wounded

It's not really as fleshy and creepy-looking as above. More like this here:




scar, wounded series, wax, string, paper & wire, 13 x 2.8 cm

I made it last week. It's a new addition to the spoon series i thought i was done with last November:



It feels like i have only touched on the surface of what i want to explore. There should be hundreds more.

blood sisters

This is for you, ding dong.

skins

......................................scarred
.

.....................................tainted



......................................shriveled



......................................raw


1.pomegranate 2.clementine 3.apple 4.avocado seed

felted

some ups and downs. spending vday and lunar new year alone right now. the studio feels empty and abandoned. tomorrow we will go home and be with family. i'll start again and see where this takes me...

scattered underwear

It's been awhile here. Thank you for still checking in here...it really helps...

I've been moping around about this and that. Mainly: feeling neglected by sisters, being out of touch with cousins, and not being more there for my parents. Well, after a lot of back and forth in my head, it occurred to me that i really need to get a life. I don't have kids yet but i feel like i already know how it is not to be able to let your kids go and live their own lives. It sucks. Well luckily, i do still have my own friends and thank goodness for you guys. ♡

As for studio work, i'm still left with a lot of unfinished pieces that don't seem to be going anywhere. No red red days, you guys :(. I think i need to change my work routine or something. Too much emphasis on having the weekends free to make something that i end up wasting more time scattering about than getting anything done.

My little spoons of joy started not too long ago aren't too happy right now:



I still haven't been able to produce any good prints, even though the copper plates themselves look pretty nice to me:



Sadly realized that i don't really have it in me to be the kind of conceptual artists that i admire. How does one come up with awesome profound ideas? Yesterday, i didn't know where to go with the unfinished works laying around, so i started tearing up some paper. Before i knew it, i had a big bowl and a little bowl of it, and hours had passed.



Instead of getting depressed about how an entire free day passed without accomplishing anything 'substantial', i'm going to start being Okay about spending precious time like this. I like tearing paper. It's also prep work for making the spoons and whatever else later.

spring

drypoint & chine colle on japanese paper,
59.5 x 19.5 cm, 1997

An old print. A mess-up but one of my favorites still. My etching press has been sitting idle pretty much since i got it. Makes me wonder that maybe it wasn't not having a press that was keeping me from making prints again. Maybe the desire was never strong enough to begin with? I don't know. I just know i love looking back at the prints that i did make and seeing the works that these artists are making - Jo, Elisabeth, Sarah...

I didn't go home for Mother's Day and wished i weren't so tired not to make the trip. i miss you, Ma. My dad called today and told me that the cousins surprised my mom with a cake at 9:30pm last night. I can imagine my mom's tremendous delight over it. I totally take back what i said about daughters being better than sons, at least definitely not these guys. You guys are really the best of the best. Sorry, Baby, for missing your birthday too. :(.

Studio work is going slow but steady. Nothing that makes my heart beat fast though. Just some re-painting here and there, making some more little spoons, and started a big one that made me realize why big can be so repulsive. Actually, i don't know why, i just want to bury it.

Spring is here but it's still so chilly on some days. like today. but nice to still be under the covers and just read. I've been reading Kevin Brockmeier's books. I am crazy for his writing. Today i came across a passage from his short story The View from the Seventh Layer that i really like:

"...The heart of every house was the kitchen, the soul of every house was the bedroom, and the mind of every house was displayed with hooks and thumbtacks on the walls. But the conscience of every house...was the bookshelves..."

I guess it doesn't make me feel so bad about having so many things around me that i like to have around.

I wish it'll get warmer soon so i can wear my new flip flops.

my paper underwear

paper and thread, 5 cm red stitched across

Have been making some paper experiments, sketches. This is one of them, made two Saturdays ago. A rough sketch, carelessly torn and sewn together, rather crappy looking. I don't know why i like it so much. Hung it by the window like it is magically suspended in the air! I like looking at it like that. Want to make more paper underwear and prints.

A print made the following day. Five Dirty Panties below:

thread and chine colle, about 3.5 cm each little panties, work in progress

I need to work on it some more. maybe some pencil drawing on top.

-----
To Carolina: red red prayers for finding dear *Pepe*
*

a love story

waxed thread through paper over wire, 22.5 x 3 cm together







Yesterday John ate and ate the horrible beef that i cooked up, along with the burnt piece of cake that i baked not from scratch; and i endured his endless one-sided discussion on Superman the first movie that i -almost- could care less about watching but watched anyway...

*
I wish that when i was younger, i could have known, understood, that no matter how annoyed or angry they got with one another, my parents would never leave each other.

*
Today i started making a bigger than life size spoon. I've also been collecting eggshells and drying baby gourds. Summertime my big bowl of dried grapefruit and orange skins got infested by moth worms and i am left with only a few unharmed pieces. Things decay but i have to remember not to let them collect dust.

It feels strange but good to be back here...Thank You to all who still took the time to say hello and stayed with me even while i was away...

light

oil & mixed media on masonite board, 34.3 x 132 cm (+ 5 cm relief surface), 2002

An old painting, very heavy. I feel like this now, buried sort of feeling, but not death, more like seeding, if that is the right word.

one beginning

etching, mezzotint, drypoint & chine colle on hahnemuhle printmaking paper, image size 9.5 x 9.5 cm

My first signed print in 9 years. blah blah blah. i finally got one decent wiping of the plate. Feels like i'm just starting over again, not yet picking up where i left off. Totally not like riding a bike.

I'm wishing for magic with these:





and i need to go on my trails.

happy mother's day everyday

my favorite picture of my mom and me

Today my mom called and i found myself yelling at how conservative and messed up her thinking is. I want her not to be ashamed. Her daughters are not dirty and unrespectable.

I look at this picture now and don't know why i always have to be yelling so much. This is essentially who we are to each other, isn't it?

So many trips and visitors this month and last month. One of the best was being home for Mother's Day two weekends ago. My mom and i, we just sat around and chatted and chatted. For once, not about my unstable future, but their great past of survival. My poor dad did all the cooking for us - first one to wake up and made breakfast, continued on to make lunch and then red bean ice cream and then dinner and more food for me to take back with me. sweet day for all of us.

And i finally got the details in chronological order of what my parents went through during the Khmer Rouge suffering. I hope that my mom will decide to write a memoir of it. I know there is still so much left unsaid and more to their story than i'll ever understand.

an old baby

two days ago




yesterday




today

hang in there

Today, another horrible printing day. Could not get any of the chine colle pieces to work the way i wanted them to with the thread or the hair. I keep smelling sour dried orange peel under my nose. yuck. Not at all pleasant-smelling like the dried pomelo. Maybe that is why the day isn't going well. too many rotten peels around. bleh. j.k. nothing is rotting here. just in the process of drying and changing.

Ahead for this month:

*take time (!) working on the copper plates!!! no quick fix laziness.

*sketch out the works for the hair, bowls and fruits
(not necessary to mix everything together though)

*trails time :)!

looking back picking up

works from BFA thesis show, tape & string on wood and various materials, tallest at 11 feet, 1999

Feeling a need to write things down. Mind is cluttered with stuff, both art and unart related. Grieving hearts, suffering minds, and a broken friendship. Feel helpless. Also trying not to feel guilty about: being out of touch with people in real life but maintaining close contact to this virtual world. It is real to me, too. And is really the only public outlet for my art right now. Want it to be seen as a primary job that i report to on a regular basis. like everyone else who can't just take days off from work whenever they want to.

Many pieces of work scattered about, unfinished. I want to pick up the enthusiasm i had for making big things as when i was working on my thesis show years ago. a little embarrassed to say it's been nearly 10 years ago and i am still looking back, not quite done with what i have started then. I don't mean not done with the pieces themselves. They are finished works but they marked a new beginning for me, one that i stopped short of exploring. Went off towards a different path that was more space-conscious, more practical, and less in courage and timid in drive. Slowly, i find myself breaking out a little with this piece and that. And Now Fully, Consciously, Embracing it.

I want to get back to working more with string and wrapping and mixing mediums crossing disciplines, and just thinking bigger in general.


pop


pretty in pink


lady in red


touch me


pregnant


blue

sweet

Baby's homemade chocolate covered gummi bears, last ones left.

-----
The other night we took turns laughing in our sleep. Neither of us could remember what was so funny but John sure could giggle like a little girl. ahah. :D.

and other observations

pen, acrylic & collage on altered book, book dimensions 6.25" x 4.25" [started in 2003, came back to it and reworked it end of 2007]

The book started out more as a collection of sketches, quick discreet sketches made while riding the bus. This was when i was still living in NY and the bus commute was about an hour to/from the subway. Some pages had paint laid out first before the sketches were made and others had color/texture added afterwards. I love the looseness and spontaneity of how the pages came about. It/I was not trying to make it become more than what it was, which was simply to observe and capture, take in and sketch, and let some pink help tie it all together.

I came back to it a couple of months ago, thinking i just need to touch it up a bit here and there before posting it up. Well, that was not the case.

I have kept almost all the pen drawings made in 2003 with only 4-5 small new ones created but the whole mood of the book has changed since reworking it. Almost all the pages have been retouched a bit, some with layers of new paint or paper, and a few completely reconstructed. I still miss before because it was more simple and just is what it is. Now, i see there is a trying to tell a story, maybe wanting/needing to be more connected and complete somewhere? Found myself consciously keeping some words on the page because they now have a more personal meaning to me than before.

View book as slideshow @ Flickr: redredday