BLUE: Installation in progress – 4: Blue Falls

“Blue Falls” was the last piece I worked on, and I became quite obsessive about those dots by then. I now have an art wound on my thumb from molding too many balls of Elmer’s poster tack. The skin of my thumb starts splitting, but I can’t use hand lotion because it would make the poster tack not to be sticky. Who knew you could get an art wound from Elmer’s poster tack? I now feel like an art warrior with a minor wound.

Being in the spot of lights and surrounded by the two blue walls made me feel like I was in the pool of blue. It made me feel rather calm. Seeing all these dots growing and starting to inhibit the wall, I started to think about Yayoi Kusama’s polka dot nets. More dots I see on the wall, I want to make more to fill the space, and be lost in the shower of dots. But wait―that’s not what I wanted to make, so I try to stop that desire. I step back and look at it from afar, and then go back, so I don’t get lost in the blue shower. Kusama, who suffered from hallucinations, painted dots obsessively because that’s what she saw everywhere when she fell under the spell of polka dot nets. I imagine her in her polka dots world, and I wonder how she saw it all.

I’m in the blue space, making these dots/droplets on the wall― feeling exhausted from lack of sleep from insomnia in the last five nights. Then I look up and I see the blue droplets slowly falling over me. And I think it’s rather calming. 

Starting from the top...

and I want to put more...

and more... no, stop.

less is more

Blue Falls (almost complete)
84"x 38"
Elmer's poster tack on painted wall

... light and blue...

BLUE: Installation in progress – 3: Last Splash

I was experimenting with wires while I was at the Blue Mountain Center, and I wanted to use thin wires for the second piece, “Last Splash.” Looking this piece from the side, the wires are reaching out into the air―some of them has a tiny blue dot at the end―and the wiggly lines of wires make them look very organic to me as if they’re breathing, but with desperate and somewhat dying breath.

I was able to work on the site-specific installation in a very quiet and almost in solitude over the holiday break. The University was closed, so the Women’s Studies Research Center, where the gallery I was working, was also closed. There were only few people who came to work over the break. One of them was Hilda, one of their feminist scholars, who came occasionally to work on her book. She was compiling all her writings on museums into a book. One day, after working all afternoon, she came to see my work. I asked, “How was your day?” She said, “Well, I got two paragraphs written.” I pointed to a rather small area on the wall and said, “Well, I made these dots today.” Then, we both laughed. Our brief conversation reminded me that act of creating is a rather slow process―no matter how fast you think you’re working.

When Hilda saw me almost finishing “Last Splash,” she said, “You’ve been working so hard on something that’s only going to last temporarily.” And I thought about that. There’s something gratifying about making these temporarily existing pieces. I love Andy Goldsworthy’s work with nature, and I admire his patience and Zen-like approach to his materials. Though what I’m doing is far different from Andy Goldsworthy’s work, I see the ephemeral quality and simple additive process in what I’m doing here. My friend, Eva said, “It's like the Tibetan ritual where monks come together to create a gigantic mandala wheel pattern out of beads, and then after chanting they calmly cleaned up everything. Everything is impermanent.” You make something but leave no trace behind. I kind of like that. I wish we could do just that with the earth―leave no trace behind, but it’s too late, I’m afraid. And I feel like the earth is on her last breath.

Adding wires onto the blue droplets

slowly...

almost meditative process...

"Last Splash"
18"x 15"
Elmer's poster tack and wires on painted wall

Everything in life is temporary

BLUE: Installation in progress – 2: Raindrop Jewel

After completing “Division Switch,” I continued working with Elmer’s poster tack, but with lights. I wanted to make more of these blue droplets and put them on the blue walls and see what happens.

“Raindrop Jewel” was the first one of these pieces. Working with lights, Elmer’s poster tack droplets on the wall glow and become almost like jewels. Such a cheap material with such a low tech, and I’m already seeing jewels out of these things? Maybe I was just too tired.
I needed another two walls painted in the same blue for more pieces. Luckily, my friend came and painted the walls for me before the end of the year. So, I was able to move onto the next piece after the New Year’s. There's no time to waste.

While my friend was painting the walls, I worked on “Raindrop Jewel” but also went back to work on “Division Switch” to add more dots to cover the flaws on the wall, such as holes for hanging the brochure case. I think I succeed―no more visible holes or flaws on the wall now.

Raindrop Jewel
37"x 22"
Elmer's poster tack on painted wall - "Do you see jewels?"

Detail of "Raindrop Jewel": Lovely blue on blue

Decided to cover the flaws on the wall with more dots

Making too many dots makes you want to scream!

BLUE: Installation in progress – 1: Division Switch

My solo exhibit, BLUE, opened today at the Women’s Studies Research Center Gallery at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. It’ll be up through March 2. This exhibit includes my recent drawings and the site-specific installation. I have been working on the site-specific installation in the gallery since Christmas, and I finished everything a couple of days before the show opened.

“Division Switch” incorporates overlay maps from the United States Army Air Defense School in the late 50s, which I had been working on with mineral pigment, stamps and artist tapes. I had watched the documentary about water called “Blue Gold: World Water Wars.” (I highly recommend this documentary.) That was all I needed for an excuse to use these overlay maps from the Army Air Defense School in the context of water for this exhibit. That was my starting point for this installation anyway. On these overlay maps, I see some irony and even humor in the added images and there are some word plays, such as “division switch position” text next to the stamped images of women.

I wanted to connect these maps with dots and tiny lines, and create another sort of map that suggests a number of different things such as waterways, hiking trails, roads, defense lines, and so on. Cutting the artist tape into tiny strips and making tiny dots with Elmer’s poster tack proved to be a simple but methodological process which had soothing effects after a while. There, I worked intuitively, slowly making connections line by line, and dot by dot.

Creating dots with Elmer's poster tack - one by one

Making connections line by line

This was Day 4 - slowly making my way

Overlay maps from the United States Army Air Defense School
in the 1950s on the wall

Snake river or switchback road?

She is the Target Area C on Call

Day 5 - close to be done