Mother

Mother, oil on board, 40"x60", 2010

"Mother"- where do they get that glow and strength?

Gabe and I spent our whole summer last year around our sister-in-law at our parents home in MN. This is a portrait of my sister-in-law, Liz, and her first son Issac. I knew Liz for almost 5 years before this summer but I was blown away by the energy and glow she had after she gave birth to Issac. I felt so happy and proud of her. The beauty and the power of a strong mother was so incredible. I immediately wanted to capture her moment in my painting.


My first attempt was painting on a small oval canvas, and give it to her as a gift. But as I was painting it, I felt that her strength and the essence that I wanted to capture was not enough in this small canvas. SO, for the 24 hour painting challenge in 2010, I started a new painting of her.

Since I was working at school for 24 hours, a student was critiquing my work.

After painting for 12 hours straight, I was thinking well... when you give birth, there is not such a thing as to stop and do over! So I wanted to try painting for all 24 hours straight, as much as I could! In the end, I couldn't finish my painting in 24 hours, so later I worked on it at home. It was a fun meditative journey and it is dedicated to all the mothers in the world.


Also the project was accompanied by two other crazy artists, Gabe Ostley (my love) and Mark Montgomery who worked on 24 hour comics on that day!

Dance at the Walled Villages

新年、明けましておめでとうございます。

My friend Amy Ka Man Tam and I joined a dance festival called "Dance at the Walled Village - Hong Kong History Series II". The project was organized by (Community Cultural Ambassador) y-space .

The aim of the project was to introduce modern dance and site specific dance into the rural area of the New Territories. And also to use the narration of dance to explore the relationship between human and nature. The project hope to enhance the community's awareness of rural culture preservation, and arouse concern in the marginalized lifestyle of the walled village.

It was an amazing experience for me to just visit those villages in New Territories alone, to be able to perform on those sites were such blessing. We performed on Jan 2nd at Sheung Shui (Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral Hall), which was a breath taking place. The temple was about 15 minutes away from MTR, right next to the village where each houses built one foot step away from each other. We wanted to narrate a simple story of two village fairies, who love people in the village and defeat any difficulties in life and are always there to share the happiness in life.









We invited some children in the audience to dance with us! When we picked them, their faces lit up! and it was sweet to see them smile so BIG!!


The music of the performance was composed by our dear friend Samrit Lwagun. He composed this music RADHEYA for his mother. When we heard his music, we thought it was a perfect fit for our dance because we thought the temple of the village is just like a mother to the land and their people.

photos by my dear love Gabe Ostley!

Say Hello to 2011 !!

A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! What a wonderful way to spend the first day of the year! Gabe and I went to our friends wedding on Jan 1st :) It was our first time experiencing a full on Hong Kong wedding!! Gabe was Martin's best man and I was Wendy's bridesmaid! Playing games from the early morning (Gabe had to swallow a huge bugs!) , eating great food, watching their slide shows, the day was fantastic! The bride Wendy's speech put everyone in tears!! She spoke to hear parents in Cantonese, so I didn't understand everything what she said, but I was in tears! couldn't stop!! How amazing! the feeling of love for someone is a universal language. Love for our parents, love for each other, love for our friends.. love for our neighbors.

明けまして、おめでとうございます。 ２０１１年、世界中が愛に溢れた一年になりますように。

Say Good-bye to 2010...

Say good bye to the year 2010. I honestly loved this year. The theme of 2010 was " Make it happen, God got your back." I tried my best and really enjoyed every single step of the journey. Starting from the No-rwegian Wood theatre production on Jan 1st, my year was full of creation after creation. I learned a lot from making theatre, film, dance and painting work. It was a fruitful year. In each project, I felt that if I give my all to the process, the outcome is beyond my control. I also learned that trying too hard or having unnecessary intentions can blind me from other amazing things that I can learn from it. So just let it be...

I also watched "Groundhog Day" for the first time this year. The movie made me re-analyze my own work and also my attitude towards life in general. Where am I trying to get to? And why am I doing what I do? Life is full of learning. It was a great movie :)))

And one more sharing from this last year 2010. I attended the acting workshop with Jeanne Harman for the second time. I had crazy busy days with work, but it was very important for me to become her student again and absorb every juicy wisdom that she always offers us. One thing that stood out this round for me was that I judge myself too much. Wanting to do my very best job gets in my way sometimes. And of course I feel bad when I don't do my best work. However, I need to be the character before I am "the actress". Everyone has their bad days and bad auditions, but the important thing is to commit and stay in the character in the moment, before my ego of wanting to do my very best job. Audition, cold reading is always the hard part, but "I should have done this", or "I couldn't do this"... is really a pointless. ENJOY and FOCUS on the detective work as an actress. Because that's what I love the most anyways :) It was also inspiring to meet many great talented, passionate people again :)

Next post will be, "Say Hello to 2011..." =D