INTRODUCTION−WHERE I AM NOW
One of my closest friends Dain told me that she seeks lasting things, my friendship with her being one of them. Many seasons have passed by, yet my mind often returns to this conversation.
This website shapeshifted quite a few times. It began as my high school portfolio, with self-portraits in oil and mixed media works, then became my photography blog, and now something else. This domain held the first-ever writings I have ever shared online—which, at the time, felt so daunting, but now I can’t even remember what I wrote about. This space transformed catering to my everchanging curiosities, yet in many ways served to archive all that I was absorbing and digesting. Out of all that I couldn’t commit myself to—from typeface to background color—some things remained consistent. Every iteration of this website was made with curiosity, inspiration, and love and executed with honesty, playfulness, and new learnings.
In Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg writes, “style requires digesting who we are.” Style is a complete digestion of our lives−every experience making a part that makes up the whole.
Style is much like water, its presence guided by its past. A stone in the middle of the stream, a wild animal quenching its thirst, tadpoles swimming, plants swaying, birds flapping their wings, the wind gently brushing the surface—all guides the water’s path. The stream we encounter at any point is an accumulation, a reflection of all that’s come before. The past five years have been years of taking in all kinds of learnings—absorbing what feels right to me and letting go of what no longer feels mine. Which leads me to this new iteration.
This is my attempt to seek, document, and preserve lasting things; digesting my experiences; and in stillness, recognizing what emerges and stays true.
My hope is that this space serves to continue the flow, allowing me to circle back my learnings to the world that I have learned so much from. At the moment, I think I just need the bare skeleton that will host various ideas that are arising, sinking in, and going through me. So here is my work in progress.
first written: July 2022
It is just a matter of time before everything that stands on the dirt will return to dirt. When I think of how I, and my paintings too, will also in due time be reduced to dust, it strikes me that nothing in this world is that tremendous. But at the same time, during the limited time that I have life here, I can keep a record, - all I can do is keep a record, day by day, that serves as evidence, as a trace of the flame that is my life.
Nature, however you look at it, is always unadorned, fresh, and beautiful. I wonder if my paintings could capture the beauty of nature. No, it would be impossible. Even so, I want to make paintings that, like nature, one never tires of looking at. That is all that I want in my art.
Yun Hyong-keun, 1976
One of my closest friends Dain told me that she seeks lasting things, my friendship with her being one of them. Many seasons have passed by, yet my mind often returns to this conversation.
This website shapeshifted quite a few times. It began as my high school portfolio, with self-portraits in oil and mixed media works, then became my photography blog, and now something else. This domain held the first-ever writings I have ever shared online—which, at the time, felt so daunting, but now I can’t even remember what I wrote about. This space transformed catering to my everchanging curiosities, yet in many ways served to archive all that I was absorbing and digesting. Out of all that I couldn’t commit myself to—from typeface to background color—some things remained consistent. Every iteration of this website was made with curiosity, inspiration, and love and executed with honesty, playfulness, and new learnings.
In Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg writes, “style requires digesting who we are.” Style is a complete digestion of our lives−every experience making a part that makes up the whole.
Style is much like water, its presence guided by its past. A stone in the middle of the stream, a wild animal quenching its thirst, tadpoles swimming, plants swaying, birds flapping their wings, the wind gently brushing the surface—all guides the water’s path. The stream we encounter at any point is an accumulation, a reflection of all that’s come before. The past five years have been years of taking in all kinds of learnings—absorbing what feels right to me and letting go of what no longer feels mine. Which leads me to this new iteration.
This is my attempt to seek, document, and preserve lasting things; digesting my experiences; and in stillness, recognizing what emerges and stays true.
My hope is that this space serves to continue the flow, allowing me to circle back my learnings to the world that I have learned so much from. At the moment, I think I just need the bare skeleton that will host various ideas that are arising, sinking in, and going through me. So here is my work in progress.
