花鳥畫
花鳥畫 (hua niao hua) is a genre? type? kind of Chinese painting that features flowers, birds, fish, and insects.
It was pointed out to me, when we were studying these paintings, that often, these bird and flower paintings featured both nature’s beauty as well as its decay. I was so drawn to these little broken and withering parts of the leaves, the spots on the ripening fruits.
Is it because I’m a little bit morbid? Possibly.
But I think that art isn’t beautiful because it looks perfect — it’s because, like in nature, the beautiful things we enjoy are so much more beautiful because of their impermanence and mortality. A joyful moment is special when it’s precious, not plentiful. A disclaimer — I’m no art historian nor am I an expert in Chinese painting, so I don’t really know what the painter was thinking when he painted this. But when I see it, I think about the beauty despite the decay, but also, the beauty in the decay.
a few places you can check out my work
Along with cool porcelain and trinkets, you can now snag a copy of either Wetu or c at Wing on Wo & Co if you make it to Manhattan Chinatown, or online. Learn more about this 130-year-old business here.
Wetu (co-created with Sunny Ôchumuk) contains three short comics where each main character is queer or trans and Wampanoag. Wetu means house in Wampanoag, and in this anthology we hope that two-spirit people can find a home in fiction, both past, present and future. (Description also written by Sunny!)
c - Boston Chinatown’s Fight for a Community Center (translated by Yusin Mok, edited by Lily Xie and Crystal Bi, initial run funded by Chinatown Story Cart) is about Parcel C, a piece of land in Boston’s Chinatown, and the community’s struggles to regain control over that piece of land.
Call and Response: Illustration in Uncertain Times is up at the Pao Arts Center until June 30, 2023. You can also read some of my zines, including the ones mentioned above, in the reading nook there. Here’s some coverage of the exhibit here by the Boston Globe and the Boston Art Review. Friends, thank you for coming to the opening!
photos by super photographer Mel Taing <3
some things to look forward to
Boston Comics in Color Festival - April 29, 10:00am - 5:00pm at Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center. Sunny and I will vending some zines!
I’m being inexplicably honored as an “Unsung Hero” at the AAPIC Unity Dinner. Maybe it’s for picking up stray socks in my house, which I feel like is pretty heroic, right? Hope to see you there on May 6th!
Boston Kids Comics Fest - June 3rd, 10:00am - 5:00pm at Northeastern University's Curry Student Center. I’ll be there, aspirationally with some cute new lion dance zines and some kid artists!
some things i’m enjoying & want you to enjoy
A friend lent me Maybe an Artist, a graphic novel memoir by Liz Montague, one of the first Black women cartoonists to be featured in the New Yorker! I’m planning to get it for some of the other young artists in my life.
Birria Ramen! Those of you who know me well know I can’t resist “fusion” food — and the combination of birria (a Mexican stew) and ramen noodles is one that I’d been dying to try. In Boston, you can get a version with kimchi-birria broth at Moonshine 152 in Southie, and one with handmade noodles (& avocados) at Ruckus in Chinatown. I really enjoyed both takes!
I’ve been obsessed with 吳青峰’s song 起風了 (The Wind Rises). I thought it had something to do with the Ghibli movie (of the same name), but it apparently does not. It’s actually a cover of the Japanese song ヤキモチ (yakimochi), which also has entirely different lyrics. The songs…they’re not about the same thing.