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Oriental in America Diptych, 2023

This is part of a series of works interrogating my identity as a trans-racial Chinese American (meaning my adoptive family is white). Through using Kodachrome slides my grandfather took in the 1960's and Orientalist dolls from antique stores, I hope to illuminate the tension of American Identity.  Or specifically, its conflation with whiteness by having unassimilated, literally objectified figures of bodies like mine imposed upon the mid-century American West. A landscape enshrined by Manifest Destiny and America's colonial project where non-white bodies do not belong in popular culture despite their role as laborers opening up the west for white settlers.

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Parade, Kallitype, 2024

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Ad Nasuseum Cyanotype and Inkject print

Family History is a fraught, slippery thing. Your Grandma and Dad has different stories when asked to recall a memory. Remembrance is not guaranteed in our fallible, fragile minds, as time erodes certainty, retelling adds or subtracts details at random. The act of remembering soon replaces the original physical memories. Thus we photograph what we wish to remember for an objective record, to say that ‘this happened, and it mattered.’ But still, certainly eludes us, film gets exposed, slides decay, paper rots, narrative overtakes a singular recorded moment. The distance overtakes familiarity. I think I recognize who is in these photographs, my great-grandmother Thortis reclining in the grass, my father and my uncles on a bright summer’s day, Thortis with family or friends. The ritual repetition of recording does not offer an answer as the photographs overlay and fracture, the narrative offers no certainty of what happened.

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A body is a body is a body begets a body ejects a body. You are you. You are a body. You are in the body. Here you are— Hekate stands before you, hands outstretched–- yes, no, stay, go. The crossroads cloaked in obfuscating mist. The path forks like a snake's tongue forward, onwards, inwards. You are Orpheus, you are Lot’s Wife forever looking back. For-Ever at a standstill turned away in mourning. You are barreling towards a predetermined ending, a bullet spinning down the chamber. 

You reach over anyway. The sky does not fall down, fire does not rain from the firmament. Perhaps this time Abraham has found his 10 righteous men. There’s a warmth beneath his skin, down where electric impulses tell him that your hand is clasping his forearm. Seven layers of skin, bundles of filaments lovingly lever the ulna and radius, nerves signal up and down to the brain. And the soul? Well, you’re no theologian, no philosopher, but his dark eyes flicker over to you. Blood pulses, racing through your veins, heat rises into your chest, sweat coalesces in your palms. 

Your body is a body held fast to another body. Someone has to leave first, or so you’ve heard. The wind spins dust into swirled silhouettes eating themselves before your feet. But you refuse to let go, the underworld will surely come to tear you apart one day. But now, now it is just the two of you in his beat-up truck, the heating wheezing from the vent as cars race by on the interstate. 

“We’re going to be late,” He says, leant against his foggy window.

“Maybe that’s not so bad?” He doesn’t turn the key, the car motor whistles as oil comes weeping down the pipes. Emboldened you trace a line up his forearm, fingertips tracing over gooseflesh warmth seeping between the two of you, heat moving from cold to hot. You warm yourself, or he warms you, one way road. His profile stone-cut, eyes flickering from blurring cars to the treeline. A flock of birds take flight, his eyes meet yours. 

“Maybe,” He murmurs. His hand creeps to the stick shift, you feel the muscles in his biceps tense beneath soft skin. He sucks his lips in, shoulders hunched in shame. You know how y’all were raised. You know how hard it is. You want him, even so, even so, you want whatever this is. You body and his body. Him and You. Your bodies meeting, melting, meat handling meat with loving care. Consumption and Carrying. You have learned this well, your body can carry, should carry, could hold him long enough to matter.

The engine sputters. From Park to Reverse to Drive. The skeletal crown above you blurs, wings blurring in the moonlight.  

“We’d better get going.” You sigh. You let go. For-ever reaching, falling, the final curtain is a-falling. The road sprawls ahead in an unceasing ribbon, a rotting wound crossing prairie, lakes, and mountains. The pine of his soap wafts over in your little burrow, wheels turning again and again, engine revving as he gets up to speed. It would be so easy to sleep now. 

You turn. His profile kissed by strained moonlight and the blinking lights of the dash, reflected headlights. Light caught in his eyes, clinging to his brow as everything else slips into an anonymous nothing.  

“Eyes ahead,” he sounds over the roar of the several ton beast devouring the two of you. Its breath caresses your face. You’re tired. 

“Eyes ahead,” you meekly repeat. Eyes ahead. The indistinguishable road, two white lines separating you from the other side, shapes shifting in the dark. You’re not–- you are–- your rabbit heart shudders as it all goes by. Miles to go before you sleep. Your hand holds fast. He's on the wheel, yours clinging like a child to faded leather in lieu of calloused palms. His fingers tighten as he traverses the empty dark.

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He drones in monotone, on a power trip, With telltale blood still running in his coward lips

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Mouthwashing sketchbook study

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seivarden is living a much messier romance novel that breq has no idea exists. I’m convinced her inner monologue is 99% uncontrollable screaming.

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[Image ID: A painted portrait of Lou Sullivan with vines in the background. Sullivan is a Caucasian man with brown eyes and brown hair. The bright light coming from the right lights his hair up making it look gold. He is wearing a lavender shirt and white tie. The background is light blue and the vines a green. The frontmost layer is outlined in black and the latter resemble ivy. /End ID]

Portrait for class, I wanted it to be similar to something for a children or middle grade illustrations. The background was intended to allude to Keith Haring’s black line art.

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[Image ID: A painted still life. The background is a light peachy fabric.On the left is a dark green bottle with a small banana against the neck of of the bottle in front of a conch shell. Behind them is a white basket with scalloped edges with two oranges and another small banana balenced a top the oranges. It lays against a covered brick where a pear and bottle with a flower it in are on it. In front of the brick is a red flower, a deck of cards with ‘Death’ written on the top card, a bird skull, and an open box. /End ID]

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[Image ID: An Illustrated poster of a table with a blueprint of a bridge; a map with a bridge highlighted; a plastic red can of gasoline; and a box of matches with several matches strewn across the table. There is an envelope and a letter reading “We’ll burn the bridge when we get there.” The oil stains the paper and blueprint. A corner of the blueprint is singed and the blueprint has handwriting of a left pointing and text reading ‘gas here’ and ‘light here’ around the bridge. /End Id]

Visual (Mixed) Metaphor Poster

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[Image ID: A series of 2 Paintings of a bull beaning baby.

The first is of the red bull laid on top of the middle of a blue pillow. The wall is blue in the background. The hooves and horns are a cream color and the light comes from the top left.

The second is a mono-chrome painting where the bull is laid across a table with dramatic lighting from the top right./End ID]

Snort the bull is not very tall but He wants to play basketball and was a quite a good model.

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[Image ID: A Series of Pencil Sketches with varing line weights of Jared, Simon, Nick and Laurie from The Spiderwick Chronicles.

The First is of Laurie and Simon. They are looking at one another and smiling; Laurie says, “Aren’t you burning up?” Simon holds a finger over his lips. Laurie has a wavy bob and it wearing a halter top; she holds a bottle of hair dye. Simon is wearing a sweatshirt. Next to it a portrait of Simon with a shy smile. He is wearing a cardigan.

The Second is of Jared and Laurie. Jared has a hand on his chest and Laurie has her hands on her hips. Laurie: Nerd. Jared: Hey! So are you. Laurie: and?

The Third is of Nick and Jared. Nick is pointing at Jared’s face and Jared is self-consciously touching his cheek. Nick: “You have paint on your face.” Jared: “Here?”

The forth is of Nick and Jared playing video games. One of Jared’s legs it tucked behind Nick, He looks over at Nick who faces the viewer. Nick says, “I can beat you.” Jared looks confused and says, “Dude it’s just minecraft.”

The Fifth is of Nick and Simon holding hands. Nick is gestating and Simon looks fondly over at him. There are empty speech bubbles between them. /End Id]

Contour Line-Art Sketches- Spiderwork hyper-fixation goes brrrr

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Highland Cow Sketches

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[Image ID: Painting of the mural on the back of a building. There is a night sky and two people holding hands on a hill with a glowing yellow line on the horizon. Over the couple is “Someone Will arember Us I Say/ Even in another time/ -Saphho” in text framed by stars. There are violets on the hill. /end Id]

Mural Concept

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Designs by Poem Bangkok

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[Image ID: An ‘Alice by Heart poster. In the middle near the top is an illustrated gold pocket watch ‘Alice By Heart’ is is red text above it. Under the clock there is white text that reads “A New Musical. A white curtain behind it that splits the background into two sections.” Over the curtain is a grey top of a stone subway/ tube tunnel. Underneath the curtain is a collage of John Tenniel Illustrations over illegible text and an illustation of a rose garden. At bottom over the visuals is white text which reads: “Booth Theater/ 222 West 45th Street” with ‘www.alicebyheart.com’ under it in smaller text. On the curtain reads ‘Book by Steven Sater & Jessie Nelson. Lyrics by Steven Sater. Music by Duncan Sheik’. /End ID]

I just think it’s an interesting show even with its flaws. Also John Tenniel made some pretty good Illustrations for collageing: I did try to pick ones significant to the show though! (The blurred text is from the first chapter of Alice in Wonderland)

Note: I picked a random broadway theater on a list I found it has not run at the Booth Theater as of 2021.

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[Image IDs: Three photos of a wire teddy bear. Image 1: Front view of the teddy bear, it is built from Skeleton made up of black wire. It has brown button eyes and a leather wrapped nose. The smiling mouth is is copper-colored wire. Its right arm is raised into a wave and the left is further back. Inside of it is loose stuffing.

Image 2: A photo showing full body profile of the sculpture. This highlights the round belly that gets wider near the bottom. The wire fastenings if the knots down the front and across the arm are more easily visible.

Image 3: A photo close-up of the teddy bear’s face. This shows details on the buttons, the left eye is a white button with brown spots and the right is a solid brown. The round ears are uneven. /End ID]

3-D Wire project, I thought it’d create a nice contrast w/ it being metal/ hard/ open compared to the soft/ squishy nature of stuffed animals.