Adventure of ceramics & Lecture/critique with Hung Liu

I learned how to make the mold with Mia and the pieces from last quarter are finally ready to go into kiln. However, a little incident happened so they will be done next Monday. Apparently, there was something in the fabric that can be plastic-like and it started to smell terrible at the degree of 700. The half-way look was actually very interesting although the box looked like it would fall apart. I guess we will see when it is all done.

Language cannot express how much I appreciated Hung's critique. From her lecture, I walked out feeling heavy because I can relate all the cultural and historical perspective in her work. It was highly inspirational to hear her stories and her thoughts of ghosts. I think in a way, the concept was very similar to carrying on burdens from our life. No matter it was happy or sad, there is always a lesson to learn from it.

To start our critique, I simply described how my work was about my interests in connecting and disconnecting based on my experience of being far away from home. She immediately pointed out the reason of me focusing on the search of home was because I feel I don't belong. 

Here were the thoughts going through my mind while talking to Hung: It has been 7 years since I left home and moved to the U.S. alone. No matter where I am, I always feel like a foreigner and I know I will feel this way forever. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. I do love the fact that I have different cultural experiences and I have some unique stories to share with the world. I feel I am constantly learning from my environment and from the people I am surrounding with. I am independent and strong and I rarely talked about homesickness because I am not sure where home is anymore. The fact Hung pointed out the sense of loneliness behind my work was very shocking for me. She was saying that the beautiful patterns and my use of colors definitely layer up a narrative space, and behind the image, she feels what I feel due to our similar experience of leaving our countries. 

Moreover, there is a classic Chinese literature, which is about watching a loved one leaving. The detailed description of watching the back-shadow fading away was one of my inspiration when I made my self-portrait screen-prints. Hung immediately got my reference without me bringing up; which was kind of cool because we speak the same language and read the same literatures. 

In addition to the cultural background, we also talked about the purpose of cultural exchange. Through art, it can be very subtle, but get the viewers curious to learn. She told me that my feeling of being a foreigner won't change, and it is a really good thing for an artist. She told me how I should embrace the fact that I can always take a step back and observe. Although we talked about so many serious things and I was a little bit of emotional, I was glad it happened and my idea for the exhibition changed slightly as far as the visual image goes, but everything including material and media stay the same. I am ready to work my butt off and make my critique with Hung worthy!