have been painting quite regularly, getting some sense of how oil paint works. it's very addictive.

my poor brother was forced to hold a 36"x48" canvas as well as two other smaller ones stuck to it on the back of my motorbike as i rode home. the wind almost knocked him off and i realized it was rather stupid to put him in risk for some canvas. have to figure out a different means of transportation next time... in any case, we made it back safe. headed out again for smaller sized canvases i can carry back by myself, and more paint. but by the time i got home i was far too exhausted to do anything. this dry season heat, it's destructive.

diverting from black and white these days. funny how the more depressed the feelings, the brighter the colors.

Nov. 06, 2008

Today I sat in a vietnamese university auditorium for the first time. A big bust of Ho Chi Minh, white and prominent, sat on the stage, smack in the center. a clear direct view--a clear direct political statement. impossible loud military music blasted from the speakers. and this is before a lecture on painting. way to set the mood for contemplation and sensitivity.

Despite it being the Art school, the auditorium was quite oppressive--an interesting place for a first time visitor, perhaps, because you are slapped in the face by the current system that strives to pound control on every aspect of the vietnamese society. but as a place to study at, it seems terrifying.

The Dutch artist--Wessel Huisman was a very articulate man, with great manners, great energy. he carried to the end with impressive enthusiasm. i was only there for the afternoon session but already, I was drained. 3 hours of interpreting, it's not easy. I feel bad for the students, my vietnamese was so inarticulate.

It was very interesting listening to him talk about what fascinates him and how that comes into play in his paintings... I like his point on the importance of other elements in a painting other than the story-telling elements. He talked a great deal about space, light, movement, and all the while i though ah, yes, dance.
Another thing he touched on that resonated with me was that we should learn to shed off unnecessary things. though, perhaps people my age, it is good, too, to take big bites and to spread out, to try different waters... then it is easier to figure out what it is that we want...

The students, they sat and listened quietly. they knew some of the Renaissance artists but are at a lost when it came to modern and contemporary artists. 4 people or so knew who Piet Mondrian is. I wish we have good museums...

The students. they had beautiful smiles. there was something naive and simple about them. they came in a big group up to where we were after the lecture and asked Wessell for pictures, signatures. They laughed and giggled,
Ê, xin chữ ký đi mày! (let's ask for his signature!)
Mày làm như xin chữ ca sỹ! (you're acting as if he's a pop star.)

someone came for my signature as well. What?!!?...siigh...

Saturday, May 24

It is a strange feeling to be writing from ST lab again. The keyboards are horrendously dirty and stiff from years of abuse. The boys at the table on the left are playing their online warcraft or another one of those online games.

So it has been a year since my own graduation. a year is not a long time but school has already become a strange concept. Middletown is so out of the way and wesleyan sits in its own protective bubble. a good place for experiments and academic ambitions but i have to say i enjoy the dirt of the street better. i'd loved this place dearly however, very dearly indeed. Life has been good and kind in many ways.

Keiji always looks happy and surprised to see me although i come back so often. Halfway through our conversation someone from the class of '88 came in to look for the pottery studio only to be disappointed that it's gone. I realized, for the first time, Keiji's office was the firing stove and that the walls were still covered with glaze and burnt marks.

Keiji is an image of the traditional artist who pursues his aesthetics, works persistently on his own and not care about the world too much. He said it wasn't important to know too much about all the art movements out there. It's better to just simply do it. I'm too curious to not want to know why and how people came up with what they did and what that language means. but a good part of me also really doesn't want to be bothered. why care. you make things because you're trying to find a way to communicate to yourself, to the world the confusion that you cannot otherwise express. you make things that relate to yourself, your history or the histories that you want to experience. but yes, in the end, you make things because you cannot not make things. it's simply that.

it is good, though, to see as much as I can of the art available in ny, to see the many ways the world can be, the many ways to appreciate, the many ways to tell.

Sunday, May 18

There are moments in life i'd like to capture as a whole but words and my camera are not enough. the mood, the atmosphere, my physically being in this moment taking in all of this... it is simply now, here that i'm feeling this. Tomorrow, no, an hour from now all will be gone except an after taste. But it is exactly this quality of life that can only be lived that i embrace. i'm alive.


Rodney's friends gave me their pass to the photo festival in Dumbo at lunch. Today's the last day of the show, so here I am following the stream of people from gallery to gallery. I'm slightly self-conscious when I take out my digital camera, everyone here have a big professional camera around their neck. They stand on street corners and point their bazuka lenses up to the sky towards the brooklyn bridge. snap snap snap.

There are some beautiful photos in the show.

Monday, May 12

Every time i see a building wrapped up under construction i think of Christo and Jeanne-Claude...

Saturday, May 10

I walked in when Owen and Khalia were improvising. It was quite fascinating, the things they come up with with the minimum prop - the table and the piece of plastic. It was a surprised to see Khalia. I didn't quite piece the Khalia in the email with the beautiful Khalia I knew at wes.
The dance is still very loosely put together and I'm not quite sure yet what we're trying to convey. But the fact that I am moving in ways that I would never move ordinarily pleases me. It is like trying to think, to see in different ways. We sometimes forget that the world is under our feet and contacts our skins, and it's not only our eyes and ears that constructs our reality, our body does too. to lie on the ground and concentrate my sensation on my feet or my arms, it's delicious. everyone should take some time once in a while to feel the way their toes move, or the way their blood circulates through their veins.

I was walking to the Rail when loud Hispanic music flooded the street. When I turned to search for the source as the sound grew louder, the man biked into view. The amount of sound generated from the speakers on that bike is quite incredible. the music wasn't bad and the idea was fairly reasonable. but why the american flags stuck to the back I wonder? sometimes i come upon such strange people in this city it is kind of like a surreal experience.

This is considered art. It reminds me of the time Richard Serra said in an interview that after Yale he went to Europe and in an attempt to unlearn the academic teachings tried to exhibit with live animal.
In any case, the creator of the piece above, Tom Sachs, had a huge opening/party at a fancy space in Gordon Bunshaft’s Modernist Park Avenue tower afterwards. People in shimmering silk and crispy suits holding champagne glasses drift about between 10-foot tall hello kitties. They seemed more interested in the drinks than the sculptures. This side of the art world is something i've never quite understood or, to be honest, have any interest in understanding.

Chelsea is a strange animal. It is like a high-end fashion district, except what's sold are artworks. While i do not feel strongly against artworks being sold (hey, artists need to eat) the fact that these artworks are displayed in such spaces that only pretty well-off people would ever step feet in bothers me.

Art for me is, perhaps, a way of life, a form of expression, a better channel for pain and depression. The more i get involved the harder it is to quit and imagine doing anything else. It's like getting used to living with electricity. makes it hard to go back to living under candle lights. That makes all of the above reasons of personal nature, but surely, people don't become artists to make arts for themselves solely. But then with the gallery system in this city who are all of those artists trying to get to?

One thing I greatly respect about Eiko and Koma is their outdoor performances. Dances that melt into the surrounding. Dances that are not necessarily easily accessible, but are opened for all to see.


In contrast to the above rants about exclusive shiny chelsea galleries, here is a piece from Tom Otterness' public sculpture installed in the 14th St/8th Ave subway station. They really brighten up the dingy underground.

I spent 3 hours in the Met today between 3 aisles of the American Arts Gallery. The number of good works of art available in this one room is amazing. But I am not pleased with the glass cases and the way all the paintings are cramped side by side into such a small space. The poor paintings have no room to breath, and the lights from the ceiling reflect on the glass, completely disrupting with their colors and textures.

I saw Albert Ryder's work for the first time. They are of small sizes but with such intensity and power, something of darkness too which appeals to me. Yes, i like darkness. darkness is a very large part of human nature.
The last piece I saw that spoke to my mood was Jefferson David Chalfant's "Violin and Bow" 1889, painted in the trompe l'oeil style.

"Violin and Bow" inspiring stories, spinning music out of silence - a quiet type of music that seeps into the air. your bow to the heart, pulling chains of memories. memories of a place, a life i'd never lived. yet with fondness i remember.

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"Tino, I hit 3 home runs today!" the boy repeated excitedly and held up his hand, ready for a high five. "No, seriously!" he exclaimed.
"Tino, what's the best muffin today?" another boy asked.
They giggled and cluttered, 5 of them, spilling that bountiful adolescent energy all over the counter. Tino smiled, wrapped a banana muffin and handed it over, shaking his head when the boy pulled out his wallet.
Situated on the corner of 79th and Madison Ave amongst high-end fashion boutiques, the place surprisingly exuded the warmth and approachability of a small neighborhood store. How many more generations of baseball youths in the area will grow up munching Tino's muffin?

you, sir, sat across from me, smiled and told everyone that you're still considering whether or not to make a film. and i wanted to tell you that the small portion of your work that i was introduced to recently filled me with happiness. they are visual poetry. they are precious life captured. and in watching them the joy of being alive bubbled inside of me.

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had i walked east instead of west, which i was supposed to, i wouldn't have come across you. had i not have a camera with me, perhaps i wouldn't have noticed you. and even with that, your edges were blurry because that was as much as i could see. snug in my comfortable spot, how much do i care? people's trash, your treasure. in the darkness of the night you pulled the loads of life.

Mourning

Mourning with one's body.

When they danced their version of mourning i am able to feel my own loss. their jagged movements, slow and deliberate, delicate and intense, their dance of raw being, of living and suffering somehow created a space that enabled concentration. a space that allowed me to look straight and not to the side. a sad silent space of understanding.

There are many kinds of mourning. mourning of death. mourning of loss, of the irretrievable nature of certain things that happened in our lives. things that we cheerish and adore, things we wish we had a little bit more of. more time. more love.
more time. more love.
more time.

there are mournings that hover over you like a darkened cloud, heavy and wanting to rain. but unable to. you expect a downpour every second, only to hold your breath. one minute. two minutes. three days. four months... it hovers. and you anticipate rain every minute. and you keep anticipating. one day it'll pour. and then, not only the rain will wear you out. the waiting has.

i have never been to a single funeral. death came in words over the phone lines. more than once. a week late. unexpected. cold. unclear. with realizations always a year too late. with its heavy drooping clouds hanging over me for the time being, for the days and months before reality pours in in the land on the other side. i fear. i worry. i don't want to be the outsider looking in. not when parts of my inside are lost.

loss leaves its marks in many forms. scars, memories, bodies. lives. marks of sadness. marks of violence. marks of loss.

the lost of you was like coal on fire tossed on raw skin. it burned. but i bore no visible scars. the lost of you left me facing myself, mirroring enola. the word bouncing off the wall. echoing.

perhaps i mourn with the hours of the night, listening to the sound of cars. and of silence. Three types of silences come through the bedroom window. The sound of silence after a passing-by car -- the sound of emptiness. the space misses the seconds it was filled. The sound of silence before a car comes -- the sound of anticipation, of waiting. and the silence between the "empty silence" and the "anticipating silence" -- the silence of resignation and settlement. A silence that accepts its solitude.

monotypes

I have not written in a long time. life has been hectic, full of things that needs to be done or wants to be done. i have little time to reflect and write. trains of thoughts still flood my mind from time to time but as I carry on they fade off or get lost among the list of to-dos.

Art: I have improved some. made a number of prints and at one point was full of hope.

Recently, one serious look at my works caused much disappointment. the quality is going down. quantity went up but seriously, who cares about quantity? I've developed a sort of McDonald art. An easy-pass, catchy type of image that doesn't say much after the 2nd glance. It is a disappointment and I have to work harder. By working harder I don't mean making more prints. i mean making good prints. put more thought and time and heart into each image.

I don't believe in too much control and calculation, or precision such as woodcut prints. Monotype plexi glass printing has become something like developing a relationship with papers and colors. meaning i make one layer, listen to the colors and what they strive to be. then i add another layer and so on with each layer. i understand better how my colors work on certain paper used, as well, what they want to be. which part needs more life, more layers.
Perhaps these days i don't listen enough. i'm impatient. i want images. so i just simply smash colors onto plate and plate onto paper and mindlessly, swifly carry on. it is terrible.

"Desire" took a long time and much struggle. art has to reflect pain and struggle, even if it comes out "calm and soothing." I want my work to reflect something of me, something of others.