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Week One: Getting started

Week Two: 10+10=20

Week Three: Setting up

Week Four: Building up

Week Five: Working, Working, Working...

Week Six: Spring Break!

Week Seven: Starting New...

Week Eight: Hanging Scroll

Week Nine: Hanging Scroll 2

Week Ten: Easter Break and Clay Sculpture

Week Eleven: Accident and Reworking

Week Twelve: Install Art

Week One: Getting started

This week I finished the first 10 works out of the 20 works goal. I first started familiarizing myself with the brush and ink because I haven rested for the whole break. Many of the inspirations for my 10 works are from my visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Works I like from Philadelphia Art Museum:

This work are the gestural marks made by Tony Lewis. I was drawn by the texture of this drawing as well as the contiunous marks. In my 10 works, I tried to do similiar texture and lines.

I like this set of work for its fluidity of the lines and the contiunous marks. They looks like tree branches, snakes, and more.

This is a cast glass work done by Chinese artist Wang Qin. The name "Non-Calligraphy X" draws my attention. I love his abstract brush ink patterns appeared in glass. It is innovative.

This is another brushstroke work that I found enjoyable watching. I tried to do my own version of it in my 10 works.

Inspirations from Life:

From my way back to Figge, I was drawn by the patterns on the ground in Holy Cross. They look like lines I saw in the Philadelphia Art Museums.

I used some of these patterns in my 10 works as well.

My 10+10 Works in Progress:

My 10 works are inspired by my visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I did my own version of these patterns and textures I like.

I also have two colored works becuase I like the color yellow and black combined.

The bottom left is a scene of nature: sun and mountains.

Week Two: 10+10=20

This week I worked on the last 10 pieces of my 20 work project. I explored some small clay sculpture studies.

Works/Things that inspired me:

The title of this work is "The Vold Left by the Bodies is Space". A mysterious and interesting title. I also like the shape and the dropping pattern.

"Mari's Feet Have Shaped the Landscape". Creative title. I love the the contrast of white & black.

A lovely wood pattern I found in my sculpture class. It looks like a landscape painting.

20 works:

For the 20 works, I not only had white & black drawings but also explored the use of color combining ink drawing. These drawings represent lanscape (moutain and sun) as well as wood branches. An eye shape is repeated.

I also remembered the canvas I bought last semester. So I tried two different paintings, one using ink, another using acylic paint.

I did three small sculpture works. They meant to represent nature such as wood and pond, and bridge.

Week Three: Setting up

This week I started to collect and buy the materials that I needed. I am planning to make one hanging scroll of Chinese calligraphy abstract drawing and one plaster sculpture that also represent abstract calligraphy.

Professor Beaudoin and professor Pacheco gave me three kinds of paper and I tried them with ink. I like the bottom one because the paper absorbs and holds the ink very well.

I bought more inks and large brush for my calligraphy drawing.

I am always inspired by Wang Dongling's work because of his gestural abstraction and embodied action and performance in Chinese calligraphy. For my hanging scroll, I also want to make large abstract forms.

designing for the large sculpture

a clay study for the final plaster sculpture

it's a transformation of the character 门, and it means "door".

Week Four: Building up

I mainly focused on doing the armature for my plaster sculpture. I first started by drawing the structure of my sculpture on a big sheet of paper. It serves as a working plan to see how big the sculpture is and what can I do to prepare the armature. Based on my design draft on paper, I have to prepare about twenty wood panels (8*8 inches) and wood dowels to connect these panels to support the armature. Once I finished with the wooden structure, I cut the chicken wires in the right size to cover them. This is just the first part of my sculpture and it already requires a lot of work. My arms and hands were very sore after stapling the chicken wire into the wood!

preparing wood panels and dowels

assembling them together

working

attaching chicken wires

Artist Rashmi Talpade visited my studio and gave some great advice. Rashmi shared a similar background with me (living in the US but has a strong connection with our homeland culture) so she understood the ideas of my work and my inspiration from Chinese calligraphy. She looked at my plaster sculpture from last semester and suggested reversing the color, which is black background and white text. I like this idea and in fact, I already bought different colors of ink (black, white, and gold) to try and experiment. She also gave me a lesson about being an artist such as staying true to myself and don't let others' judgment stop the journey as an artist. I appreciate this opportunity to meet with her and I think having artist conversations is helpful to look at our work from another perspective.

Week Five: Working, Working, Working...

It is another big work week. I spent hours and hours in the plaster room every day working on putting enough plasters on the armature. Each side of the plaster has to be at least an inch thick to hold the sculpture strong. I even asked my friends to help me make the plaster so we form a streamline to make the process faster. Otherwise it would take double the time if I work alone (now I understand why artists hire assistants...). I paid my friends a meal to thank them for their hard work.

Although the process is painful and my muscles are sore everyday from working on this big buddy. I am happy that it turned out very nice.

The surface is still very rough when I finished with plaster, so I used a rasp to scrape some plaster down to refine the texture on the surface.

I didn't use a scotch brite pad becuase I want to keep some of the rough textures.

After I finished the plaster, I started working on the painting design. As I planned before, I painted the whole sculpture black because I want a dark background for my sculpture. Then I decided to use the dry brush technique to add a little bronze finish because I think this would highlight the texture on the surface.

For the white text, I first tested the white ink on black paper to see how the white ink reacted with the black background. I like when the white ink is a little transparent so that the white and black are melting together (not like the white is flowing above the dark background).

For the design, I am still deciding on how many texts I want and how would I put them on the sculpture. I will make some drawings of the text design during spring break to see which I like better.

Week Six: Spring Break!

During this spring break, I visited the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. I really like this museum because they do a good job of educating art to the general public. They have a kid room where they organize children to do art activities. They also have a fun and interesting video that introduce the artist Dalí and his work (I enjoyed watching it in the kid's room lol).

The building has a distinct and modern look.

They even made a chair outside that inspired from Dalí's famous piece "The Persistence of Memory".

I have only seen this portrait online, finally seeing it in person!

And then I discovered that it is actually a nude lady looking toward outside from a bathroom!

Week Seven: Starting New...

This week I finished my big plaster sculpture and added text on top of the surface. And I started working on my drawing scroll.

I moved my sculpture from the plaster room to the studio. The lighting of the space is bad so viewers can't see the details of the surface or walk around it to have a well-rounded viewpoint. Hopefully, the piece will look better with a better lighting situation in the gallery.

My proposal of a staircase pedestal is denied because it will be too big to work on and will take a lot of time. So right now I am thinking to put one smaller pedestal on top of a bigger one to initiate the feeling of a staircase. Or just a normal (low) pedestal to hold this sculpture higher.

From the four pieces of frabric that I collected, I decided to go for the very right one (black with patterns) because I think black will fit with my overall theme of work.

← I did a skatch design on procreate.

For the paper choice, I finally chose Tyvek paper becuase I realize water does not penetrate the paper so it won't leave a mass if I apply ink.

I did one draft of my hanging scroll. I will make more pieces and compare them to choose the best one.

My plan is to roll both ends of the paper. And then attach the paper on top of the fabric. John suggested asking Professor Schomp because she may have ideas on how to attach the paper and fabric.

The meaning of the text is "hometown" (in Chinese: 家乡).

Week Eight: Hanging Scroll

This week I met with Professor Schomp to discuss the specific strategy to attach the fabric and paper. She suggested using the sewing machine to sew them together. At first I was shocked by this idea because I never thought that you can sew paper with fabric. But after we made some progress together, I start to think it might be a good idea.

We first did some samples to see which length of the sewing is the best.

This is the machine we are using.

I really like this sample we did because the sample paper is long to feel like infinity, or a feeling of this roll will keep going. →

We tried to do this big draft to see if the sewing will work for a larger scale.

Initially I want to have a wider fabric as the background, but then it will interrupt the paper roll. So I kept the fuzzy edge to show a little bit of the fabric to see if it works or not.

I like the sewing part because it attaches the paper really well with the fabric. But we have to be careful with the edge because it is easy to not follow a straight line with this big scale and a small sewing machine. The problem with this draft is that although the fabric added some weight to this drawing, the paper and fabric didn't align perfectly so the whole piece seems floating.

One solution is that I will buy more fabric to see if a different fabric will work better. Or I can attach the fabric better to the wall. I can also try using the fabric as the frame behind the whole paper.

This is the final version of drawing.

Week Nine: Hanging Scroll 2

This week I finished the hanging scroll! I love this piece and it came out really nice!

I went to the fabric store to select my fabric. It is my first time seeing this kind of shop and I was amazed by how many options they have.

I found a sheet of fabric with a very nice texture and pattern. It is a flat fabric and doesn't get wrinkled easily.

I cut the fabric to the right size I want with the relationship of my paper. I sewed both ends so that the wood dowel can go through.

I also designed my stamp on procreate and transformed it into Illustrator to cut it out using the laser cutter.

I tested a few times using the rubber stamp.

And now this is the final piece! It is 95% done becuase I still need to cut the wood dowel shorter and maybe re-sew the top and bottom into straighter lines becuase right now they are uneven.

Week Ten: Easter Break and Clay Sculpture

During Easter Break I visited the MIT Art Museum and it was a very interesting museum because it combined art and science! For my final clay piece, I struggled a bit since I didn't like the first design I have, so I redesigned and remade the sculpture. I like the final version better.

The MIT Art Museum looks more scientific than artistic. The museum focuses on how science interact with art and inspire new ideas.

This is my favorite piece. It is a textile art installation that explore American identity using T-Shitr, a symbol of American cosuming culture. The idea is great and the installation is beautiful.

This is the most interesting one because as the gear moves, the baby moves four limbs as if the baby is asking for attention.

And look what I found! The Makey Makey box! I didn't know that MIT students designed it. Iam surprised to see our "New Media" class material is shown in the museum.

My first version of the design is meant to be a guest-greeting pine. Such native pine trees grow from rugged rock faces in mountains, so it represents a strong and brave spirit. And because I really liked the texture of the scholar stone, I thought it would be a good idea to represent something found in nature. But when I was making the sculpture, I found it very ugly and I didn't like what I was making. IT WAS SO UGLY. AND I HATED IT.

So I went back to my design and re-think my whole theme for this show. It is about homesickness and all my pieces are inspired by Chinese calligraphy. I have "door（门）", "human（人）", "hometown（家乡）", and "forest（林）”. I want my clay sculpture connects to other pieces with the central theme of homesickness.

The Chinese term for homesickness can be "想家" and "思乡". Both "想" and "思” (they mean think/miss) has "心“ (meaning heart) at the bottom. If you put "心" upside down, it loos like "乡", which means home. So now both ideas of my heart and my home connects together to represent my feeling of missing home.

So I decided to transform “乡" into a sculptural form. I like this design because it is consisent with my style of being abstract, organic, and simple.

Week Eleven: Accident and Reworking

This week I got a bad news because my clay sculpture exploded completely inside the kiln. So I immediately started making a plaster version since I only have two days to finish. But I also have a backup: my three pieces of clay sculptures that were made last semester (I just got them from ArtsWorcester).

Let's appreciate how nice my clay was before it went into the kiln. I burnished the whole surface so it was very smooth.

Sad photo of my remaining pieces of clay. It is impossible to put these pieces together and it is also impossible to make a new clay sculpture because it needs weeks to dry. So I immediately started making another one using plaster since it will be faster.

A cute pic of my and John transporting my doorway sculpture to the Cantor Art Gallery.

I have cut two pieces of foam in the shape of the sculpture and attached them together screwing a few nails inside.

Then I put a thin coat of plaster so that the later plaster can hold onto it.

A cute picture taken by Emily of me working in the plaster room in Sculpture →

←This is the almost finished piece of the plaster sculpture. I still need to scrape the surface so it would be smoother.

After I finish the shape and surface, I think I will use ink as the paint.

If this plaster one doesn't work well, I still have those three pieces in ArtsWorcester that I can show because they are also inspired by Chinese Calligraphy and they came together as a whole.

Week Twelve: Install Art

The current week is dedicated to setting up the art exhibition, and I have completed the plaster sculpture which turned out pretty well.

← I smoothed out the surface of this piece because I desired a sleeker finish.

This is what the sculpture looks like when aligned with the Chinese Calligraphy painting. They both represent the word "乡”, meaning hometown →

They look very nice in a gallery space.

During my initial meeting with Meredith and Tim, we talked about the practical aspects of the size of my sculptures and the idea of displaying them on pedestals. However, when I brought the two large sculptures to the gallery, we realized that having them placed directly on the floor would create a stronger sense of grounding. Then we spent time discussing the optimal arrangement of the two sculptures in relation to each other.

I love how the four pieces blend together to form a unified theme. Today, I delivered an artist talk at the Prior Art Gallery, where I shared my creative process and ideas behind my artworks. I am glad that people enjoyed seeing my work and asked me thought-provoking questions.

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