Thoughts - Casual Racism
I grew up in Calgary, which we affectionately call the 'Texas of the North'. Truth is that I grew up a Chinese Canadian, a son to immigrant parents and for a long time didn't speak (and still don't read) Mandarin. I had to bridge two cultural worlds, Chinese which I always felt I disinherited until I had left home, and being a Canadian.
It wasn't until I was in grade school that I became aware of race. It first began to prevade into my life in terms of limitations. In that way that schoolchildren will bully and ridicule, being Chinese meant I couldn't do some things. Being Canadian meant I couldn't do some Chinese things. It was as though race and culture were at cross-purposes to the things I wanted in life.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Musings - Home
Musings - Home
"Hey so are you all settled in yet? Got the new place feeling like home?"
Sometimes, privately and in the wee hours of the night I worry that nowhere will ever really feel like home. I'm all settled in, unpacked and have all my 'stuff', but this isn't home. Actually where I sleep hasn't felt like home in years. They are just places, and space. Space to be confined by, defined by, and secreted away from the world in.
With the advent of the internet, I take the friends who want to be a part of my life with me. I rarely go a week without hearing Patrick's voice, my parents and sister call, my other friends leave messages on facebook, skype, twitter or my phone. I generally know the best way of getting in contact with most of my friends, and the ones who know...well they know I can always be found on most communication systems.
And the friends who are too busy, or don't want to communicate won't. That's the way life goes isn't it?
"Hey so are you all settled in yet? Got the new place feeling like home?"
Sometimes, privately and in the wee hours of the night I worry that nowhere will ever really feel like home. I'm all settled in, unpacked and have all my 'stuff', but this isn't home. Actually where I sleep hasn't felt like home in years. They are just places, and space. Space to be confined by, defined by, and secreted away from the world in.
With the advent of the internet, I take the friends who want to be a part of my life with me. I rarely go a week without hearing Patrick's voice, my parents and sister call, my other friends leave messages on facebook, skype, twitter or my phone. I generally know the best way of getting in contact with most of my friends, and the ones who know...well they know I can always be found on most communication systems.
And the friends who are too busy, or don't want to communicate won't. That's the way life goes isn't it?
Monday, September 24, 2012
Painting - xkcd Paintings
Painting - xkcd Paintings
So a couple days ago last week, on xkcd there was a great webcomic done by Randall Munroe.
I adore xkcd, and the webcomic was titled Click and Drag.
You can view it above. What rapidly becomes apparent as you look at it is the incredible scope of this particular webcomic. What Randall has done is created actually a much more intricate, massive image that is fully scrollable. There are probably more than a hundred little inside jokes, pieces of art, nuanced characters, or lines throughout this massive image.
It really got me thinking, partially in awe, but also in terms of the digital divide for us between computer generated work and physical mediums. The two are irrevocably split in many ways now, even people skilled in one medium, may not ever pick up skills or have needs to in the other. I know many painters who profess no skill at all in cgi, and cgi artists who have never mixed paint before in their lives.
If you wanted to, at proper appropriate scale print out this comic it would be incredibly large. Probably impossibly large, and without the scalability would be impossible to really appreciate as a piece of art.
And yet here it is, freely available for anyone to look at.
Everything on the internet, for the most part is freely available to look at. It's our art, ours, as artists, we took it back. We took it out of the hands of museum curators, or critics, or reviewers. We put it up where we will in our own little slices as we choose. It shocks, or confronts...or it doesn't. It's available for the viewing, or it isn't. We archived it, this is ours, put up on the internet. It's us.
Anyway, I took these and did some work painting the otherwise black and white images. It was a lovely exercise in working on my cloud paintings. I hope you enjoy.
So a couple days ago last week, on xkcd there was a great webcomic done by Randall Munroe.
I adore xkcd, and the webcomic was titled Click and Drag.
You can view it above. What rapidly becomes apparent as you look at it is the incredible scope of this particular webcomic. What Randall has done is created actually a much more intricate, massive image that is fully scrollable. There are probably more than a hundred little inside jokes, pieces of art, nuanced characters, or lines throughout this massive image.
It really got me thinking, partially in awe, but also in terms of the digital divide for us between computer generated work and physical mediums. The two are irrevocably split in many ways now, even people skilled in one medium, may not ever pick up skills or have needs to in the other. I know many painters who profess no skill at all in cgi, and cgi artists who have never mixed paint before in their lives.
If you wanted to, at proper appropriate scale print out this comic it would be incredibly large. Probably impossibly large, and without the scalability would be impossible to really appreciate as a piece of art.
And yet here it is, freely available for anyone to look at.
Everything on the internet, for the most part is freely available to look at. It's our art, ours, as artists, we took it back. We took it out of the hands of museum curators, or critics, or reviewers. We put it up where we will in our own little slices as we choose. It shocks, or confronts...or it doesn't. It's available for the viewing, or it isn't. We archived it, this is ours, put up on the internet. It's us.
Anyway, I took these and did some work painting the otherwise black and white images. It was a lovely exercise in working on my cloud paintings. I hope you enjoy.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Painting - Artwork Translation
Painting - Translation: Van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhone to Jackson Pollock / Jean-Paul Riopelle
For this final assignment, we were tasked with taking a certain classical style painting, and translate it to a more modern art movement style. I picked Van Gogh, but instead of doing the famous 'Starry Night', I chose a slightly (barely) more obscure one called Starry Night over the Rhone. Taking that painting, here's my process of making it into an Abstract Expressionism, similar to Jackson Pollock or Jean-Paul Riopelle
Read on:
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Painting - Clyfford Still
"I am not interested in illustrating my time. A man's "time" limits him, it does not truly liberate him. Our age - it is one of science, of mechanism, of power and death. I see no point in adding to its mechanism of power and death. I see no point in adding to its mammoth arrogance the compliment of a graphic homage."
-Clyfford Still
Monday, September 3, 2012
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