Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Laramie: A Gem City Atlas - in progress

My partner, Ben Pease, and I had the privilege of being the cartographers on Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas, a brilliant collection of essays and maps that explore the layers of meaning that cohabit a location. Rebecca was invited to  the University of Wyoming as an Eminent Writer in Residence. She inspired Alyson Hagy’s graduate creative writing students to create Laramie: A Gem City Atlas. Ben and I were invited along to help the students create maps to go with their essays.

The writers choose topics and researched locations that we placed onto a base map of Laramie. They then looked for artists to embellish their maps. To give the students some notion of possibilities, I created some responses to their data. The writers are working with artists now to create responses of their own. We’re working with them long distance to help them marry art with maps, and I'm looking forward to the exhibition of Laramie: A Gem City Atlas, opening May 2 at the University of Wyoming Art Museum.

Tasha LeClair’s idea was to combine locations of ghost sightings with Laramie's ubiquitious cottonwood trees.

And Luling Osofsky searches for signs of Asia in the Wild West.







Bridging through the Arts: Transracial Community Building


I’m honored to have four pieces in a show at the UC Santa Barbara Multicultural Center on transracial community building sponsored by the Chicano/Chicana Studies Department, April-June 2011. These are all older pieces but the issues they touch upon remain challenges today.

Burden of Imagination  (24"x24" oil).The blank canvas is both gift and responsibility. My art resists escaping into abstraction or conceptual dryness. Instead, it seeks to connect, inspire and heal by embracing duality while affirming underlying unity. The images arcing down from top right are the mother of Emmett Till (the fourteen-year-old boy who was lynched in 1955 for whistling at a white woman), an Appalachian storyteller and a 100-year-old ex-slave. On the far left, a musician plays Peruvian pan flutes, a nun dances as a form of charismatic prayer near our biological relatives, a parrot, an ape, then a native of the endangered Amazon rain forest, and at the bottom, Hells Angel, and the wicked witch of the west. 


The Baby Shoes (etching, 20” x 16”). In 1977 an international boycott against Nestlé products was modiblized by largely white, middle-class mothers in support of poor mothers of color in the developing world. The campaign was prompted by concern that the company’s promotion of breast milk substitutes (infant formula) contributes to the death and suffering of babies in impoverished nations around the world.



Powdered breast-milk substitutes must be mixed with water, which is often contaminated in poor countries, leading to disease in vulnerable infants. Impoverished mothers often use less formula powder than is necessary, in order to make a container of formula last longer, resulting in inadequate nutrition. They do not have access to clean water or fuel to boil water for sterilizing bottles. In contrast, Breastfeeding transmit natural immunities and strengthens bonds between mother and child, UNICEF estimates that a non-breastfed child living in disease-ridden and unhygienic conditions is between six and 25 times more likely to die of diarrhea and four times more likely to die of pneumonia than a breastfed child.



The Whitebread Conspiracy (etching, 20” x 16” framed). Since everyone is unique and no one is normal, the pursuit of “normalcy” is a questionable source of self-worth. But consumerism lures us into spending too much time and money choosing the right apparel, anti-perspirants, anti-dandruff shampoo and anti-depressants to help us “fit in.”

“Whitebread” Urban Dictionary definition #1: “... implies profound cultural naïvete, blind consumerism, and an unquestioning “follower” mindset.... Though whitebread individuals are usually white, the term is not necessarily racial in meaning - the implication lies more with the blandness, predictability, and banality of plain white bread. Accordingly, ‘wonderbread’ is often used as a synonym.”

Definition #3: “someone who is not white, for example a black person, who acts incredibly white.”


Blood on Your Face (etching, 18 x18 framed). War will only end when we learn to bridge divisions of race, religion and nationality.











Imperatrix Mundi


My piece Imperatrix Mundi has been accepted for the Asian American Women Artists' Association show, A Place of Her Own, opening in San Francisco in early May. It's an homage to my grandmother, who raised ten children while operating a workingman's hotel in Stockton, CA. She was even more diminutive than Napoleon, but she ruled her world through love and compassion, not a quest for power.

Right now the work exists only as a photocollage thumbnail. I have been asked to paint it as a large canvas, 3 x 5 feet. I agreed, thinking it would be wonderful to put paint to canvas again after a long foray into other media. I've bought the canvas and stretcher bars and ordered the frame. Now all I have to do is find the time to paint.

Grandma’s House 

My dad’s mom runs a hotel south of the canal, a cheap SRO in the middle of the block 
between the pool hall and the Jesus mission where the open door reveals 
rows of stoic men slumped in folding chairs pretending to listen to the preacher 
and waiting, waiting for a chance to sleep on one of the iron beds 
lined up like soldiers with white sheets pulled drum tight.

My mom parks our two-tone blue Pontiac outside the liquor store 
stocked with golden pints of brandy, port and muscatel.
She checks her lipstick in the rearview mirror. She makes sure her stocking seams are straight
and my ponytail is so tight it makes my scalp ache.
She makes a beeline down the vomit-splattered street to Grandma’s hotel
past the broken men in broken shoes, in pants tied up with rope.
She does not look at the Army-green trouser leg neatly folded,safety-pinned, and dangling slackly where a limb should be, 
She’s blind to the gap-toothed, yellowing ivories, the grey-stubble lined with spittle, 
the passed-out drunk lying twisted on the ground just as he fell, wreathed in the sweet, stale fumes of cheap wine.

“Single Rooms • Daily • Weekly • Monthly” reads the sign on Baachan’s hotel.
The door is checked and chalky with age and the entrance reeks of piss. 
"Don't touch the walls," my mother says.  She gathers her skirts tightly
so they will not brush the stamped metal wainscotting 
painted institutional green and stained with grease from many hands. 

Baachan is waiting for us at the top of the stairs, at the end of a long hall lined with bleak single rooms. 
A tiny woman, skinny as the broom she wields, as crooked as the teeth jammed any which way into her mouth.
“Yokatta, ne!” she says when she sees us. “Isn’t it good.” “Namu Amida Butsu, I pay homage to the Buddha.” And as she beams, it IS good. All of it— the ten kids she raised in this skid-row hotel,
the drunks, the deadbeats, the bums who call her “Mama” and eat her free Sunday chili,
From drunks to nervous mothers to little girl with eyes like cameras.
Nothing escapes the embrace of Baachan’s compassionate view.
Going to see her is like visiting the sun.

Published in Empty Shoes: Poems on the Hungry and Homeless (Popcorn Press 2009)

The Great Divide: Thoughts and Prayers

An idealistic young white man was murdered in my quiet, middle-class neighborhood in the Richmond District. It was a shocking event in a largely white and Aisan American neighborhood that averages one murder a year. Privilege in my neighborhood means that my 15-year-old Asian/European American son was brought home by the police with a friendly warning when he and his friends were caught lurking in a wealthy neighborhood with sharpened screwdrivers. (They were smoking pot, not planning to break into cars.) Meanwhile, across town in the projects, 14-year-old African American Anthony was sentenced to Juvenile Hall for stealing food for his siblings. When he did it again a couple of years later, he ended up in prison. In contrast, when my son took his grandfather’s pocketknife to school (because he was afraid of Asian gangs, he said), a teacher confiscated the weapon and contacted me instead of handing the weapon and my son over to the principal for automatic expulson.

We don't know how privileged we are unless we understand how bad things can be others.

Seventy-seven people attached written thoughts and prayers to the Great Divide installation at SOMArts. Here's what they wrote:

[heart] unconditionally
Everyone has face and a story. Respect, dignity and justice for all.
We must change minds before we can change society. Open your third eye.
God’s love and goodness are all around. Thank you, Love, Lanaya
Do not let fear stop you from achieving your potential
Bottom line: Love!
RIP RIP peace honor
Peace
Do it while you can! I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you. Thank you. CA
Co-exist [smiley face]
When your [heart] breaks it heals stronger than before [heart]
We are the bike lane
[heart] somos el
Loves bikes  Let "it" be  Live with Passion  Love everyone like your mother
I pray for hopeful futures for all our children.
I'm so sad for kenneth tims
Caring and sharing by Kim F.
Peace and understanding
Look where you turn!
Less driving+less pollution   Bike/walk more
Hi!!!
Think before you shoot
Be aware! Stay Alive!
Love as you want to be loved!
I ride everyday. They've tried to steal my bike, but I got it back every time. I realize I'm one of the lucky ones. My heart goes out to stories like this one.
God’s love and goodness are all around. Thank you Father Mother Love [peace symbol]
Always whare a helmet
Peace, Blessings, Love
“Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable, and everlasting” —Bahá u’ llah
Everyone is created =
“All will end soon enough.” — Boss
Get Busy! Things won’t change without you!
More Safe Bike Lanes
God is your father
May our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren be safe in the street [heart]   Peace to your hearts.
R.I.P
God bless
Every life is precious
The heart is wheeled.  Pedal.
Peace and blessings [heart]
Peace [heart]
Let go of the bicycle.
R.I.P Kirk buddy. Your pici rides on…. [heart]  C
Rest into the people in the accidents!!
Live in Peace
Live in God
Nice work!
Remember the little things
Saimon Mock 2010 We all miss you
Rest in Peace, Jennifer. Rest in Peace, Daniela
Be Bold
Peace will prevail
Rest in Peace
=
Remember the little things
Prayers for peaceful conversions rather than deadly discourse
Rest in Peace, Kun Uttai and Nong Aaam. Thank you for the roles you played in my narrative.
Ride on Mi Amiga
LL’L never forget you. Tyrone Williams RIP 2009
patience. compassion, consideration. forgiveness. obey traffic laws. slow down. get off cell phone when driving.
Get you some!! — Sarina L
Dame Abrazos!
World Peace
Dream of Me
The dead speak to me through a veil of mists. If you’re quiet, you can hear them too. Blessed Love
May you Rest in peace and in honor
I [heart] big time rush — Sebastian AKA Logan
Your wheels are wings [bike]
Respect for Everything
Never forget love it is the most [heart] important thing [heart] you have
They shouldn’t have died. They died for no reason. They died because of some gun-carrying lunatics. — Naomi C
Love will always follow
Motha Earth Rest Calmly. Love is on its way —Honor Respect Love Prevails
God’s blessings to the homeless! May they find freedom, sheter, and love. Amen.
Baba, Keith and Daddy you are missed
For Gustavo and Leonard both killed by the police. May we remake the world w/your laughter
Peace come to all people
-----

The Great Divide: Dia de los Muertos

The Great Divide: Streetside Memorials. (8 w x 6 h x 1 d feet, Installation on chain link fence: photography, bicycle, candles, flowers, raffia, paper tags for public comment). Exhibited at Dia de los Muertos, SOMArt  Cultural Center, San Francisco, Oct-Nov 2010.

Photographs of streetside memorials for two young men, one black, one white, killed on opposite sides of the Bay in very different neighborhoods for very different reasons. Every day we walk past stories peeping like new grass and gum wrappers through layers of leaf litter—implications of race and class, public and private grief, intentions and consequences, growth and loss and the inevitable passage of time.