木 is a tree. 林 is a developing forest. And 森 is a forest. 林 combines 有 and 石 to help me grow as a whole. All three works are about connection. Connection with my home culture and my family and my community. The ink represents my homeland. The land contains my spirit and power to support me in achieving my goals.

Recently I am reading a novel called Moon of the Crusted Snow. The story takes place in a northern Anishinaabe (one of the Indigenous American groups) community and talks a lot about kinship and community bonding. It reminds me of my hometown, 石家庄草菇团 (Shijiazhuang, Caogutuan).

This charcoal figure is about my oldest uncle. My father's older brother. He is born in a rural village in Northern China and has lived her whole life in that village. He is a traditional farmer and a father of two children. He is also a core family member in my kin group. He does not have a perfect personality in which he is stingy and irritable. But when I am away from my hometown over years, I started to realize that I miss him more and more. In this drawing, I want to show the traces of his age and years of hard work to support the family. He is holding corn because that is the main crop we grow. After I finished drawing, I feel like I also achieved a sense of holiness, like a human figure of Buddha. His ear is shaped meaning good luck.

It is an abstract clay sculpture. It represents the Chinese character 家 (family). The word being chosen because I miss home. Its form is transforming from the character to a more abstract form.

The reason why I design this is that I realize I have been losing my ability to write Chinese fluently. I don't have much opportunity to practice my Chinese writing as I stay longer in America and write English every day. I feel I am losing control of my own language. So I created this distorted version to remind myself.