Mud It Is

What have I been doing for the last several months??? The answer is pottery. I love it. If I could, I'd go to Italy, Japan, or Mexico to do some sort of ceramic internship for the summer. I've let go of modern art a bit and started to take a preoccupation with crafts and just functional art in general. Photos of recent clay work will be uploaded soon.... Everything's still in the kiln. Ever since college, I've been using clay in most of my sculptural work, but did not become a full fledged potter until recently. I've stopped painting and drawing almost completely. I get more lazy with those mediums. Wheel-throwing involves less conceptual thinking...

I've been studying Maiolica Ole spanish style pottery. Decorative blue cobalt on white, like the old chinese dynasty styles... or like the layout of this blogsite...lol. I'm obsessed with navy blue, probably due to the old japanese influential styles of sachiko/indigo prints. Hence, most of my pots are glazed with dark blue hues.

Fateful Sugar, 2009

I've got a second exhibit coming up at the same Starbucks (Rice Village - Houston) in March. I'll be hanging up two paintings that capture the remains of the old Sugar Land. Actually, I wanted to complete four, but I only have two weeks do to this... So far, only one painting is in progress. It's about halfway done. There will be more pictures of the work to come. I have to admit, it's been a bitch to get back into oil painting. I haven't touched oil in about three years. And these paintings are not exactly small. Most of my past work has been figurative. I'm currently challenging myself to paint more architectural things. It's a lot harder since I can't just play with skin-tone or subjective organic shapes. I've also been using a lot of masking tape. Yes, it's the painter's cheating way but hey, I'm trying to get my groove back for now.

Interests

People often ask me who my favorite artist is or what is my favorite art movement. I always stumble with it and somehow end up giving a fake answer. I just never really knew until after I finished art school. I'm constantly being exposed to so much that everything just seems so cool and outstanding. But after being absent from the art world for a long while, I've come back with a better preference of interests. So, my favorite type of art would be installation art. Being able to transform a space, whether it be large or gigantic, is amazing. It's not about the framed product anymore, it's about the whole gallery itself. You can create a scene, a mood, or just an enigmatic environment. I also think it's simply the most fun thing you can do. Your room is your canvas. To answer the other question, my favorite artist will always be either unknown or constantly changing. But for right now, it has to be Yayoi Kusama. We have much in common, unintentionally of course. I did not discover about her until after several shows I had in which some people kept mentioning that my work is reminiscent of Kusama. They were right.

Sketch Parties

When I was in college, my group of friends and I would have drink and draw nights. We'd all hang around the living room and take turns drawing each others' portraits. Sometimes we'd all draw one another at the same time like monkeys picking fleas off of each other. The results were sometimes beautiful and but usually hilarious. I think I was known to do more caricatures of them. With my friends being art majors, they'd sketch quite seriously, with shadows of my nose and under my eyes. I always had a hard time drawing realistically in person. It's from habit of always drawing from flat photos. I think that's why I wanted to participate in this art study that a professor did at my school. He compiled it into a published book called "Drawing by Seeing" by John Torreano. I always had a problem with shadows and contour drawing during my freshmen year classes. I didn't like shading! That's probably why I do more "illustrative" works. It's all about the lines. Pen and ink is my water.

Helper Monkey Series

The Department of Justice recently came up with a new proposal to exclude varying types of service animals that many people find necessary for their disabilities or conditions. The D.O.J's list already includes "wild animals" that are not commonly domesticated: such as reptiles, ponies, ferrets, goats, and even monkeys. Much debate has been going on to redraft legal guidelines to clearly classify what can be considered a "service animal". Public health is an issue, as some animals can lash out if overly teased or they can acquire or carry certain diseases that can be deadly to humans. But at the same time, many of these animals go through extensive training to become a replaced "limb" of person. Service animals can physically help those who are blind or quadriplegic, as well as psychologically calm a person's severe mania disorder. The question comes to understanding whether the law has become borderline ridiculous in its broad definition of a service animal or whether certain procedures are done to turn an animal into a safe service animal is ethically humane. According to a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, canine teeth are removed from helper monkeys before they are passed onto owners.

I made a series about helper monkeys to let the public wonder about the heated issue on service animals, which is probably something we rarely hear about. I painted these on wooden panels with watercolor and ink for a group exhibition at the Secret Project Robot Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. The theme for the show was about sidekicks, in terms of fictional beings or in real life.

"Making Pancakes; Answering the Phone; Taking Out the Trash"
watercolor & ink on wood, 2007

A Company Town

Stuck in my hometown called Sugar Land, I've decided to do some digging and awe-ing at this marvelous old company town. What will come of it will be my new body of work. I want to embrace Sugar Land as it was before it became a true city in 1959. It started out solely as a residental town built for its workers. But what remains today are neighborhoods for workers of the greater Houston area. Sugar Land is only expanding much more west. The land that used to be all farm, just a decade ago, is slowing becoming a cookie-cutter village with the opening of numerous Walmarts, Targets, and Arbys. My cherished image of a railroad train moving amongst the abyss of flat land and sunset horizon will soon be dust.

I took some photos to start my project (paintings):

New Project: Comics

I forget how much I love using ink out of all mediums.