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Today is May 27, 2021. My name is Ann Shi. I'm an associate curator at the Houston Asian American Archive at Rice University.

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Today, we're interviewing our Houston-based artist, Hong Hong. Thank you so much, Hong Hong, for joining us today. Thank you for having me, Ann. Yeah, to start, we're very excited to hear about your stories.

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Can you start by telling us when and where were you born? Yeah, I was born in Hefei, Anhui in China. And it's a big metropolis with lots and lots of really tall

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buildings. And my family and I lived there until I was about 10 years old. Can you share with us some of the memories about the city Hefei, and what was it like back then? Hmm. Well, I, I had a very

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happy childhood because my—I was surrounded by a really large extended family, which I think is really important, especially for only children. So I had all of my cousins and we would see each other on the weekends. And I was the oldest and I would bully everybody, like I

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wasn't like a good sibling. Because like in China, if you're older, you're supposed to like, be nicer to the younger kids. But I was like, “I'm stronger. I'm gonna beat you up.” So there was a lot of

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playtime. My grandparents were there, aunts and uncles. I grew up with my grandparents, they pretty much raised me while my mom and dad were working and, you know, doing their own careers.

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And we lived on campus at one of the local universities, and I used to walk to the field with my grandparents, and they would do their like, little synchronized movements and exercises, and I would

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like run around in circles. And then there was like a time where I lived with my mom, my dad was sort of like traveling around, I'm probably like going into too much detail. But anyway, um, I was really sickly when I was little.

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So I stayed home from school, like, all the time, like, once a week or once every two weeks. And, you know, school like in China, it's like, really strict, you know.

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Um, and so I love staying home, 'cause nobody was bossing me around. And I would have babysitters when my grandma couldn't come. And I used to, I just started drawing on the walls of my

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parents' apartment because I love to draw. And surprisingly, they didn't get upset with me. So they let me fill up the entire apartment with drawings, you know, it went from like floor

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to shoulder height, you know, over a number of years. So this is— this was like a multi-year project, I guess. And that was my favorite thing to do.

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When I was little, I used to make up stories as I drew; like, I would be narrating the story of like, "this whale is eating a lollipop." And then I would draw the story. And I had favorite areas to draw on.

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And then those areas I would, I would make drawings on top of each other. And it was so black with graphite that you wouldn't be able to tell what I was drawing, because I am just such a creature of

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habit. But yeah, that was great. I love doing that. Um, I didn't get to do, I mean aside from playing with my cousins, I didn't get to do a lot of the stuff that other kids got to do, because I was mostly unwell.

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And I remember, I also remember going through the city on the back of my mom's bike, you know, that was how she took me to different places. I remember, you know, my mom

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putting me on the bus and just being like, like I was like tiny and everybody was like crowded around me or like the bus is rumbling and then I get to my grandma's and she picked me up. Um... And yeah, I had a lot of support, you know,

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everybody was around me and—which obviously I took for granted at the time, because I was just a baby, you know, growing up. And yeah, it was really loud. There was a lot of sounds

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and textures and colors, and, you know, the color palette of my hometown is definitely different from the color palette of, say, Houston or any other city that I've lived in America. And yeah, so that's, that's my childhood in a

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nutshell. Wow, that's super exciting. And hearing you talk about palette of the city, that's a really refreshing and brand new way to describe the city.

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What is the image that first come into your mind of Hefei in your childhood? Um, I think that's really hard to say because I think memory is really unstable. I think we're constantly rewriting our memories.

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And I think that the relationship between the present and the past is not always so clear. Um, I think that my memory of Hefei is really pixelated in that there's a lot of

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foggy, shadowy areas where I'm just like, "I don't, I don't really know what that looks like." You know, it's kind of gray, it's kind of like you're in a video game, you can't really see.

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But then there are other areas that are just like crystal clear to me, you know, and it would probably be my grandparents' house, you know. It was covered with plants, because my grandpa was

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obsessed with plants. Like he had like 50 plants. And I also remember the way that the alleys alleyways smelled.

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They there were these pepper trees or something like that. And I've only ever smelled that, you know. When I was a little girl, and since I've gone back to visit my family.

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I also remember seeing the sky through the bodies of the buildings. And, and when I was little, I didn't really realize that the sky could be more than like six inches, because

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there's so much verticality, you know, I think in most Chinese cities. There is a sensation of being hugged, you know, by– by people, by structures, by

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conversation. I think it was a very, I think it's a very lively animated image; but it's an image that's constantly coming in and out of focus, because I'm not really sure what's real and what's unreal about it.

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Wow, that's so beautiful, and so intimate the way you share it. And I'm also curious, what food did you eat, and what your family would cook? Do you want to— Oh, my God!

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Yes! Yes, now we're going to, we're getting to the good parts. Yeah. So um, so my—so I have two sets of grandparents, they have very different food philosophies. Like my dad's mom wasn't from Hefei, she's

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from another part, and her food is like, really salty. Everything is fried. You know, and I don't remember exactly what those dishes were, but they were really spicy, like, I would be sweating as I ate

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them. And then my mom's parents. You know, my grandma, my grandma, on that side is a doctor, my "apo," she's a doctor. So she's very, like health conscious.

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So she's like, we absolutely need to have bok choy for dinner every night and you can't put salt on it. So every night for dinner, we just have like this really like, plain, watery bok choy.

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And all of her dishes were kind of like laid-back compared to the other side of the family. Um, my favorite things to eat. Honestly, I love a Chinese breakfast.

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You know, I love that it's savory. I love that —I used to eat like "bao zi." And then I would eat it with like, "xian cai"—I don't know how to say it—or like, you know, like veggies that are like salty and spicy, and then you would eat it with

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like fermented tofu. That was my favorite thing. And I also really liked "nian gao." Um, so like the sticky rice and you dip into sugar for like,

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New Years. I really liked that. Um, and I remember like, we used to get yogurt delivered in these glass bottles and I loved waking up to the sound of like the clink outside the door, and like, "I'm going to get the yogurt." And then

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we would drink the yogurt through a straw. And my favorite thing to eat with my mom, actually, is we used to go to food stands all the time and she would take me to watch people—I mean she wouldn't take me to watch people—but I would be

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obsessed with like, watching people make noodles. Oh my god, that was amazing. I was like, so obsessed with that. I would be like, "Mom, can you take me to a noodle shop?" So I can like watch people make

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noodles; and they would make it, and we would have like "niu rou mian" like spicy beef noodles. And then my other favorite thing—you can tell that I love talking about this—is, I remember when it was really

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cold, we didn't have like a lot of heat, so my mom would buy me these sweet potatoes that they would bake on the street. And you know, you'd be walking in the winter, and I have my gloves on, and I would keep the sweet potato

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in my hand for warmth. Yeah, and then my dad owned a restaurant, but I never really went. But I remember being obsessed with these like little cranes that they would carve out of carrots.

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And every night, my dad when he came home from work, he would bring me a little carved crane. And I really loved that as a token from my father. But also it was magical to

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know that materials could transform, you know, in that way. But yeah, that's just like the top. That's like, that's just the top of my list.

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There's a lot of other foods that I liked. Yeah, if you could share a recipe with us, either in video or in paper write-up, any form, we'd love to archive it as well. Yeah, yeah, I'll send something– something to you.

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Yeah. Thank you. And also, I'm really fascinated by your name, because– because it's—in English, it's Hong Hong; but in Chinese, it's two different words, both to do with water, but it has different meanings.

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And in terms of how it connects water, can you tell us a little bit about your name, and who gave you the name? Yeah, so I was born on January 11. And the area that we lived in is sort of tropical, so we

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didn't really see snow that often. But it was snowing on the day that I was born. So everyone in my family was like, "We need to name her 'snow'." And then, but then like my, my dad's

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mom has this accent, you know, she– she speaks in dialect. So she was saying the word for snow, "xue"; but she said, she was saying like "xue," you know? And my mom is like, "No, that's such a...

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No, that doesn't sound good. We can't name her 'snow'." Like, so my mom, like, vetoed everyone. And my dad's name is 'flood.' And obviously, that sort of—it's a natural disaster,

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it's very powerful, it's very violent. And that has all of these connotations that my mom sort of wanted to maybe cancel—not, maybe not move away from; but just make softer.

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So my mom is really into like, poetry. You know, I think she wanted to be a writer for a long time. And she, I think she was probably reading some poems when she should have been

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studying for one of her tests in college or in high school. And the second part of my name, the second "Hong," comes from a, like a, it comes from, like, really old Chinese, I think. And the phrase is actually "Yi Hong Qing

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Shui." So it's a unit of measurement that poets would use to sort of approximate the presence of like really clear, transparent, slow, deep water. So that the kind of water that's welcoming, the kind of water that's—that you want

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to sort of swim through, or, or dive into. So she was like, so I think my mom's like, "If she's gonna be a flood of anything, she's gonna be a flood of something like that's like really beautiful." Um, so she named me "Hong

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Hong," which kind of translates into "a flood of clear deep water." And that's my name. Wow, that's such a beautiful name. And knowing that you have been such a fluid person, like

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dia—identity in a diaspora, been in all these different cities and spaces and countries, definitely really man– manifests your persona very well. Thank you. Thank you!

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And next, I'm curious, can you tell us a little bit about your parents, and if they shared any of their own stories with you? Um, so my parents, you know, they're not—I think at some point,

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we realize that our parents are people with their own histories, but it doesn't happen until much later. And I'm sort of just getting started with that process. My parents are very Chinese in that they want to keep a lot from me.

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You know, they're just like, "We don't want to tell you anything, because we want you to just do your best and like, you know, do whatever you have to do." So whenever I call my parents I'm like, "Hey, how's it going?" They're just like, "Great.

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We're doing good. Good." Like, that's like the conversation for like years, you know. So I think that they're a little bit reluctant to talk about themselves. But they, they do talk about my grandparents, you know, a little bit

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more. So my dad and mom went to high school together. And my dad—my mom was sort of like a bookworm. You

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know, like, so in Chinese, it's like, "Shu Dai Zi." So she was just like, she's very quiet, like, very shy, had big glasses like me. Um, you know, and when she was supposed to be like listening in class, she

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would have like, the book that she's supposed to read. And then she would have like a novel inside that book, because she loved reading so much. And then my dad is kind of like the

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opposite. Like, he was really outgoing and like kind of a troublemaker, because they both went to like a really good high school. But my dad was there because his father is was the principal; and his father wanted—my grandpa wanted to expose my dad to more

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discipline, to more rigorous learning. So they were very, very different in high school. And I think my mom told me that my

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dad didn't really talk to her in high school. But then after they graduated, he was like, "Oh, I'm on the reunion committee." And then he was like, "Um, we should get together and talk about our high school reunion." And she was

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kind of surprised because she's not super outgoing. She was like, "Okay, yeah, like, come over." And then they went to different high schools, I mean, different colleges kind of separate from each other.

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And they wrote each other letters, and eventually they got married. And my mom was teaching history at a university, and my dad was

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also a teacher; but also my dad is kind of like, he just— he has so many different kinds of experiences. Like he was a tour guide, and was like, he traveled across China all the way over to Tibet, you know, one year, he was like, off doing that.

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And then, and then he started the restaurant, you know, and did that for a few years. And then he was like, "I want to go to America." And that was his next thing. So my dad has always been really adventurous, but he's a

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Sagittarius. So that makes sense. You know, like half-man, half-horse. My mom was just—she wasn't just—but she was consistently a history teacher.

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Um, and really like, my understanding of my parents really deepened after we moved to the United States, because like I said, I grew up with extended family. So I didn't really, I mean, I saw my parents consistently, but

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not as much as, you know, maybe like an American child would see their mom and dad, I saw my grandparents a lot more. Um, and so yeah, so my, my immediate memories of my parents began in North Dakota after we, you

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know, moved from China to the States. But they both grew up during the Cultural Revolution. They don't really talk about it that much. I know my grandparents don't really talk about it, because I think it was sort of like

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really challenging for them. I know both– both sets, because my my mom, my dad's parents both worked in education. So that was being reformed. So my grandpa had to go through a lot.

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I know that he was in like, probably in prison for a little while. And really, that was like a big thing. And then my mom's side comes from sort of a wealthier family. They were doctors, you

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know, in a small village. So my grandpa and my grandma on that side were sent to labor camps. And then my, my mom, and her brother, my uncle, stayed with other members of the family who were in the

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city. So they were taken care of, you know, but they they were separated from their parents. And I think that it was a tumultuous time. There was a lot happening, a lot of shifts, a lot of,

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you know, collisions, sometimes, between different kinds of people and different sets of ideologies. And there was a lot of like churning and things like that. So whenever things get hard, my– my grandparents always, they usually say like,

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"Well, you'll be fine. You know, it's— there, it's not like there's a revolution or anything like that." And yeah, so that's like, that's sort of that "before me" history of my family; and then there's then the "after me"

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history of my family as well. Yeah, it's interesting. I felt like Chinese parents, they really tried to protect their kids so well from... the traumas they experienced themselves.

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Yeah, yeah. Like I remember recently, just because of the wave of like, you know, anti-Chinese, you know, sentiment in America, I was really worried about my parents, because, you know, they're

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older, they're in upstate New York. So I would call home and they'd be like—and for a long time, I couldn't even bring myself to say anything, because I think like... my parents really tried hard to assimilate, you know,

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into to—they really tried their best to be American, you know, I think in so many different ways. Because they wanted to do well for themselves, they also wanted to do well for their extended family; and I think they also

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wanted to do well for me. So part of their efforts were—they were like, funneled into that, you know. So I, for a long time, I couldn't bring myself to be like, "Oh, you know, you really have to be careful," because I

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think it would just like, break their hearts a little bit. But then when I finally brought it up, and like, you know, like, "Make sure if you're out walking by yourself, just keep your eyes open." And then my parents never, they

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were never like, they're like, "We're not scared. We're totally fine. We're doing great." You know, but they do that, they do that for us, or my parents do that for me, for sure, in so many ways, you know.

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Yeah, definitely. And with the—interesting that you brought out assim– assimilation, which I really wanted to—although, like later on—but I would really love to hear what were some of the things

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that they tried to assimilate with, for example? Oh, you—do want me to talk about that right now? Yeah, would that be alright? Yeah. Yeah, I just wasn't sure.

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I'm totally happy to say whatever. Um, yeah, I think, I think the first thing is language, you know, but that's practical, as well as symbolic.

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You know, I think language is the architecture of reality. I don't know about you, but I kind of feel like a slightly different person in Chinese. Like, when I'm speaking Chinese, my persona in Chinese is like a little sillier, like,

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little louder, maybe, like funnier; like, I'm not funny in English, but I am, like, funny in Chinese. Probably because I don't speak it like super well, so people are just like, "What is she saying?" Um, but I think the first thing is language.

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I remember when I was going to elementary school in North Dakota, my dad would make me speak in English with him when I came home. You know, they would always ask me what I had for lunch, and I always had to answer in

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English. Right? Um, and, you know, later, I think assimilation happened through food, I think our diets changed. I remember when

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my mom and I landed in Los Angeles, my uncle who was living in LA at the time took us to like Pizza Hut. And my mom, my mom and I were just like, "This is disgusting." I was like, "Ew!

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Why are we here?" You know, but then later, pizza started creeping back into our lives. And I remember like, in North Dakota, my parents were making pizza, and they were making like Hawaiian pizza with like, pineapples on it.

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You know, so our diets changed. We started speaking English a little more often at home. And, you know, that I think that there's a lot of habits that we slowly shifted, you know.

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In China at the time, we didn't really have access to washing machines. So I remember when we were when I was little, we all did our laundry by hand with like, a washing board. So change— the change of clothes, you know, wasn't

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really—it didn't happen as often as it did in America. You know, when I came to, when we came to America, I was like, "Oh, people change their clothes every day." You know, and that was a huge shift for us.

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But then once we got, you know, and then once we started doing it, it's just something that we've continued to do. But there were all of these little things, you know, like, suddenly, we could

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take showers like, you know, 'cause my mom had to boil water and then put it in the bucket. And then we showered like that for like the first two years of my life. But then we got a bathtub.

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So there were a lot of like, shifts, and I think like everything really changed. You know, it was kind of like a totally different way of living. And I mean, also in addition to that, we were jumping between different

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kinds of environments, like the topography in North Dakota is totally different from the topography of a metropolis in China. Right. I mean, there

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are I think that there was a sense of, I think, in China, we had very little privacy, you know, because we were living with extended families, you know. And then in America, there was suddenly a lot of privacy.

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And I think that my parents over time have really grown to love that sense of privacy, that, that distance between yourself and another family. You know, now it's something that they really cherish.

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But I think that being able to love it is also a facet of assimilation. It was a very different way of living. Sound travels differently in North Dakota than it does

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in a city in China. You know, I remember when we first got to North Dakota, my mom was like, "It's so quiet." You know, we were used to hearing our neighbors, we were used to having friends come by, we were used to like my mom and my

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grandmother arguing like every other day, you know, just bickering. But suddenly, all of that receded from us. And we were in this snowy, flat landscape,

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where suddenly the sky was the biggest thing that there was, you know. Suddenly the sky was thousands of miles all around us, instead of just being like a river of blue between buildings. Oh, I'm like, way off topic.

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I don't know where I went with that. Sorry. I was trying to talk about assimilation, I started talking about the sky. But anyway, I think that the process of assimilation happened in so many different

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areas, from– from how to navigate your body and the city, how to travel between point A and point B and like the route that you would take from point A to point B, that's all different. And I think, like, part of my—the most—I

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think part of what my parents had to do was first getting used to all of those changes, and then cherishing some of those changes; cherishing that silence, cherishing the distance, cherishing speaking English, cherishing pizza,

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you know? And yeah, I think that, I think it, I think assimilation is an ongoing, long process, you know? Wow, thank you for sharing.

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And I'm also very curious about the family value that your parents brought you up with, in terms of before coming to the US and after, like, did you observe any changes? Yeah, I mean, like I said, my parents were not

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super hands-on in my childhood; I mostly spent it with my grandparents, who were strict. But, you know, they've already been parents once. So they were I was like, the

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golden child, you know, they're like, "Oh, let's have fun, take her out on walks" and stuff like that. I mostly played with my grandparents. So my parents did discipline me every once in a while, but it was very rare. Um, but, you

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know, I think, I think part of what immigrants carry with them is this desire or hunger to be accepted, you know, to be seen as valuable; to be seen, or to be

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described as indispensable, you know, to this new society that they're now attempting to be a part of. And, you know, I mean, I think, at least for my family, which is a family of academics, education was always really important.

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They always told me that I had to do well in school and blah, blah, blah. But that really sort of intensified once we arrived in America, because, you know, suddenly they didn't have, they

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didn't have access to these structures that I think made them feel safe, you know. I think being in the same city as your parents; being able to ask for

00:29:46.600 - 00:30:04.070

what you want easily, you know; being able to understand humor and nuance; knowing where to go, you know, all of these all of these qualities give you a sense of safety. And my parents didn't have that for many years.

00:30:04.980 - 00:30:24.250

You know, and part of their struggle was sort of projected onto me, right? Because now our family unit is struggling to survive or struggling to stay in America or struggling to, you know, to be accepted; or to be maybe not so outside of

00:30:24.430 - 00:30:36.810

things or not. We, I mean, we look different, so there's nothing we could do about that, you know. But after moving to America, they were very, very strict with my studies. I had to study a lot.

00:30:36.810 - 00:30:46.620

I had—my dad always told me, like, "You have to do 10 times better than an American." You know, I mean, I remember that was like a constant thing.

00:30:46.620 - 00:31:03.230

Like, I was like a straight A student, I was like, really smart. I mean, I don't want to toot my own horn, but I did really well academically. And I remember I bring home straight A's, my dad would be like, "You need to do better than that." I was like, "I don't know.

00:31:03.230 - 00:31:18.640

I mean, I don't know, you can, I don't know what's better than straight A's." You know, but I one thing that always stuck with me was the fact that he would say to me, "You need to do better than everyone else around you, you—when they're playing, you have to study;

00:31:19.090 - 00:31:32.770

when, when they're on summer vacation, you have to do, you know, supplemental work; you know, you need to sort of start prepping for the SAT's when you're like, 14." You know, and honestly, that sounds like a lot of pressure.

00:31:33.560 - 00:31:49.560

And it was in some ways, but I think that also my parents were in a difficult situation where they didn't have financial security. And they had this dream of coming to America, and, and, and making it.

00:31:49.560 - 00:32:09.080

You know, I mean, America in Chinese is "mei guo," which, which means 'beautiful country.' So every time you say America, you're sort of implying that there's this dream, or this beauty, or this, this quality that maybe China

00:32:09.080 - 00:32:21.840

doesn't have. You know, "mei guo," the beautiful country. So my parents, I think, just wanted to create something beautiful, and the way that the only way that they could do this is through hard work.

00:32:22.820 - 00:32:37.690

You know, because immigration is a very complicated process where you're evaluated, you know, it's like a dissertation. So I think that there was just always, there was always this emphasis on excellence,

00:32:38.570 - 00:32:55.430

you know, on discipline, on vertical ascendance, you know, moving up, up, up, up, and being better and better and better and better. And yeah, they really, they wanted me to be a doctor, you know.

00:32:55.460 - 00:33:10.790

It's totally, it's like, you know, that's pretty widespread, I think. They wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant, you know, something like that; something with a stable future, with– with a future that they could understand

00:33:11.460 - 00:33:18.280

and foresee. You know, that was really important to them. So yeah, so I studied a lot. I was like, very nerdy.

00:33:22.160 - 00:33:38.690

Wow, that's fascinating to hear your parents kind of living their American Dream through you as well. I'm wondering if they were supportive in your pursuit in art once they heard that you're going to be an artist?

00:33:40.680 - 00:33:56.770

Yeah, um... okay, so this is, this is hard for me to answer because I think if we look at it at a surface level, you know, the conclusion that maybe anybody would arrive at,

00:33:58.340 - 00:34:10.680

would be that my parents were not supportive, you know. But I want to say, on a deeper level, they've always been very supportive of me. They love me, probably more than anything else in this world.

00:34:11.060 - 00:34:23.000

And everything that they've done, they've done their best because of me. And I think it's, like, so important to acknowledge that, because I think we're all very different people.

00:34:23.530 - 00:34:35.980

You know, they come from a specific time, and I come from a totally different time. We have different values, we have different expectations. You know, so conflict, I think inter– intergenerational conflict in

00:34:36.030 - 00:34:49.590

first-generation immigrant families, I think it's pretty normal. You know, I would be surprised if there weren't, you know, because there are Chinese values, and then there are American values; and they're different, so they clash.

00:34:50.720 - 00:35:09.480

So anyway, so after saying all of that, um, I didn't tell my parents. I– I honestly didn't think that I was going to be an artist, like I don't think I ever like had that thought. And I just remember I had to declare my major when I was

00:35:09.840 - 00:35:23.300

maybe 20 years old, and I wrote art, just because. Like, I had never thought about it before, like I was taking like calculus II in college. I was like getting ready to be like an accountant or to study English lit.

00:35:23.370 - 00:35:39.890

But for some reason, when I filled out that form, I wrote art. And I was very lucky because I, I got a full, full scholarship to undergrad. So I was on a merit, I had a Merit Scholarship. So my parents they didn't have any collateral, you know, they

00:35:39.890 - 00:35:51.450

couldn't be like, "If you don't, if you're not a math major, we're not paying for college," because I had a full ride. So I knew I could leverage that. So that's when the conflicts begin, you know.

00:35:52.570 - 00:36:08.300

They were, they were very against that. They didn't want me to be an artist, they were worried that I would suffer. You know, I mean, I think that being an artist—while being an artist is different for everybody, everybody has a

00:36:08.350 - 00:36:22.450

different path—but I think, you know, regardless of whether or not you're successful, there's a lot of hard work. You know, if you're doing really well as an artist, there's expectations of galleries, there's the onslaught of

00:36:22.450 - 00:36:32.390

shows, you know. I think that's a really heavy expectation. And when you're less well-known, you're just trying to make art and feed yourself, which is really challenging.

00:36:32.390 - 00:36:47.850

So their worries were warranted. But we fought a lot. There were like, a lot of email exchanges. For my mom was like, "You can still switch your major to accounting, you have two months left." Um, and even when I went to

00:36:47.850 - 00:37:01.890

graduate school, they were still very like, "No," they were like, "Well, you know, why don't you just study graphic design?" Like, they were really, they're always pushing like architecture or graphic design. Um, but anyway, so

00:37:01.990 - 00:37:18.220

they were not supportive, they didn't really understand my love for what I do, and my love for, for making things and making objects. And that created a pretty big distance between myself and

00:37:18.290 - 00:37:31.700

my parents. But I think that's normal for most children, you know, the distance occurs one way or another. You know, you have to be pushed away from the womb, so to speak, in some way, twice: once when you're born,

00:37:31.700 - 00:37:42.140

and once when you want to go do something, you know. And some people are lucky in that their parents are supportive. But anyway, um, I want to say that, even though they were

00:37:42.140 - 00:37:58.750

so adamant about the fact that they didn't support me, I honestly think that was one of the best kinds of supports that I could have gotten. I think because they gave me nothing in that regard, I had to be strong; I had

00:37:58.940 - 00:38:12.390

to be courageous; I had to learn how to have conviction; I had to learn how to have inner direction and navigation; and I had to learn how to self-comfort and self-love.

00:38:13.140 - 00:38:26.910

And I think conviction is one of the most important things that you can have as an artist, you know, because you are your own compass. And without them, I wouldn't have that. So yeah, I guess on one hand, they didn't support me.

00:38:26.910 - 00:38:41.770

But on the other hand, they also gifted me with one of the most important qualities that to, that I believe, to be one of the most important qualities to to being a practicing artist. So it's like, you know, what is support?

00:38:42.370 - 00:38:55.090

I'm not really sure, you know. Wow, that's so fascinating to hear you strived through and become an artist, and I'm sure they're very proud of you today. Seeing...

00:38:55.090 - 00:39:11.540

Yes. Yeah. And also going back a little bit, you talked about that you were– you were dealing with sickness in your childhood. And I'm wondering, during those times, did you kind of go

00:39:11.700 - 00:39:28.610

to like Chinese classics, or like the myths and any of the bedtime stories that your parents would tell you about? 'Cause that was kind of referencing to your motif in terms of the Pangu like,

00:39:29.230 - 00:39:44.580

the Chinese classics, and I do I'm just curious, when did that enter your life? Yeah, so when I was sick, I drew pictures and then I read books. So because that was what I did to pass the

00:39:44.580 - 00:39:58.900

time. I loved reading and my mom has so many books around the house. And I remember I used to make a little clock out of books. So one book would be 9 o'clock, the next book would be 10 o'clock; and I would read

00:39:58.900 - 00:40:13.490

the 9 o'clock book at 9, and then at the 10, at when it turned 10, I would pick up the 10 am books. And then I go through like three or four hours doing just that. And that was my first encounter with myths, you know.

00:40:13.490 - 00:40:28.050

My mom is really interested in philosophy, in spirituality and religion. She had books on all different kinds of religions in the house. I remember like one year, I think I was like six, and Santa

00:40:28.090 - 00:40:40.190

brought me the Bible. You know, not that my family's religious; but my mom felt that it was important that I'm exposed to these ideas, these larger questions of: why are

00:40:40.260 - 00:40:52.470

we here? And who are we? Even as a young child. And I, I'm interested in myths, because of my experiences of reading my mom's books about them, of...

00:40:52.510 - 00:41:10.660

I'm, you know, I think myths are kind of like, stories that people tell us because they hope that we'll be able to, we'll be able to walk away understanding what's important, or what we need to know, in order to survive, and be well.

00:41:11.650 - 00:41:26.430

And so yeah, so I read them when I was younger. And honestly, I read Pangu when I was much younger, and then I sort of, like forgot about it, you know. It's not something that I consciously thought about, you know, for, like, 10

00:41:26.430 - 00:41:43.530

years. But when I was starting to make paper, which I started doing, I think, in my mid early 20s, I was also starting to sort of return to the stories of my girlhood.

00:41:44.380 - 00:41:56.000

You know, in some ways, because I felt as if I was losing the language, I felt as if I was losing my own memories of my motherland. And, and in some ways, I felt that I

00:41:56.000 - 00:42:13.160

was losing parts of who I was, because I didn't have a tight enough hold on these stories or on these ideas or on these experiences, you know. And I think that was a way of kind of homecoming for me, you know, because

00:42:13.600 - 00:42:28.400

sometimes when you're an immigrant, you don't get to go home very often, you don't get to return to your grandmother's arms; you know, you don't get to walk into the house that you grow up in. So what you're left with

00:42:28.620 - 00:42:41.830

are reminiscence, you know, bits and pieces of things that were important to you. And what was important to me were– were those stories. So, um, so yeah, so I first saw them

00:42:42.290 - 00:42:59.200

when I was much younger, and I was like, "Cool, love this." And then when I read them again, when I was older, my understanding of those stories were much different, you know, and I was doing it as a way to go back home, when I couldn't.

00:43:03.690 - 00:43:18.990

Wow, that's fascinating. And when you were talking about you filled in art as your major, when you were deciding, like, what was the trigger? 'Cause I'm kind of trying to get more inside how

00:43:19.830 - 00:43:33.520

art has become so kind of important in your life, and were there any person in particular that impacted that decision or any kind of trigger or event that happened? Um,

00:43:36.440 - 00:43:55.880

you know, I can't say that there was any triggering event. It was a very mundane, like, probably happen on a Wednesday, you know, and I just, I... Yeah, there was nothing special about it.

00:43:55.950 - 00:44:07.160

I just, I had to do it. Like, it was easy, because I felt like I had to do it. It was easy, because, you know, it's like waking up and eating breakfast, you're hungry. Of course, you're gonna do it.

00:44:07.260 - 00:44:15.880

It's like the easiest thing in the world. So when I did it, I was like, "Yeah, I need to do this. So easy, done." And I think maybe

00:44:16.850 - 00:44:31.940

that moment was light-hearted, because there was already a reservoir of time that I had spent with art. You know, I said earlier that I spent a lot of my time drawing when I was a little girl. And that was a formative

00:44:32.520 - 00:44:44.480

experience. And even after coming to America, I continued drawing and painting. That was the thing that I could do for myself. You know, and that was something that I

00:44:44.480 - 00:45:04.430

could do anywhere. That was something, it gave me a sense of power, when I felt powerless, right, because I—there's nothing more powerful than making a mark where you want that mark to go. You know, it's kind of a way of organizing a world that seemed

00:45:04.600 - 00:45:20.230

chaotic and unstable at times. And again, it brought me a sense of home, it brought me a sense of comfort, because– because I had started doing it when I was much younger. And then in college, I just, you know, I was

00:45:20.230 - 00:45:34.670

painting, and I just loved it. You know, I... Yeah, it was easy, because I love that—not, I'm not saying that making art or being an artist is easy, but there's

00:45:34.670 - 00:45:52.530

something easy about that love. You know, it's like a favorite blanket or something. Yeah, it's so fascinating to hear that art is so close to home for you. And did you kind of grow up having any

00:45:52.620 - 00:46:07.400

kind of exposure to art besides making art yourself, for example, going to museum shows or seeing—yes, seeing any one painting? 'Cause I also felt there's a lot of, like ink wash kind of sense

00:46:07.680 - 00:46:18.930

in your work. So I'm also curious how, probably, if there was any kind of Chinese classical painting that you saw that might have impacted

00:46:19.260 - 00:46:37.240

your, your practices? Yeah, it's really interesting you say that, because my grandpa really liked collecting stamps. I mean, he had like, like, books. So he was a big collector, like collector of plants, so many plants; and then like, so

00:46:37.240 - 00:46:49.970

many stamps. And I used to look at the stamp collection when I was little; and, you know, they're tiny, but they're often beautiful ink paintings of landscapes. You know, and I used to flip through these and look at them.

00:46:50.280 - 00:47:02.950

Um, I didn't really go to museums, because I don't come from like, an artistic or creative family, like no one in my family ever was like, "Let's go to the art museum." I mean, even to this day, like no one wants to go to the

00:47:02.950 - 00:47:20.590

museum. So I didn't ever go to a museum. I didn't go to a museum until I was like 21. I was a very, I was very late, very, very late to the game. But I do remember those tiny little stamps that my

00:47:20.590 - 00:47:35.800

grandpa had, and how beautiful those landscapes were. And actually, my grandpa, that's my mom's dad, my "Gong Gong," he was the only one who told my entire family like, he was like, "She's a genius.

00:47:35.800 - 00:47:49.080

She's totally gonna be an artist." And then everyone else was like, "Shut up! She's not gonna be an artist. She's gonna be a lawyer." Um, so he maybe, he exposed me to the idea that being an

00:47:49.250 - 00:48:00.040

artist was a thing, that somebody had to make those paintings. You know, and my grandfather, he was an industrial designer. He used to paint portraits, and he was very hands on,

00:48:01.540 - 00:48:17.950

you know, did bonsai and he did calligraphy, and all of that. So I think that's, you know, my earliest exposure to art was watching my grandpa bend plants and watching my grandpa do calligraphy and looking through his stamp

00:48:18.050 - 00:48:35.830

books with him. Wow, that's fascinating to hear that. And also, I'm curious what—'cause you studied painting, what were some of the earlier works and motifs that you were doing in your, kind of,

00:48:35.890 - 00:48:50.170

earlier career? Yeah, so do you mean when I was like, 18, 19, 20, 21, maybe? Yeah, in college and your grad school. Okay. Yeah, so I was mainly

00:48:50.310 - 00:49:09.640

working figuratively, I was like, I was really I was making these really realistic kind of large-scale, still portraits of people's figures and faces sort of disintegrating into abstract mark making. And I think that I

00:49:10.650 - 00:49:26.710

have always been interested in working at such a large scale, partially because of my experiences of drawing on the walls of my parents' apartment. You know, I love the feeling of stretching out, you know, the performative aspect of working monumentally, where your

00:49:26.710 - 00:49:44.100

body kind of becomes an instrument, where it feels like a choreography or a dance; rather than, you know, really controlled movements, right? Yeah, so I was painting, I was using oil paint; I was painting portraits of people I

00:49:44.130 - 00:50:02.100

knew. I was mainly thinking about themes of identity and the instability of identity, as well as the instability of remembering and the instability of memory. And yeah, so I made, I painted a lot of portraits.

00:50:05.340 - 00:50:17.490

Yeah, that's fascinating. And, 'cause I'm also curious if Taoism or any kind of Chinese philosophy or literature—because I know you probably mentioned, actually,

00:50:17.810 - 00:50:32.020

so many different disciplines, like even mathematics, as you were doing calculus II, I'm sure that– that was very easy to connect. Yeah, so I'm just fascinated to hear how these all kind of form your narratives and become your

00:50:32.020 - 00:50:46.820

motif; and whether the Taoist idea of "body as landscape" become something that you've thought of as well? Okay, so here's the thing. So, I would love to have a separate conversation about Taoist practices because

00:50:46.850 - 00:50:57.080

actually, I don't know very much. But it's something that I'm interested in. Um, you know, obviously, I make paper, and I work outside.

00:50:57.140 - 00:51:12.230

So the phrase that you just brought up, the "body as landscape," is something that I'm really interested in. I'm interested in the relationship between micro-bodies and macro-bodies; I'm interested in the universe as a body; and I'm interested in a single cell as a body.

00:51:12.700 - 00:51:26.210

But I don't know enough about Taoism to really elaborate on any of that. I can only speak to those ideas, from my own experiences of, you know, working with

00:51:26.230 - 00:51:44.730

paper. But you know, what, what I will say is that, my grandmother is Buddhist, you know, and we used to go to the temple to pray, when I was little, and she– we used to go

00:51:44.730 - 00:51:59.600

together, maybe once a year, or a few times a year. And I remember when we were in the temple, we would always get these sheets of holy paper from the monks who were there, right. And—you remember?—and then we would write down our wishes on the holy

00:51:59.600 - 00:52:08.600

paper, and then my grandma would pick me up, and I would tie both of our wishes to the branches of this holy tree that was in the middle of that temple.

00:52:08.710 - 00:52:24.280

And so, and also, you know, my family burns paper to communicate with ancestors. You know, um, I recently—my grandfather recently passed, and I've been burning these little poems for him.

00:52:24.930 - 00:52:39.330

So paper was always a way for my grandmother to communicate with gods that

00:52:41.630 - 00:52:55.020

wouldn't really ever answer back, you know, they were silent gods, they were distinct gods. And it's also paper is something that we use to communicate with people who are no longer here, who are in a different realm.

00:52:55.700 - 00:53:10.600

So I was always interested in paper because of that, you know. And then there's also like, something elemental about the practice of making paper. You're physically—every single sheet of paper started as a tree,

00:53:11.590 - 00:53:26.950

you know. And there's wood, you know, you have to cook the paper, like bark, and then there's fire, and then it happens outside, it has to do with wind and atmosphere. And when you're making paper, you're mixing so much water with

00:53:26.990 - 00:53:41.060

all the different materials; so there's water. So I know that the elements is also really important, you know, at least like my grandma used to tell me that. But anyway, so that all– all of that is to say that I wish I knew more.

00:53:41.060 - 00:53:54.820

It's something that I'm interested in. These are the ideas that I'm really interested in developing and learning more about, because I think it is important to me, but maybe it's subconscious a little bit, you know?

00:53:57.730 - 00:54:12.820

Yeah, that totally connects to what you've always been saying, that paper and the making of it is ritualistic. And now I see why it's ritualistic because it's like the communication with the ancestors, and the fire and the

00:54:12.820 - 00:54:28.470

water, and the wood and like the five elements, and... Would you like to talk a little bit more about how it connects to the five elements or if that's something that...?

00:54:30.820 - 00:54:45.560

Yeah, I guess I can just talk about my work like in general a little bit. So the sort of images that I'm working with kind of evoke portals,

00:54:45.940 - 00:54:59.030

channels, bridges, and rivers, and they're intentional, intentionally made to be sort of experienced in that way. I mean, earlier I talked about

00:54:59.700 - 00:55:19.210

wanting to go home; and I think for me, making paper is an act of homecoming, which is essentially impossible. It connects me to my memories of my grandmother speaking to the divine; it also connects me to,

00:55:20.660 - 00:55:38.270

you know, watching myself burn something for my grandfather, you know, my two grandfathers who are gone. And what's really interesting about paper is that, like I said, you have to mix—you're starting with bark and repurposed paper, and it's

00:55:38.270 - 00:55:52.460

all like really gooey, and then you have to mix so much water into it—which is also interesting, 'cause my name is like a flood of clear water. So my mom did a great job. So you're mixing so much water into it, you know, you, you

00:55:52.710 - 00:56:04.780

physically form the objects within the landscape, and then all of the water has to evaporate, in order for the work to become cohesive, to become an actual object with integrity.

00:56:05.120 - 00:56:19.020

And I think a lot about the distance that the water has to travel through the atmosphere, right? Because the vertical is the access of spiritual ascendance, right? Most of our gods live above us

00:56:19.150 - 00:56:36.170

in the sky. And I think about the fact that part of the project has to physically leave the earth and travel into the sky to become rain and weather. And that's a part of the work that I'm really, really interested in is that physical

00:56:36.170 - 00:56:49.320

evaporation. And I think of that as a way to communicate with gods, right? Because we used to tie the holy paper onto the tree, because there's this idea that being higher up brings us closer.

00:56:50.030 - 00:57:02.610

And if I can't physically leave the earth, to understand the universe, then part of my work can, you know. It can travel that irrevocable distance between ourselves and everything that we can't understand.

00:57:05.580 - 00:57:21.130

And, you know, and it's kind of hard to explain, but I make paper horizontally, like the rectangular structure is parallel to the ground. And I think of the paper as something

00:57:21.130 - 00:57:36.310

that's mimicking the arc of the surface of the earth at that particular location. And, you know, there's this great artist who described,

00:57:37.410 - 00:57:50.100

"soil as the skin of the earth;" and I was thinking about that, I'm like, "Oh, but then the sky is the skin of the universe," right? And the paper comes into being between these two immense

00:57:50.140 - 00:58:03.700

bodies that we can't understand, because there's a depth to earth. And there's also a depth to the universe, which contains the earth. And it's really quite a small space.

00:58:03.760 - 00:58:18.950

But it feels enormous to us, you know, we can't fly, we can't ascend. And I'm also interested, because the paper is made horizontally and part of the paper has to evaporate; there's this tension between the horizontal and the vertical.

00:58:19.620 - 00:58:35.740

And I think a lot about that when I display my work, because most of my projects have wall pieces that connect directly with floor pieces. And I have an interest in bodies, partially because papermaking is so performative, you know; but also

00:58:35.790 - 00:58:48.530

because, you know, I think about the vertical as the space where we make decisions. It's, we– it's like where we assert our will. It's where we try to make something

00:58:48.730 - 00:59:08.020

happen. And I think of my parents, coming to the US, immigrating, we're always vertical when this happens; but every night when we sleep, our bodies become horizontal. So the horizontal is really the space for dreams. It's also a space where we give in to our biological circumstance, you know, to

00:59:08.020 - 00:59:23.570

pass on. I think about that, and that's why this display my work vertically and horizontally. And papermaking is very ritualistic. You know, the same sequence of steps happens every single time.

00:59:23.770 - 00:59:36.790

And you have to go through these steps. So there's a certain repetition there. And I think there's a lot of sort of spiritual or religious practices that are repetitive, you know.

00:59:38.610 - 00:59:52.750

And when I make, when I make the paper, I'm physically circling the rectangle. So there's a Buddhist practice of circumambulation where there's a holy relic and you're physically walking around the relic as sort of a meditative process.

00:59:53.580 - 01:00:12.460

And that's partially what I'm thinking of when I create these spheres, right, is that I want to be able to circulate around the structure multiple times. And yeah, and it's really the paper is a space where the sky, the weather, the

01:00:12.460 - 01:00:33.090

sun, trees, and myself can sort of intersect and connect; even if it's just for an hour or two, you know, on a specific day. Wow, that was such a beautiful and like, I just learned so much just

01:00:33.320 - 01:00:46.570

from your... Then I also am curious, like, you mentioned your dad used to travel to Tibet, because he was fascinated by Tibetan Buddhism? Is that...? No, he, he wanted to be a tour guide.

01:00:47.390 - 01:00:59.940

So he would take these groups of people from our hometown, and they would like travel from my hometown into Tibet, sometimes on horseback. I mean, my dad's told me stories where

01:00:59.940 - 01:01:12.960

like, they're like walking through a rainforest, and then they hear like a tiger, and then they have to, like, get low on the ground. So it was like very, it was kind of like a pilgrimage. I don't think he was going there for that reason,

01:01:13.550 - 01:01:26.160

because my dad is kind of, he's not so interested in that aspect of things. He's more, he's more like 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. And I think he just—but he's also really adventurous.

01:01:26.210 - 01:01:39.090

So I think he just wanted to be a tour guide. And he was like, "I'm gonna take you to Tibet," and then these people went with him. Yeah. So that connection of the Tibetan kind of pilgrimage is your

01:01:39.380 - 01:01:52.820

own discovery and your own kind of connection to your work? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating. And I remember you also were working with kids on

01:01:52.820 - 01:02:09.520

making paper and making works. Um, can you talk a little bit about the community aspect of your work? Yeah, I mean, in the last, maybe five years, I've done a lot of collaborative pours in different spaces.

01:02:11.120 - 01:02:28.200

And, you know, the, the scale of the paper-pouring structure that I use kind of looks like a bed, but I also think of it as a table, where different people can come together from different places, and we talk, we learn from each other, we

01:02:28.240 - 01:02:43.860

work really hard, we laugh, and we create something together. You know, it's like an equal space, where we're all actively participating in this process, knowing that none of us are fully in control of it, that it's a cumulative effort.

01:02:44.570 - 01:02:59.360

But, but those are have primarily been with adults and students. And then my work with kids, it's just like, papermaking is so fun, you know. Because it's like really wet, there's like a lot of splashes, it's not very

01:02:59.360 - 01:03:10.340

precious, right? You kind of like, when you're holding a pencil, there's kind of like a pressure, because you're like, "I'm supposed to draw this flower, and I don't know if it's gonna look like that flower,"

01:03:10.580 - 01:03:20.700

right? So that there's like a kind of a responsibility. But when you're making paper, there are no expectations. You know, and I think that the thing

01:03:20.700 - 01:03:34.160

about papermaking that's so fun for children is that it's all about touch. There's no division between you and the material, you're not holding a pen, you're not holding the hammer, it's just your body interacting with this like,

01:03:34.760 - 01:03:49.590

thing. And that's how we first learn to understand the world is through our senses, through our hands. So kids love that. You know, we set up. I mean, my favorite part about doing these papermaking workshops is when we're able to

01:03:49.590 - 01:04:03.220

go to parks, you know, these really like active spaces, where it's like, really random, we'll set up and then just depends on who's at the park that day. You know, it's neighborhood kids, they'll come through, we, you know, we

01:04:03.220 - 01:04:18.930

make some paper and then they go back to, you know, swing on the swings or sitting on the seesaw, you know. So it's very kind of organic. It depends on the community, and it depends on the landscape, and

01:04:19.300 - 01:04:31.670

it's fun for the kids. They get really into it. You know, sometimes they get too into it, they end up like splashing each other like a lot and I'm like, "No," like, "your mom's right there." But

01:04:33.160 - 01:04:49.840

yeah, they love it. They're just little tornadoes. They like come in, they make a mess, and then they like, move away. You know. That's so much fun to hear you talk about it. And I'm also curious, have the lifespan

01:04:50.610 - 01:05:08.430

of your works been in, or the conservation aspect of your work, and the longevity of it, become—has it been in your consideration when you make works? Well, I am interested in...

01:05:11.560 - 01:05:25.820

I'm interested in the instability of material; I'm interested in the instability of objects; I'm interested in the instability of color; I'm interested in form

01:05:27.580 - 01:05:44.010

as something that is constantly being shaped by time. You know, so form is the material, time is the tool. So my works change a lot, you know, they're

01:05:44.010 - 01:06:00.470

made to give evidence to what happens to them, you know. Paper is open to—paper can be very fragile, you know, it remembers everything that happens to it, it's, there's—it's not like the surface

01:06:00.470 - 01:06:13.630

of the painting, which is, which can be very plastic, plastic, you know; there's a plastic— plasticity to paintings. And paper doesn't have that, you know. And the works

01:06:13.770 - 01:06:27.900

deteriorate over the course of exhibitions. And as they're being rolled and unrolled, you know, new creases will occur, new tears will occur. But it's just part of the work being marked by time.

01:06:28.830 - 01:06:39.260

You know, papermaking is about time, it's an activity that unfolds within time. It's also a practice that keeps time. It's seasonal, right?

01:06:39.650 - 01:06:50.650

You harvest the bark in the winter, you process the bark in the winter; you make paper outside, when summer comes; you know, you can't make paper outside once winter comes. So papermaking sort of

01:06:50.650 - 01:07:09.230

functions like the calendar, and the clock, you know. And in recent works, I'm really interested in the disappearance of color. So I don't dye my work very well, you know, I don't do it correctly, so that the dyes fade, when they

01:07:09.260 - 01:07:25.500

come into contact with sunlight and gallery lighting. And actually, I have an environmental project up at Art League Houston right now, and it started as this like deep blue, kind of like, really like, really blue, very

01:07:25.870 - 01:07:36.950

blue-base blues and blacks. And now it's become yellow and green and light blue. I mean, it's changed so much in the last four weeks. And these are some of the qualities that I'm

01:07:36.950 - 01:07:51.390

interested in pushing, you know, even further, you know. I mean, I say this all the time, but I think existence is additive and reductive. I think things have to be taken away, you know, at some point.

01:07:51.920 - 01:08:04.300

And I'm interested in that process. So yeah, so conservationists, if you're listening to this, you're like, "Oh, my gosh, that's a nightmare." And I'm not sorry, because it's important to me, but I understand your

01:08:04.350 - 01:08:20.310

pain. Yeah, I totally understand. It seems that the disappearance and like, I felt like maybe the void of like disappearance and leaving space for, yeah, the void and emptiness.

01:08:20.360 - 01:08:38.870

It's also very interesting. And I guess, as we're probably moving on to the next chapter of our interview, for your artist's vision. So what do you see, art is in the society, in this

01:08:39.280 - 01:08:52.350

world, I mean, as a societal role in this world? Hmm. That's a big question. And before I say anything, I want to say that I'm not sure that I'm qualified to

01:08:52.350 - 01:09:09.210

answer that, because my knowledge is very finite. You know, I am a really specific person, born at a specific time. And I'm not like some artists. I don't believe that my artwork transcends the time that it comes from, and

01:09:09.810 - 01:09:34.800

the place that it comes from, and the geography that it comes from. I think... I think for me, personally, art is a bridge, and it's a mirror.

01:09:35.950 - 01:09:54.610

When I see works that make me cry, I realize that there is something out there that I can't see, that someone else sees very, very well.

01:09:55.380 - 01:10:06.580

And it makes me think maybe, that the world is just a veil in front of this other space. You know, and that's like really abstract, but– but it

01:10:06.580 - 01:10:25.660

does it, it creates a sense of movement; it creates a sense of possibility. You know, it empowers me, because it makes me feel like, there's somewhere that I can get to, if I spend enough time here, you know.

01:10:27.220 - 01:10:45.640

And but I also think that art is a mirror, it reflects ourselves back to us, and lets us see parts of ourselves that maybe we weren't seeing so clearly, or maybe it articulates perfectly

01:10:47.100 - 01:11:02.750

feelings and the thoughts that we've had, but have never been able to, you know, put together as a sentence. You know, there's a, like, an intimacy there, it's, it feels like an embrace, that someone is hugging you.

01:11:03.760 - 01:11:19.670

And, and, and that somebody else sees you, you know, that somebody else in this world saw you without ever knowing you. And I think, and I think that's transcendent.

01:11:21.480 - 01:11:34.630

You know, I think it allows us to transcend ourselves, you know, the limitations of who we are, maybe; but also it– it's not, it's about, it's about who we are, you know.

01:11:35.780 - 01:11:47.890

So I think it's, it's a– it's a bridge, and it's a mirror, you know. And I think there's so many different kinds of art practices out there. You know, some of them are collaborative and communal, you bring people together.

01:11:48.830 - 01:12:01.670

Some of them are very conceptual. You know, some of them are very political. But I mean, I think anything is political. I think everything is inherently political, but they all serve a

01:12:01.670 - 01:12:16.160

different role. But I think ultimately, they're all bridges and mirrors. You know, they tell us who we are, and they tell us where we could go. Wow, that's so

01:12:16.160 - 01:12:35.350

beautifully said. And I'm also wondering, as we just passed, like one of the most horrific years and... As, especially in Texas, in addition to the pandemic, the kind of the

01:12:35.650 - 01:12:52.050

social injustice in 2020, we also just had the winter freeze about three months ago, and a lot of the artists are making works and addressing these issues. And, like socially engaged art has been a

01:12:52.050 - 01:13:09.790

very big theme, as well as we've been seeing artists being addressed by their ethnicities a lot. Do you think it's acceptable to address artists by their ethnicities as we are

01:13:09.880 - 01:13:25.350

seeing? I'm not sure if you, yourself has been addressed in that way as a Chinese American artist, before your name. Do you think that's something that—if you have any comments on that? Hmm.

01:13:25.350 - 01:13:40.300

That's an interesting question. Um, you know, I think, I think what I really, what's really, what I've

01:13:40.470 - 01:13:55.810

really enjoyed seeing is the specificity of the language that's used to address different artists. So obviously, we have a really big word, which is Asian, right; but that

01:13:55.870 - 01:14:12.570

word is an umbrella for so many different kinds of communities, you know, really special and really vibrant communities spread out, you know, in vast geographical, you know, distances, lots of different, you know, cultures and languages

01:14:13.100 - 01:14:30.890

and things like that. So, I think that, you know, being addressed as a Chinese American artist feels good for me, you know, because, because it's a huge part of who I am.

01:14:30.960 - 01:14:43.950

And for a long time, I didn't feel seen, you know, in many different ways. I mean, for a long time, I didn't really know who I was; and I probably still don't, because, like who does?

01:14:45.100 - 01:14:58.040

But I think—but it's nice when we can acknowledge the different kinds of people who are out there, you know. And I think, you know, the word Chinese American is also so big, right?

01:14:58.040 - 01:15:14.140

It's basically a container for all of these different specific experiences that many different Chinese Americans may have. But it's a small way to say like, I'm here, and this is how I identify.

01:15:14.180 - 01:15:34.860

And I think what's important about that process is that it really depends on the artist, I think that they need to have the power and they need to have the agency to self-identify, you know. I think so much of the art world has to do with,

01:15:41.000 - 01:16:00.640

with the sort of creating a narrative about an artist and their work. And sometimes this narrative is written without their hand. So I think whatever galleries, institutions, publications, choose to, you know, describe a practice or describe a

01:16:00.750 - 01:16:14.260

person, it first has to come from that person. But first, they need to feel empowered, they need to feel seen, they need to feel that they can create this for themselves, you

01:16:14.260 - 01:16:27.270

know. And I think as long as that's present, I think as long as that respect is there, and that communication and that openness is there, then, and then I think it's great. You know, I think that there are so many different kinds of

01:16:27.270 - 01:16:45.260

people out there. And I think it's really awesome when we can, you know, share our stories and share who we are, through– through labels, through big containers, through art, through conversations, you know; but respect and

01:16:45.520 - 01:17:01.920

empowerment, I think are, are very, very important things, and specificity. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. And I guess as we are in Houston, and we are trying to connect to the archive,

01:17:02.150 - 01:17:15.790

which is the Houston Asian American Archive, can you tell us about how you decided to come to Houston? Yeah, I'm happy to. Um, I came to Houston to do a

01:17:15.790 - 01:17:32.620

year-long fellowship at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. And that's where I've been since August of last year, and I've been working in this beautiful garden next to a banana tree,

01:17:33.470 - 01:17:46.040

and making paper, and yeah, putting together exhibitions. And I've been really lucky. I mean, the craft center is amazing, the people there are amazing, I felt very supported, you know.

01:17:48.190 - 01:18:02.820

That's fascinating. And I also want to congratulate you since you've been kind of—it's like a Houston takeover for you... been shown at the Asia Society, at the Houston Center for Craft—Contemporary Craft and the

01:18:02.870 - 01:18:21.840

Art League Houston, that's definitely—I felt like amazing, especially as—I felt like Asian artists, with the, with such a narrative that, that I really, just truly, I'm amazed. And I'm also curious, what do you—what what are your

01:18:22.040 - 01:18:44.690

experiences with the Houston art scene, and whether you felt that it kind of represents Asian American artists in like, in the way that it deserved? Um, well, I, you know, I put on a few shows, but I

01:18:45.130 - 01:18:55.500

still think that my experience of the Houston art scene is very limited, partially because of pandemic, right? Everything was sort of shuttered down. And from what I could

01:18:55.500 - 01:19:08.930

understand, there was a lot more activity happening in Houston prior to COVID. So my understanding is very limited. I only know what sort of through the people that I've

01:19:09.620 - 01:19:23.530

worked closely with, you know, as well as people that I have had have been lucky enough to be in conversation with, and to have studio visits with. And I think that there is an openness and a can-do

01:19:23.990 - 01:19:42.320

attitude to the Houston art scene, that everyone's very open. Everyone's like, "You want to do—yes, let's do a studio visit!" You know, it's very, it's very quick and very easy and very flexible. And I love that. You know, and also I've only ever lived in sort of

01:19:42.380 - 01:19:55.970

like smaller towns because papermaking takes up so much space. So I've never really been in a metropolitan area and I'm like, "Oh my god, there's so many different institutions; there's so many different spaces and so many different

01:19:55.970 - 01:20:08.820

kinds of people." And I was like, kind of like a kid in the candy store, a little like, "Oh my God, this is so cool!' So I love the Houston art scene. You know, I love that everyone is just so open.

01:20:09.480 - 01:20:25.880

I think that's like the best quality about the Houston art community that I've experienced so far personally. And, you know, as far as repre– representation goes, you know, I

01:20:26.030 - 01:20:41.770

think, I think that, I think that's a complicated question. I mean, I, no, it's not a complicated question, it's a complicated

01:20:41.810 - 01:20:56.390

answer. Um, I think that there is still more work to be done. You know, but when I say work, I don't, I'm not just talking about galleries. You know, I'm

01:20:56.390 - 01:21:15.110

talking about the different structures, political structures and social structures. You know, as well as, like the immigration process, I think that part of what I felt as a young Chinese person in America

01:21:15.530 - 01:21:30.180

is I've always felt very, very different from everybody else. But I didn't always know where I could go to—I didn't know where to look, you know.

01:21:30.180 - 01:21:45.960

And when, so when you reached out to me about the Asian American Archives at Rice, I was like, "This is amazing!" And I said, I think I even sent it in email, like, "I wish, I wish I had something like this when I was younger." You know, because I don't know that for me,

01:21:46.290 - 01:21:59.300

there were a lot of Asian voices, you know, and part of our culture has to do with like—I mean, part of my culture, I mean, at least Chinese culture as I understand is that, there's a part of it that is kind of like, you have to stay quiet

01:21:59.480 - 01:22:17.170

somehow, you know; or you, you want to keep things to yourself; you want to always present a certain public face. And so there's kind of like, I didn't know where I could go to have these more

01:22:18.410 - 01:22:34.500

real or intimate conversations or even more difficult conversations, you know, about what it means to be Asian American, and what it means to be a Chinese American artist, you know. And now there's more resources and platforms where this is being addressed.

01:22:34.640 - 01:22:49.240

You know, but it's still a lot of work. We still have a lot of work to do, and even saying that, like, makes me tired. But I, I think it's important, you know, and I think it's so special that this exists, you know, that this

01:22:49.260 - 01:23:03.860

archive exists, that people can listen to it, you know? Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And we also love it that you are contributing your stories for us, that many people continue to be

01:23:03.880 - 01:23:17.700

inspired by, I'm sure. And next, I guess, we also want to kind of know more about you as a person. Do you mind sharing, what do you like to do outside of work? Like in terms of, yeah, art.

01:23:17.700 - 01:23:29.680

Yeah. Um, well, I really love making art. So I spend a lot of my time doing that. But when I'm not doing that, I love starting books, but not finishing them.

01:23:30.190 - 01:23:37.980

I'm really bad at finishing books. I have like 10 books right now that I'm trying to finish. It's not good. I also love going on walks.

01:23:37.980 - 01:23:49.150

It's my favorite thing. I'm a creature of habit. I like to visit the same places every day. So I live pretty close to the Menil and I walk to the field

01:23:49.430 - 01:24:01.030

every day. And I sit at the field every day. And that's something I like to do. I also love—there are a lot of kind of outdoor cats in

01:24:01.030 - 01:24:08.470

Houston. And I love cats. I am a huge cat person. So when I go on these walks, I'm always saying hello to all the neighborhood cats.

01:24:09.360 - 01:24:24.390

You know, I'm like, "Hey, Sam!" or like, "Hey, Taco!" And I sit down and I pet them for a little bit. And then I go on to the next, next cat, you know? Um, yeah, I'm like a really boring person. I like walking.

01:24:24.390 - 01:24:38.490

I like making art. I like reading. And I like spending time with my family and with my partner. Just really normal things. You know. That's

01:24:38.490 - 01:24:52.840

wonderful and that cat story really just warms my heart. I love cats. Um, and next time, I'm curious what you're working on next, for example, the next project or what do you see

01:24:52.840 - 01:25:08.580

yourself doing the next five or ten years? Um, well, I'm currently working on a new body of work where I'm engaging with the slower frequency of production. And I'm moving away from portals and

01:25:08.770 - 01:25:23.120

pools, and I'm moving toward things that demand to come—that demand to be made. So I'm pulling from, you know, my real-life experiences. And I'm recreating

01:25:23.120 - 01:25:31.460

these situations through memory. So yeah, so it's a little bit different. I mean, you know, but not too different. I'm still working mostly with blues.

01:25:31.520 - 01:25:45.590

And then in the next five or ten years, gosh, I don't know. Well I'm moving to Boston, for a job where I will be a professor for the first time. So I hope that in five years, I'll be a good

01:25:45.620 - 01:26:06.290

professor and a good colleague, and I'm working within sort of, you know, a collaborative department of people who are interested in working together and being, you know, symbiotic with, with each other.

01:26:06.890 - 01:26:24.390

And I, you know, my practice is really, really important to me. So I hope that I can keep making work. And I can keep being honest with myself about the work and that the work makes continuous strides towards what it's

01:26:24.390 - 01:26:37.380

supposed to be, you know. I think I get a little bit closer every summer, but it's, I don't think it's quite there yet. And once I get to where it's supposed to be, then I might stop making art, you know. And I hope that I keep doing

01:26:37.380 - 01:26:56.200

exhibitions. I hope I keep making—meeting artists and arts organizers that I can have meaningful conversations with. And I hope that I am, I guess just okay, you know, feeling okay, feeling good.

01:26:56.200 - 01:27:15.070

Yeah. Wow, that's great to hear. And congratulations on your new assignment! Yeah, thank you. I guess, as we're coming up to the 90-minute interview, and I would also love to invite you

01:27:15.070 - 01:27:23.890

to leave a time capsule with us for the future. Would you like to do that? What's the, what's in the time capsule?

01:27:24.530 - 01:27:40.350

So just anything that you would like, for example, think about a post-apocalyptic world that if, like an alien discovers it, what would you...? Okay, so I would—the time capsule is happening right now, like I'm making it right

01:27:40.350 - 01:27:52.280

now? Oh, gosh, I don't know. I don't have anything deep to say. I just feel like, "Hey, we were here once." Wonderful, that– that also works.

01:27:52.280 - 01:28:05.630

Thank you! Thank you. And is there anything else that you would like to add that I haven't covered? No, I think we had a really nice, long, meandering conversation. I think we covered a lot.

01:28:06.110 - 01:28:20.500

And so thank you for you know, inviting me to be a part of this. I feel really honored and really privileged. I'm really excited. And it's been a pleasure, you know, to do this, to be able to do this.

01:28:20.500 - 01:28:29.080

I think it's really great. Yeah, it's a pleasure and honor for us to be able to document your oral history. Thank you. Thank you.