seeks to constantly evolve for better or worse. It is a most fitting synopsis.

Fear and Cowardice

2009-12-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son
J and I have been friends nearly a decade now, and I must say that is rare, at least for me. I had never given it much thought until the other day when she told me I was cowardly. Okay, I'm not good with criticism, but this one made me really think. She and I are quite alike oddly, even though we come from completely different lives. And she is maybe one of two (maybe?) people I trust not to blow smoke up my ass. She critiques my work frequently as well, gives me food for thought. Yes, cowardly.... hmmm... that, I've not heard before, but then again, our perception of ourselves is often different from another person's perception. She said I was cowardly because I often choose to not love people, to keep them at a distance for fear of.... betrayal?; even with her, it took nearly five years before we were good friends, longer to completely trust that she would not... would not abandon me? I just figured I was a tad anti-social. In this era of instant love as portrayed in films and books, she admitted that she did not love her first husband even when she married him, but that it was only years later that she learned to love him. She said love is both a physical and an intellectual endeavor; physical love is obvious, but intellectual love can only come with time.

Body Image

2009-12-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

Greg Brady as Johnny Bravo

The Greg Brady Project
I can't seem to get Fumie Sasabuchi's work out of my head at the moment. It's not that it disturbs me, but it made me think of my time living in Los Angeles, before I ever really visited other places in the world (Las Vegas doesn't really count!!!). In my time living in West L.A., I have to tell you that almost everyone I met was in some way connected with the movie industry. For instance, nearly everyone had written a screenplay or was in the process of writing one. During my junior year, Jaleel White (aka Erkel) lived down the hall from me, and I used to pass Mayim Bialik (aka Blossom) on my way to class every day, and Danica McKellar (aka Winnie of the Wonder Years) was taking math classes down on the south campus. Add to this the proximity of the San Fernando Valley with its aspiring "stars" and you can begin to see how one's perspective might be a little skewed... I thought all women were blond skinny sticks with two melons... and faces that didn't move when they smiled or cried. At Starbucks, overheard a conversation between an agent and an aspiring "star":

Agent: Your breasts are too small. You're going to have to get them done.
Girl: Of course. Yes.
Agent: We'll foot the bill. I guess you'll do.

I guess she got the job...kinda reminds me of Greg Brady as Johnny Bravo... if the suit fits...

Change

2009-12-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

Expect not to keep
Life unmoved, unscathed through time.
The sole constant: change.

Fumie Sasabuchi

2009-12-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

I love the work of Fumie Sasabuchi. She studied at Tama University, located in a suburb of Tokyo called Hachioji. She currently shows at Galerie Zink which has three locations (New York, Munich, and Berlin). The reason I'm writing about her is that I greatly admire her work, but that I've stumbled upon other blog posts about her which say that she is a "he." Now, that's just sloppy research... I mean, first and foremost Fumie is a Japanese woman's name (pronounced Fu-mee-ay)... in the way that the name "Mary" is a woman's name without ambiguity, not like the name "Pat" which can be either male or female. She takes images from fashion magazines and reworks them. Death, beauty being skin-deep, the fragility of life itself are issues that she deals with. They are visually stunning pieces and really, I think speak for themselves.

Cluttered

2009-11-28T18:42:00.001-08:00

Sculptures from Landfill Trash, Washington Post
I must admit that I am a bit of a... collector. Okay, I'm a pack rat. Not as bad as some people, but I have my stash of stuff in two junk closets and at least three junk drawers. All this accumulation took a grand total of three years. I had cleared out all the junk when I moved, vowing (really really truly to the bottom of my heart vowing) to never again clutter my life with needless things. Do I really need four "antique" chess sets? But, they're collectibles, so it's justified. What about all the old cell phones from Japan? I can't even charge the battery on them, but there are some pictures I took while there, so I couldn't possibly toss them out. And, my old Macs from the '90s... I could network them all and have them run old programs or maybe build some kind of super robot from the parts... sometime in the future, after I take some robotics classes..... okay, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. But there seems to be so much potential in things. I could always repair the broken fan or disassemble it, save the parts, maybe use it for a... sculpture.

Devouring the Self

2009-11-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

Soga Shohaku, Japanese (1730–1781), Shoki Ensnaring a Demon in a Spider Web, 18th century, Japan, Edo period, Two-fold screen; ink on paper, Kimbell Art Museum

I had an experiment once where we were supposed to catch and observe a spider. The purpose was to learn about the life-cycle of the spider. Oddly enough, I couldn't find even one spider that entire week while all of my classmates found spiders of all sizes. Maybe I wasn't looking very hard. The night before I was to bring the spider to class, I found a teeny tiny one crawling on the wall and put it in a jar. The next morning I found a slightly bigger one and thought I should catch it as well since the first one was so tiny and so insignificant-looking. Naturally I stuck it in the same jar. At first they did not notice each other. Suddenly, the big one lurched forward, stunned the little one, and cannibalized it. It was a little disturbing. Likewise, if we are not careful, our passions, large and bold, can consume our more quiet and calm natures, completely devouring our sanity.

Doomed

2009-11-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

Gustave Dore, A Couple and Two Children Sleeping on a London Bridge

Human beings have very short memories. If it were not for recorded history, we would be entirely lost and real events would become myths, fairy tales, and legend. Recorded history, however, is only possible with a written language. And, writing is made up of symbols. All these things developed only very recently in the entire history of this earth, mere blips on the evolutionary time line. But, our days are spent almost entirely in abstraction. In a very short period of time, we have moved from being physical beings hunting for prey and gathering food to farming (still a very physical endeavor) to a mostly sedentary lifestyle, reading, writing, playing music, doing art, investing in business, operating in a money-based economy... all abstract concepts. Think about it... reading, writing, music, and art are entirely intellectual pursuits. Business, investing, real estate, all forms of money transactions are abstractions, speculations in future potential profit... all of which requires thinking beyond the next meal, planning ahead and seeing a future beyond next week, a sort of optimism and security. But, for those living in poverty, in crime-ridden urban blight, security is not a given. Below the surface of everyday life is the fear of violent death, starvation, disease. In such circumstances, how is it possible to see beyond next week? Are we not then dooming humanity to a dismally barbaric and violent future by ignoring these areas of urban blight?

Books

2009-11-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

I love going to used book stores. Sadly, there is only one decent one close by... maybe on the entire island? One of my favorites is in Berkeley, CA, Moe's Books. It's been years since I've been there, but I love wandering through the aisles and aisles of books. For my birthday one year, I bought myself a reprint of Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. It is still a joy to peruse. It is sad that even though we have books by the millions these days, it is a rarity to find beautiful books. True, we shouldn't judge a book by it covers or even by the pretty pictures and beautiful lettering....but they sure are nice to look at!

Get Lost

2009-11-11T21:40:00.000-08:00

View of Diamond Head from Makiki Heights

I was feeling a bit down the other day and when I do, I get in my car and drive. Probably that is not a good thing to do, but I like getting lost. Since this is an island, you would think that would not be possible. And though I've been living here nigh on a decade, there are many places I've never seen. It just goes to show how much of a place we don't really know because we are constantly going to the same places day after day... eating the same things for lunch, ordering the same meals at restaurants, buying the same colors when shopping for clothes... definitely we are creatures of habit, too easily we become complacent. There is a road that I can see from my place on the side of the hill with a few scattered houses and I have seen it many times, but had never actually driven up that hill. So, I decided to find it. Of course, there are maps nowadays... and I have google maps on my phone... I could have looked it up, but I think it destroys the spirit of wandering, even if it is in a car. And besides, how difficult could it possibly be? I think I must have driven down every street in the vicinity, hit a bunch of dead ends at the foothills, got turned around. I doubled back to the area where I suspected the road might start, realized that the road forked at that point and that I had taken the wrong path. Finally, I was rewarded with an amazing view of the entire city below me and a dense jungle around me. Life should be like that. We see where we want to be, we head towards it, sometimes without a map, and when we get there it is more beautiful than we ever could have thought possible. I guess the trick is recognizing where it is we want to go.... in my opinion, it actually helps to get lost.

Self (haiku)

2009-11-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

In dreaming, we cease.
Both self and ego perish.
Yet, we wake to die.

Human Nature (haiku)

2009-11-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

Hell's misery
And Heaven's ecstasies both
Within us reside.

The Elephant in the Room

2009-11-07T20:38:00.000-08:00

Reflections by E. Cheung

Speaking of which... nudes. Why do I get the embarrassed looks, the shuttle-my-children-away-from-this-crazy-woman reactions, the ignore-the-elephant-in-the-room? I've decided I don't like inviting people to my home anymore (I don't mean my friends, of course), but I mean acquaintances.... people that presuppose everyone is like themselves or else they're a bit off. For example, I have one of my nudes hanging in my living room. It's quite large (4 feet by 5 feet). It's there. So, I've gotten the "I'm just going to ignore it for the next two hours over dinner" or the furtive glance followed by a nervous laugh. As if it were something I were embarrassed about! Painting people is a pleasure for me. I see no shame in it. I love capturing the way the light falls on skin, the expression of contemplation that can only come from sitting still for hours on end, the individuality of the sitter that comes out in each work, the settling of the muscles... it's all so much better in life. Why do people have to interject their insecurities about their bodies and sex into it all? We all enjoy being nude when alone, don't we? Yet, to openly admire someone's physique or a sensuous sculpture or a painting of a nude is wrong? And, of course, one shouldn't hang up nudes in their living room... yes?

Nudes.... Oh My!

2009-11-04T22:06:00.000-08:00

Michelangelo's David

I stumbled upon a very good blog post yesterday by one of my readers, Valentino Valente, a photographer of male nudes. Here's the post. In it, he touches on many issues, namely the taboo of the male nude... as he points out, when we think of nudes, we tend to think of females only, as males are considered pornographic, particularly when shown with frontal nudity. I guess this strikes a chord with me since when I first started out painting nudes, I thought the same thing, but also in the sense that perhaps the prevalence of female nudes in art is because most artists in the past were males. Therefore, they chose to paint females. Also, the female form is supple and sensuous and because of the roundness of form, quite naturally easy to represent, whereas males tend to have more angles, muscles, and length (which makes it interesting in a completely different way, but more difficult to capture in painting). Actually, there was a painting I saw once... can't remember where, I want to say at the Honolulu Academy, but I'm not certain... that depicts a life drawing session with the model and artists in the room. The nude had a cloth sack over her head to hide her identity. Apparently this was the practice of the day; it was considered improper to be nude... yet as far as I can tell, there is nothing like painting from life. Yet, to have nudes exhibited at all these days is an impossibility. No public place here will touch them, often shows specifically prohibit them, in particular frontal nudity, both male and female. But, again, this may be a consequence of geography... for instance, no one would consider Michelangelo's David to be pornographic.

For Eskimo Monk

2009-11-02T15:56:00.001-08:00

This is for Eskimo Monk... my comment is just too long (comment to a comment for Le Mouton)
Thanks for your input. You touched on many topics worthy of discussion... maybe even a whole book.

I think we (human society) are on the brink of something really big. We had a discussion the other day about the future of book publishing. Right now, there are the obvious paths to getting ideas out there... namely via books and printed media. But, one has to admit that books will soon be a thing of the past (devices such as the Kindle or Apple's rumored tablet)... soon all education will be through electronic media. Ideas already flow freely... to publish an idea or a "book" all one needs is to blog! And, it is put out there. Authors are no longer restricted by publisher's budgets and whims.... which brings me to your observation about the shifting economy and technology. Unfortunately, technology also leaves much to criticize. It can lead to mass production of art and music and so ultimately lead to the death of unique cultures such as can only develop in isolation (remember how much more interesting Europe was before the euro?). and like you said, musicians now spend so much more time trying to line up work than in performing. Sadly, I believe this is a consequence of our society and its mistaken belief in the irrelevance of music and art. In American society today, art, music, and other intellectual pursuits are seen as mere hobbies. Children are given music and art lessons so that they will NOT become musicians and artists; the usual intention is to round out their education so they can get into a good private school and eventually into a good college so they can become doctors and lawyers. Even in universities, professors in the liberal arts are not paid as highly as professors in the sciences. All of this is due to market forces and capitalism, which is our great misfortune. But... I digress...

Much can be said to criticize academia, but I hold firm to the belief in higher education. Reading and discussing and writing about topics/literature/science/human knowledge in college opens up many paths unseen and allows a person to grow intellectually... this is somewhat difficult to do in a work setting where there are always deadlines and minutiae to fill every waking moment of one's lives. As I said in the previous comment, I do not have a degree in art, did not undergo the constant critiques... I, for one, have probably too fragile an ego to survive it! Still, the world is forever cruel and judgmental... perhaps there is some good in it?

So... ultimately where does this leave us? Modern beings see art as an end in itself, as an expression of individuality. And so by that thinking, art is for everyone to pursue... BUT, (and this is my opinion) I believe that one can never truly express oneself freely unless they have learned the basics... just as one could never compose a symphony without first learning do-re-me.

Optimism

2009-11-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

Digital control for Japanese toilet

I was suddenly reminded of my first day in Japan when I caught the scent of lavender soap. I remember that day as if it were yesterday even though it was four years ago. It was January and I arrived in the evening, a cold wind was blowing through the city. I took the limousine bus to the hotel (it's just a bus, but the Japanese have this way of naming everything in a grand manner, such as a regular apartment is not just an apartment, but a "mansion"). The staff were incomparably polite, but they simply will not take tips; it's a matter of professional pride. My room was beautiful... it was serene, yet modern, and the beds... if I had beds like that, I'd never leave my room. What reminded me of this day... oh, yes, the lavender soap. Why? There were designer lavender soaps in the bathroom. Oh, and the bathroom...To this day, I've never been in a nicer bathroom. There is something to be said for a toilet that is warmed and plays music and has a shower function. It has to be experienced... I remember thinking, as I relaxed in the deep tub with the scent of lavender permeating the air, no matter what happens in this next year, nothing could ever go so terribly wrong in a place with such attention to bathrooms.... of course, I was ever so mistaken, but well... we can always start our journeys with hope, can we not?

Suffering (haiku)

2009-10-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

All encounters bear
Traces of sorrow, destined
To end in parting.

Medicine and Art

2009-10-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

Print by Vesalius

For those of you lucky enough to be in Tokyo in December through March, visit the Mori Arts Center in Roppongi Hills. It is one of my favorite museums in the world. Back in 2005, I saw several wonderful exhibits including one with scale miniatures of several major cities including New York, Singapore, and Tokyo (at least a portion of it). Also, since the museum is perched at the top of the Roppongi Hills complex/high-rise, you can see miles and miles out over Tokyo. It was almost surreal to be looking at a miniature scale model in front of you (the model was so detailed that it even had the trees lining the avenue outside our apartment building) and then to look out the window and see the city itself as if in miniature. Their exhibitions are constantly changing and I wish I could be there for an upcoming exhibit on Medicine and Art. Looks really interesting... exploring the connection between our bodies, disease, and art. We owe credit to medicine and science for some of the most beautiful and intriguing works ever created. If you should go, just know I'm envious....take me with you!

Spirit

2009-10-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

Statue of A.E. Housman in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England

I've struggled with spirituality and religion for most of my life. My family practiced Buddhism/Taoism to the degree that most Chinese families do. We prayed to our gods, burned incense to our dead, performed rituals to ward off evil. And had I been born in another time or place, perhaps I would never have questioned my beliefs. I knew nothing of Judeo/Christian traditions until one day in school we were asked to analyze a poem. When I look at the poem now, I think how clear the imagery is, but back then I had absolutely no clue; thus I embarked on an endless quest. Learning about religions, beliefs, and spirituality has been a rocky road; at times I wonder if it is all a farce. Yet it cannot be. We have a spirit...that is why we anticipate death. That is why we create, in order to leave a part of ourselves behind, to say we do exist, though it might be a dream after all. Here is the poem by A.E. Housman:

'Here the hangman stops his cart:
Now the best of friends must part.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads and I will die.

'Oh, at home had I but stayed
'Prenticed to my father's trade,
Had I stuck to plane and adze,
I had not been lost, my lads.

'Then I might have built perhaps
Gallows-trees for other chaps,
Never dangled on my own,
Had I but left ill alone.

'Now, you see, they hang me high,
And the people passing by
Stop to shake their fists and curse;
So 'tis come from ill to worse.

'Here hang I and right and left
Two poor fellows hang for theft
All the same's luck we prove,
Though the midmost hangs for love.

'Comradeds all, that stand and gaze,
Walk henceforth in other ways;
See my neck and save your own:
Comrades all, leave all alone.

'Make someday a decent end,
Shrewder fellows than your friend.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:
Live, lads, and I will die.'

Dear Diary...

2009-10-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

Writing has always been therapeutic for me. I'm not a writer. There are real writers out there who have a way with words, their writing is capable of transporting you to places unimagined, allowing you to experience life through their eyes. As for me, I keep journals. Off and on since I was 12... which was an awfully long time ago. I have volumes filled with teenage angst, betrayals, secrets, loves, dreams... and long periods of complete silence. I think putting disjointed thoughts onto paper forces me to follow a line of reasoning, to flesh out a problem... maybe to argue myself out of my insecurities. It has helped me to grow as a person... maybe in a way, writing has allowed me to stop turning over phantoms in my head so that I can just let go. My journal is my companion, my most trusted, listening friend with whom I can be totally and completely naked and never fear judgment or a harsh word. To my dearest diary, I thank you for my sanity.

Le Mouton

2009-10-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Untitled, Richard Watson

There are many artists out there who advertise themselves as "self-taught" or "outsiders." There are several implications here. First, that their work is unaffected by dogma and is therefore better because it is more emotionally "pure." Second, that their skills as artists are natural talents endowed by nature or god and not by schooling. And, third, that "schooled" artists are elitists. To the first and second argument, if one is to look at art from a historical perspective, art, as with all endeavors, can never exist without influence from the past... that is, art has a linear progression; one can trace the influence of art forms of one period to another. For instance, the invention (or maybe discovery would be more accurate) of linear perspective led artists to draw and paint realistically, imitating nature, giving us artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Or, conversely, artists may rebel against academic painting and seek movement and light... and we have the Impressionists. Or, emotion might suddenly be of primary importance and we have the Expressionists...The point is that nothing comes from nothing. To the third argument... that "schooled" artists are elitists... this goes to the modern American culture of anti-intellectualism. In fact, you could say that this entire self-taught, outsider phenomenon is a form of anti-intellectualism. It's sort of like saying, one is proud to be ignorant, proud to spew obscenities, proud to be uninformed, proud to be led... proud to be sheep... which ironically is antithetical to what it means to be an artist.

Time (Haiku)

2009-10-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

Lend me your spirit.
Let us walk through gardens green
Heed not, seasons pass.

Playing god

2009-10-20T19:03:00.001-07:00

K is my hero. He is a terrific artist and my mentor. I'd like to promote him here on my blog, but I kind of like him to remain anonymous. He does these wonderful night scenes, very Hopper-esque, yet uniquely his own. More than that, he is humble, insightful, and uncompromising when it comes to his art. A certain department store once asked him to produce a giclee of one of his paintings to sell at a silent auction for their grand opening. He politely refused and was a bit horrified that they could even suggest that... Once I asked K why he became an artist. He said he liked playing god.

Chimps, Tools and Us

2009-10-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

Cave Painting at Lascaux

I've been thinking of this for a long time, but have never put it to words. Why did people develop art in the first place? Why do we have a creative impulse? Initially, one would surmise that it is not a survival skill; the ability to draw something is not very useful during a hunt. But, what about the ability to create tools? Until recently, it was thought that people were the only beings that made tools (2007 Washington Post article, Chimps Seen Making Tools). The theory is that toolmaking was the primary skill that propelled the human species to "leap forward"... that it was this skill that led us as a species to where we are today... to cities, skyscrapers, cars, computers, etc. Toolmaking is a skill, but creativity is the source. (Interestingly enough, in the Washington Post article, it was the females that did the toolmaking; researchers believe that females are more creative than males...) So, when we think of "creativity" it should not have only the narrow definition that people give it today in the sense of imagination, but it should have a broader definition that includes the very act of bringing something into being, also innovation, seeing possibilities unseen... for instance, a branch is not just a branch, but could be a weapon, or a fishing pole, or an implement for writing. I once posed this question to a friend of mine and he said that maybe artistic skill (from an evolutionary standpoint) was a sexual trait in that it enhanced a potential mate's desirability. And so through the eons of human development, human beings self-selected this creative impulse. It's an interesting theory. This brings us back to the female/male question. If females are the creative ones, then it is the male who selects the most creative female... yet historically male artists greatly outnumber female artists. Does civilization so encumber women that their natural creative tendencies are stifled?

Another Use for Pencils

2009-10-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

My friend A, a fellow artist, lives in France. We tend to think of France as this idyllic romantic place, but as with all places, there are good and bad people. She was walking down the street, large handbag on her shoulder... where else to keep all the paper and pencils?... when suddenly a man on a motorbike grabbed her bag. Being the defiant (and eerily strong, I would say) person that she is, she held on. As she was being dragged down the street, she pulled out a sharp pencil, and stabbed the man in the hand. Bleeding profusely, he finally released her bag. She had a few scrapes, brushed herself off, and went home. There was nothing of value in her bag... just a few sketches...

Meditation (haiku)

2009-10-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Silvery veils
In meditative repose
Lift. Worlds unseen, seen.

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend?

2009-10-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

By now, you must think I'm a zealot... but you see my point? Suppose you are thinking of marrying your sweetheart and want to purchase a diamond ring. Hopefully you do your research, go to a reputable jeweler, learn about the 4Cs... and after all is said and done, make an informed purchase... beautiful setting, beautiful cut... for your future wife. But suppose instead of doing all of the above, you simply, on a whim, walked into "X" Jewelers in a seedy part of town and said, I want that one; it's the biggest one... so the salesman boxes it up and you go home, present it to your fiancé, and she loves it, marries you and it's all roses and cake. But years later, she decides to get her ring cleaned and appraised for insurance purposes. The jeweler tells her that it's a poorly cut piece of crap with a big hunk of black carbon inside... your wife... she's a bit upset, but she loves you like mad, so it doesn't matter in the end... Still, though, wouldn't it have been better to do your research?

Art 101: Lesson 2, Greed

2009-10-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

Gustave Dore, Inferno Canto 7, Pushing Rocks

Not all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever hath been, of these toil-worn souls
Might purchase rest for one.
Canto VII., lines 65-67.

Money screws up the world. Money is potential... potential food, potential shelter, potential security... potential Louis Vuitton bag. People become fanatical in their pursuit of money because it represents their potential possessions. Perhaps they falsely believe that money buys happiness. They kill for it. They die for it. They start galleries in the H*lt*n in order to obtain it. I'm raving mad today... I passed by said gallery last night on the way to dinner (grumbling to myself about those damned giclees). One of their artists was sitting in the middle of the room, painting a small painting. A family was inside admiring the work on the wall. A salesman pitching. When there is an artist actually working on a painting in a gallery surrounded by giclees, what is the buying public to think but that those paintings on the wall, for sale, are all originals done by him? The galleries have these artist nights for this very reason... to draw people in, to make them think that those cheaply done "fine art prints" are actually originals... they are liars... they are deceitful... they are slick. For them, art is not art. Art is a business, nothing more. Avoid commercial galleries in tourist areas like the plague. And, finally...do not let possessions possess you.

Insanity Revisited

2009-10-07T13:16:00.001-07:00

Mona Lisa Through Glass

Whenever I visit a new city, I head for the art museum. In Chicago, I had the flu, walked 10 blocks in the blistering icy wind without a good winter coat just so that I could see Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. In Washington D.C. it was Whistler's Peacock room and a small hidden Vermeer. At the Louvre, it was La Joconde... the Mona Lisa. I'm just a giddy tourist... as my fellow travelers will attest, I'm not very pleasant on museum outings. I'll lose people, guards will kindly tell me to step back from the painting!!!! I'll spend two hours staring at one work of art. With the Mona Lisa, I guess it was more the fame of the painting... and besides, who goes to the Louvre and doesn't see the Mona Lisa? As you may know, the Louvre is insanely huge and labyrinthine. And with my bad map-reading skills...and leaving it for the very end of the day just as the museum was closing... well, but, I can walk pretty fast, zipped by the Venus ... beautiful... should stop to ad..mire.. a Caravaggio... must keep going...up stairs... elevator too slow. And when I finally did get there, there was an insipid velvet rope with a million people there... so I took a deep breath, and admired two gorgeous da Vinci paintings not more than 20 meters from the Mona Lisa... all to myself. And, I saw the Mona Lisa too, from the side (it's behind glass)... as people are exiting... and the guards... eh, non!

Bliss (haiku)

2009-10-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

More I do not seek
Than to lay upon your breast
In eternal bliss.

Finding The One

2009-10-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Gustave Klimt, Danae

Love at first sight... it exists. My roommate in college once went to a lecture given by an enlightened Buddhist monk. His theory of life (and I'm not sure if all Buddhists believe this) was that we meet the same people in this life as in previous lives. He said that there are "threads" which connect us to one another and sometimes draw us together, even if temporarily. But most people cannot recognize the people they once knew because it is a special kind of knowledge. Maybe it can be likened to that feeling of knowing a person whom you have just met. Or maybe it is the concept of the kindred spirit or soul mate. This monk said that he was at the theater once and walking through the crowd he caught sight of a woman... they looked at each other, and in that instant he knew that she was his wife from a previous existence. Reluctantly, he let her walk away because in this life he was a monk. Can we not liken this to art? Sometimes, oddly, we see a piece and it is love at first sight. It invades our thoughts, gives us no peace... it speaks to us... requires that we possess it.

Muse (haiku)

2009-10-03T16:27:00.001-07:00

Fuels my obsession
Possesses my intellect
Destroys to create

http://web.mac.com/elemcheung

Art 101 at Walmart

2009-10-01T21:56:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've been going on and on about giclees being terrible. Yesterday I was on 43things.com updating my list of things I want to do and I happened upon a post about buying original art. There are people out there that truly want to support young, aspiring unknowns. They're willing to give them a chance and wanting that really interesting piece, yet they did not know where to start. So, how do we find young, up-and-coming artists? How can we buy original art? The first step is to educate yourself. This means learning the difference between an original and a giclee (pronounced JEE-clay). So, go to Walmart, Target, Costco, Pictures Plus... Frames 'R Us... your neighborhood frame store where they sell framed art. Pass by the obvious prints on paper and walk towards the paintings. They will look like oil paintings because oil paint was indeed used to print them. They will be on canvas, true canvas, same type that artists paint on. Now, look closer. There will be no brush strokes, it will seem almost too perfect. It will look "thin" because it is just a thin layer printed on. This giclee that you are staring at only costs maybe a few dollars to make. For an artist to have a giclee printed, let's say, just one giclee, may have cost maybe $20. Now look at the price tag... and faint... no, turn away in disgust. But, wait, this is supposed to be educational. Okay, now go visit your local art museum. Look at the paintings hanging on the walls. Note the texture, the depth of color (particularly in the darker areas), notice the sensitivity of the brush strokes or the boldness (depending on what you're looking at). Enjoy a nice leisurely day really looking at just one piece. It's not a waste of your day. Note the expression, the life. Now go back to Frames 'R Us. Look at the giclee again. See the difference now?

Cultural Capital and the Honolulu Academy of Art

2009-09-30T18:17:00.000-07:00

The Honolulu Academy of Art

The Honolulu Academy of Art... or rather, I think it should be called the Honolulu You're-Not-Welcome-Unless-You're-A-Wealthy-Old-Woman-Who-Thinks-She-Can-Buy-Culture Academy of Art. When I first moved to Honolulu a few years back, I actually liked going to the museum. The courtyards are beautiful. They have a nice Asia collection, and they even had a John Singer Sargeant.. quite gorgeous and reminiscent of my time in Boston. So, I joined as a member. Big mistake. I attended one of their "functions"... was just sitting at one of the tables, enjoying a quiet afternoon, when one of the women came up to me and said, "This is for members only. My stuttering reply (so shocked... why would they assume...?) was, I AM a member. She looks me up and down... oh, so, sorry. What a... Oh, I see.. I'm not dressed to the nines... You see, these women proclaim to support the arts yet fail to see that artists generally don't walk around town dripping with diamonds. I suppose, though, that these patrons of the arts never give it a second thought. As a friend of mine once said to me, they are a necessary evil. True, they possess no creativity, cannot produce culture, but they can buy it and in so doing, they support the arts.

Going Digital...

2009-09-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

So very reluctantly, I am going digital. It's not that I disagree totally with technology. In fact, I think it's great. And I'm the techie of the house. I can set up anything and everything around here. But, for art... I just don't know. I just don't get that thrill from doing digital art. With charcoal and pencil and paint it is so... sensual. Well, I found an old copy of Photoshop Elements lying around. It must be about three years old (I must have bought it back then thinking I would try my hand at digital stuff). Lots of dust on it... but anyway, I wanted to create a t-shirt for the RedBubble site. So, I pulled up one of my charcoal drawings. I thought skeletons would be the way to go since Halloween is coming up. Copied it onto Photoshop and bumbled my way around. After about two hours, I finally found the eraser function at the top of the screen... I think I must be digitally-challenged. After all is said and done, I think I did a decent job. **Pat myself on the back** And I just placed an order for one that I'm going to wear. I just want to see what it looks like.

Dark Tales

2009-09-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

Vilhelm Pedersen, The Little Mermaid

I've been reading fairy tales again... I know, who reads that but little children? But, no, these are not the mouse-ears version, the happily ever after tales with the princess riding off into the sunset with the prince (who, incidentally never really talks in the movies). The original Andersen stories are dark and terrible with lots of mutilation and death. Cinderella's stepsister, for instance, hacks off her toes to try to fit into the glass slipper. Or take the Little Mermaid. In Andersen, she falls in love with the Prince, but the Prince marries another so on their wedding night, the little mermaid is supposed to kill the prince so that she can return to her mermaid life. But... she doesn't. She instead commits suicide by throwing herself into the water and is transformed into spirit. Yet, how many of us know THIS story? Do we all really need the happy ending? Is Andersen's telling just too dark? ARE we happier buying into the Disneyfied version of the world?

Heaven (haiku)

2009-09-28T18:59:00.001-07:00

To tenderly hold
Hands withdrawn in modesty
Such would be heaven.

Monet or Rembrandt?

2009-09-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol

Is she a Monet or a Rembrandt? I beg your pardon???? I can't quite remember the context of this conversation...except that I was simply trying to introduce a female friend of mine to my friend Joe. And this was Joe's question. Well, a painting by Monet when viewed from afar is quite stunning, but up close is a jumble, quite a mess. A Rembrandt is both beautiful up close and from far away. So... WAS she a Monet? Or WAS she a Rembrandt? Well, since I never did end up introducing her to my friend, I suppose she must have been a Monet.

Kindred (haiku)

2009-09-25T22:34:00.001-07:00

The world falls away
Time unnoticed, forgotten
Spent in whispered love.

Friendship haiku

2009-09-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Laughing together
Stories of our silly past
Treasured within us.

Modesty?

2009-09-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

Seduction by E. Cheung

I just realized that I've lost all sense of modesty. I was uploading some nudes onto the RedBubble site and there is a check box for indicating if the image is safe for workplace viewing. I have yet to check the box... many of my drawings and paintings are nudes, but I don't think they are in any way "inappropriate." I must admit, though, that I've never really worked in an office environment and so don't really know what it is like. I really have no clue what it is that people do in offices. I imagine they do things on the computer, shuffle papers around? Answer phones? E-mail? Have meetings? I worked in a lab for my first real job. There was no dress code, no punching in, punching out.. just did the work whenever it was convenient for me... sometimes came in after hours. Come to think of it, if I got an office job tomorrow, I would have nothing to wear... maybe I would go in as an artistic nude.

H G Wells

2009-09-22T22:12:00.000-07:00

Ahhh... H G Wells. Now, there was a great person. If you have ever read Utopia or War of the Worlds, well, what more is there to say? He wrote about things that were inconceivable in his time. The machines, the cataloging of people in order to keep track of people in Utopia. And, of course the creatures from Mars... and how they died on Earth even with all their technology. They died from disease because they had no immunities to the diseases on Earth... much like Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. But all the knowledge that we have today did not exist in his time. He was a genius, a futurist.

H.G. Wells: The Google Logo Mystery Is Finally Solved

2009-09-22T22:06:00.001-07:00

H.G. Wells: The Google Logo Mystery Is Finally Solved

Posted using ShareThis

Art and Soul

2009-09-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

I am trying to detach myself from my art... no wait, what I mean is I'm trying to not get so attached to my work. I have the most horrible time letting go of my paintings. The day after I sell it, I want to refund the money and tell them it was all a mistake. The last time I was in a funk for about a month, couldn't sleep at night, sometimes I would cry thinking about how I would never see it again. I feel pretty stupid even saying that, but I did. And, I just don't like the idea of selling work as giclee. Then there would be endless, mass-produced, soul-less pieces floating around out there. It just seems wrong. I went into a gallery once to inquire about a particular painting. The saleswoman told me that the painting was an "original giclee." Isn't that a contradiction? She explained how oil paints were used in the process, that it was an oil on canvas... etc. etc. etc... but the truth of the matter is that giclees are simply copies printed onto canvas and then in some cases "touched up" in a few places by the artist (such as a daub of paint on the cloud), signed, and then sold for an obscene amount of money. The unknowing buyer who walks into the gallery thinks they are being sold an original and that some day it will be worth double what he paid. The reality is that it will be worth nothing because it came from nothing.

Garbage

2009-09-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

For a few months now I've been in a slump... Sketches that lead to
nothing, lots and lots of nothing. Lots and lots... Of nothing.
So... Maybe just need to let go of realism. To let go of trying to
make everything into something final and just let it be. Maybe this
is the pencil sketching era... Oil painting is so involved - the
oil, turpentine, cleaning -not to mention the cost. I started a
landscape last week, gorgeous rolling hills of yellow flowers in
some picturesque village... And it was so utterly uninspired that I
painted it out and threw a garbage truck onto it, literally...
Painted a garbage truck over the whole darn thing....Ick.. Such a
total waste. At least with sketches you don't have to feel so bad
about trashing it. Also thinking about putting a knife to work
that's been sitting around collecting dust. Clears the mind I think.

A Visit to Byodoin

2009-09-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

Buddha at Byodoin in Kaneohe, Hawaii

Yesterday I drove to Byōdōin to take a break from all the madness. It lies in the Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. There were few people around so it was peaceful and contemplative. The temple itself is a replica of the one in Uji-shi, Japan. The Amida Buddha that sits inside the main hall is the work of sculptor Masuzo Inui, a descendant from a long line of carvers of iconic Buddhist statues. Covered in gold leaf with exquisite details on the mandorla, the statue is a tribute to the Buddha and to the ability of humankind to manipulate the physical world around them. Looking at the statue, you would be hard pressed to find who the artist was... in fact, it was from a xeroxed information sheet that I learned who the artist was... As with much of Buddhist art, the work is mostly anonymous; this is in stark contrast to modern art where the artist sometimes is more celebrated than the actual work (hence we have people who paint whales on the sides of buildings and then sell a giclee for thousands of dollars...). People seem to want to know the background of the artist, maybe buy into some romantic notion of a lone artist starving somewhere on the streets to be "discovered" and made famous overnight. It is as if the art buyer does not really trust his own tastes but needs some story to tell their friends. Maybe hanging up a piece of art is too revealing of a statement whereas buying a familiar image is safe... because then people can all be different by being the same.

Voynich

2009-09-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

Detail from a page of the Voynich MS

I have been studying the Voynich manuscript for some months now. There is a theory out there that perhaps this manuscript was the work of a mentally deranged individual. While the manuscript is in and of itself quite intriguing it is also interesting to find that so many people
would devote so much to scrutinizing it in the hopes of solving this most mysterious work. Human nature... We need to know the "why.". Why would someone expend so much creative energy to produce something so elusive and seemingly nonsensical? If indeed this were the product of an insane mind, then would not all of us possess such impulses but that we simply have control of our selves? Do we generally lock away such obsessive impulses so that we can exist in the normal world? What exactly drives creativity? Is it simply an unchecked passion artists allow to surface? Part of the manuscript's appeal is our inability to decipher it. I think it would lose much of its allure if suddenly we could read it. Such is the draw of art... The expression of the artist's psyche in material form to be endlessly interpreted, just slightly out of reach.

http://web.mac.com/elemcheung

Art and Death

2009-09-10T22:38:00.000-07:00

An artist friend of mine just suffered a massive stroke last week while visiting his family in New York. It brought to mind something that happened about ten years ago when I used to live in Boston. I was part of a calligraphy group that met once a week. I remember one day, one of the women told the group that they should go to a sale held by this particular artist... because the woman was dying... *ahem.*
So.... what to make of that. Of course we all know that the value of a piece of art is not in the materials. Yet, I find it disquieting that people could be so materialist, that they might simply look at art as an investment... as in a stock or a piece of real estate, or god forbid just something to go with the horrible yellow couch in the living room. I suppose I should not be so naive. People often are driven by greed (witness the current fight over universal health care). And part of the allure of the arts is that we believe that we might not have to deal with money. Yet, to be taken seriously as an artist, we must also possess a little bit of business sense. However, if we look beyond that rather callous remark about the dying artist, we could look at it in a more gentle light; that the value of a work of art increases in value simply because nothing more from this artist will ever be produced again. One might venture to say that it is the very individuality of a work that makes it valuable.

Robert Louis Stevenson

2009-09-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

Hau Tree Lanai
I am re-reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. It has always been one of my favorite books... I think I first read it when I was 13 years old during summer break. Back then it was just a swashbuckling, fast read. But what struck me even back then were his descriptions of the land, of the fog, of the sand on the beach, and all that detail about the schooner. Of course, I had no inkling of anything of that sort... I lived in a little suburb in Los Angeles. And even though the ocean was but 20 miles away, it may as well have been 200 miles away. A landlubber to this day... ironic when I think of it, now that I live in Hawaii... and just today sat within a stone's throw from where Stevenson sat under the hau tree, listening to the sound of the ocean beating upon the sand. Maybe it was in such a place where stories wedge themselves in a writer's head to be born later. The vivid descriptions of the landing, the sea, the biscuits could only have come from having lived it. Is that not art? To take something real, perhaps even mundane, and to transform it into something eternal? One could argue that the ocean, the beaches, the sand... all those things inspire... yes, but only one of great imagination could take something we take for granted everyday and find something unique about it. The hau tree where he used to sit is now a place for enjoying a leisurely breakfast... go see it... Hau Tree Lanai off of Waikiki.