fly on the wall

i'm only starting to realize that most of my life has been shaped by an acute awareness of being the 'other'. always being the new kid in school. being one of 3 asians in a white suburban texas high school. arriving at art school and finding that no one else dyed their hair or wore fishnets. unconsciously, i've always expected other people to be not like me, because that had been the truth of my education. i hadn't realized this about myself until i moved to california, the state of plenty-and we're not just describing the avocado supply. people of modge-podge identities glide on by without stopping to think about the strangeness of their modge-podge world. i wonder often what it would've been like to grow up with this unfettered mentality. would i have felt compelled to be an artist?

sex on a stick, batman!

this has got to be the most attractive thing (besides my significant other, of course) that i've ever seen.

space age nostalgia

having always had a fascination with cover songs (who originates them, who covers them, who pulls it off), i spent the past few days digging through youtube for david bowie treasure. these are my favorites:

dear lacma:

there are some terms which may be deemed inappropriate (or progressive?) for an exhibit documenting 18th century european fashion.

dream

we see a boxcar full of quilts we want to buy. i have to climb up two ropes to get to the quilts. i am at the top of the ropes but unable to swing onto the platform. we are redirected to a backdoor opening. we go in and go up different flights of stairs but all we find are skulls and dead ends. as many of us leave the building as possible but some are still trapped inside. the owner of the boxcar tells us that if we take the wrong way we'll die.

on happier news i am off to build a school garden today. happy volunteerism day, y'all!

new year, new work

this month has slowly cranked and spluttered into action. i've been finishing up my school applications and making a drawing of a house. it's not quite sublime yet, but it's a workable blueprint for getting there, and encompasses most of what's been on my mind lately: monuments, constancy, repetition, grace.





i'm also wrapping up my participation in the sketchbook project, which i started last fall. if you have ever wondered what i dreamed about between the months of august and october 2010, well, it's coming to a library near you! here's a taste of the journal's contents:



it is not final yet, but there is a 99% chance that i will start work as a web designer for UCLA in the coming weeks. i'm excited about no longer being dependent on the us government. hopefully i'll still have time to draw some roman aqueducts.

currently thinking about

"those verses one writes in youth aren't much. one should wait and gather sweetness and light all [her] life, a long one if possible, and then maybe at the end [she] might write ten good lines." — our favorite german

my hero

when i was 13 my parents decided to drive over the border to mexico. that excursion lasted all of 3 hours. things i remember: parking on the street and being led by a local to a bazaar with stone elephants for sale. my parents pressuring me to bargain shop in spanish, growing increasingly terrified that the locals will steal their car. escaping to a supermarket and seeing myself in 60 years, an old lady nonchalantly strutting about with purple rinse in her hair. my parents' fear of mexicans reaching its apex and, as we say in texas, getting the hell out of dodge.

this snapshot from a photoessay by steve mccurry brought it all back.

new year

my resolution this year is to make with integrity, and to not question purpose when it comes my way.

lately i haven't posted much because i've become self conscious of appearing superficial or flippant, like 99% of the internet.

did you see the movie black swan? i had resolved to not talk about it, increase the flutter of hype about it, and it certainly isn't innocent enough to qualify for a favorite movie, but it keeps sticking in my mind. like the title character i often feel that something beyond my comprehension is waiting to break out from underneath my skin - it is so close i can see it undulating in bumps. i have a feeling that this will be good, but terrifying, and i am just going to accept it.