Narration:

 

Hey so I had a pastel sketch from long ago and I wanted to do something with it as a project using some Mod Podge and some gold paint that I actually had found amongst my daughter's unwanted items shipped back from her college dorm because apparently that was what she was doing during college, a lot of fun projects.

 

So I had this sketch and I decided to resurrect some oil pastels, also some leftover items, actually art materials from childhood. I'm a Taiwanese person second generation so I tend to be really resourceful and I keep things. But especially significant were these art materials because I was a real dreamy artist type as a child mostly to escape the tirades of my father who was kind of a special personality.

 

Now thinking about this and on the topic of my father this pastel sketch actually was a a drawing I made when we were in Yosemeit and he just sat next to a river. It made me think of my father's history in Taiwan when he had occasion to escape a bombing raid in which he eventually found all his companions destroyed during World War II in Taiwan.

 

As I was making this piece I often wondered about my father and why he was such a distant and sometimes violent person. I kind of recognize that there is a very sweet and authentic side to him. There was also a side to him that saw things in a unique perspective probably conditioned by the trauma of World War II and his hardships being an immigrant in a land where he wasn't fluent in the language. Also because he was a pretty smart guy and he could recognize the differences in American culture compared to his background in Taiwan. 

 

He would say things like "I am a man without a country" and also "...in America nobody admires you, there is only envy." Now thinking about that, that was actually pretty profound because that is actually somewhat true, that there is an interpersonal indifference and brutal materiality compared to the atmosphere of society in Asian culture. There's also the sense that your status and the kind of goodwill that you feel from your society, in general, is somewhat superficial and very conditioned on your material standing and what kind of job or title you have. So there isn't really any innate sense of admiration just based on your personality or the common threads of human connection.

 

I was reflecting on that when I was making this sketch and I was also reflecting how Taiwan was under martial law for 40 years. So during most of my father's adult life, there were some pretty horrendous things going on in Taiwan that would be hard to imagine. It was all happening in the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of Communism in mainland China. Taiwan was under martial law and also experienced a period known as the White Terror in which it was not uncommon for people to experience political oppression. If you were in any way suspected of being defiant against the KMT or Kuomingtang, which was the dominant political party, you could face some severe repercussions, including being kidnapped and killed and that's what actually happened to members of our family. 

 

I'm so grateful and I think my dad was really grateful, because he would eventually say near the end of his life, "Ah-fen look how lucky I am."

 

Growing up Asian in America for me was mixed in that I felt like Asians were not as attractive as the majority of society being Caucasian and light-skinned with blue eyes. I would spend a lot of time browsing Vogue magazine and I thought I might want to be a fashion illustrator. 

 

I'm so glad that now I'm kind of an elderly person with a bit of a disability problem. I am more focused on nature and the wisdom that we gain from the resourcefulness of Nature.  The principles of regeneration and healing are a great source of inspiration for my art and also the foundation of my recovery from my disability, and all the associated pain and social isolation stemming from my disability.

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