I’ve had a year to reflect on my past, weigh the present, and consider the future. I didn’t realize how much I defined myself by my work until I was no longer doing it. My career in healthcare seeped under the skin and wove its fibrous tendrils into my subconscious; collaterals formed and I couldn’t excise these memories without negating part of myself. Not that I tried too hard —

This is sounding like a lament, which it isn’t. But I must admit that I lied. I’d always advised my residents that your first job isn’t your last job. For me? In a way, working at the UW and the Hutch spoiled me. My first job was my ideal job, and I’ve had to reconcile that I’ll never find anything close. It doesn’t mean I haven’t moved on. In my heart I’ve always understood that I can never go back.

So I walked another path, one seemingly quite different. In this year, I looked into my heart. I painted (a lot). I wrote and ran and read and traveled and downward dogged etc. and went around the world to find myself.

I realized how much of myself I lost during those years of 80-hour work weeks, constantly being on-call, always having something else to do. The unrelenting stress and demands leeched so much out of me and I didn’t know how fractured I was until I picked up my paintbrush and started creating again.

I realized how much of myself I ignored during this year of rediscovery, of purposefully avoiding most things medical. The hubris that I could leave it all behind without consequence; thinking I wouldn't miss the demands and challenges, the problem-solving and teaching. I didn't know how much I missed it all until I finally allowed myself to remember it.

Light needs darkness; the body needs the mind. I’ve gotten to know myself again at this point in my life. I discovered after all this time that I cannot subsist on art alone, that both my heart and my head need science. I need both science and art to find my humanity. I gave up science in order to give me back myself. And now that I've found myself, I refuse to give it up again.

For something so simple… it took me a long time to figure out.

High school was a really hard period in my life, like it is for so many. I struggled with being an Asian-American in a predominantly white community when I was still learning how to reconcile two very different cultural identities, and trying to navigate my own path while respecting tradition and the wishes of my parents. Add to that teenage angst, precociousness, and tremendous feelings of isolation -- I felt as though I was swimming through murky waters with nary a shore in sight.

The predominant manner in which I coped with all of these emotions was immersion in art. I wrote prolifically -- I kept a journal for personal thoughts, more often than not which was expressed in poetry. I played piano for hours, losing myself in the haunting harmonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin. I sketched and painted, and this is the period when I first fell in love with van Gogh, de Kooning, and Pollock. Abstract art was a way for me to place my rawness front and center, without words, without fear of retribution. I didn't need to explain anything; the canvas did it for me. I didn't have to use reason or rational thought, because in creating I found a solution to my doubts.

Here is something I did circa 1999, when I was still battling significant depression but felt some slight twinges of hope that I might escape my confinement during college. I aptly titled it 'Despair'. (I should mention that this is one of the only surviving pieces that I created during this era. Sadly, I destroyed or lost a lot of my old work, including my sketch pad. This piece is in reasonably good shape, despite multiple cross-country moves and less than desirable storage. It's a bit yellowed with time, so the colours aren't as true as they once were.)

Looking at this painting, I feel this sense of sadness for my younger self -- I wish I had been able to break free from that cloud of despair earlier. But my adult, adjusted self knows that I am the person I have become due to the adversity and challenges I surmounted. So much of my empathy & compassion stem from those terrible feelings of confinement and misunderstanding. There is a bit of light in this piece, and I'd like to believe that even in my darkest moments, I still held on to hope. For sure there were bright spots, like the indelible friendships I made -- wonderful people like Celeste and her brother Eric, the girls who took me under their wings, who remain examples of beautiful strong women to this day: Cathy, Jenny & Amy; dear Susan, sweet Brian. Through darkness comes light; I create because I must, but also because I can. And I can due to not just the negative, but positive moments in my life.

So I could focus on the bad parts, and only see the anguish in this artwork. But I choose, instead, to see all the light that shines through, for it was there within me all along. It just took me a while to realize it.

Today, I thought we'd go back in time, to the late 90s/early 2000s, arly on in my explorations of abstract art (even before college/grad school and that whole path down the healthcare rabbit hole).

Growing up in close proximity to NYC -- yep, you can call me a "bridge-and-tunnel-girl" -- I used to go on independent jaunts into the city. Where did I go? Museums, of course. I would get lost for hours inside exhibits, sometimes sketching, other times writing. During this period was when I first became obsessed with van Gogh, de Kooning, and Pollock -- a love affair that arguably never ended, but instead evolved and deepened. My eyes were wide open to all things and everything, from aborigine weavings to welded sculpture, mixed media collage and watercolor landscapes. I remember I saw a watercolor of a dragon in an Asian art exhibit and was so taken by its ferocity & motion in flight. I went home and wondered if I could somehow capture that dragon in flight and constrain him on the page, but show the chaos & freedom as well.

And thus Blue Dragon was born. I didn't frame this piece until many years later, and then it sat in my parents' home in NJ for some years after that. It's been with me now for the past several years, and now hangs near the fireplace mantle. I'm gazing at it now as I type, and it brings me this quiet joy that more than a decade after I painted this, I am going down a different path -- but one no less healing than my previous endeavor.

This piece that I'm working on came to me suddenly, while I was working on another one. I had this leftover blueish grey paint that I had mixed for this other canvas but it just wasn't quite right. I had visions of this soft, dreamy landscape with this blue, with ochre, maroon and bronze mixed in. I plan for it to be part of my Music series, which has already evolved from its original inception. I had thought that I'd do a series within a series, almost: I'd have paintings expressing the dynamics of music (ie, forté) as well as tempo (eg, allegro). This one, however, seems to be either a lullaby or sonata. The beauty of creating art is that you never know how the piece will turn out exactly. 

Of course, now that I put this beautiful blue on the canvas, I cannot for the life of me seem to replicate it again. I have no idea how I mixed it the first time, but seem to recall having some grey and black with phthalo blue -- but every attempt I've made subsequently has not yielded that precise shade, nor come even close to it. 

Sometimes I think I get so fixated on finding a perfect colour or shade that I end up unpainting what I did the previous day(s). You know, where you're relatively pleased with how it initially goes down but then on further examination you decide that there are certain areas that need work. So then you mix your paints and focus on those areas, and when you step back you realize that you liked it much better before you messed it up. The only next step is to try to unpaint what you just did, which means mixing more paint and going back over those offending areas, and maybe some of the other spots too. And when you look at it again you think to yourself "What the eff did I just do...".

Coming back to painting on the easel -- I got frustrated with myself and decided to just let the piece REST for a little while. It's actually quite nice that I can look at it from afar and ruminate a bit on what it needs next. I'll let this breathe and see where it goes. 

As I've mentioned before, I've been playing around with different textures and incorporating mixed media into my art pieces for a while now. One of the ideas that I was exploring with the addition of paper to canvas was how the paper not only added to the layered effect of the work, but how intrinsically the paper changed the landscape of the piece at the beginning. It became impossible for me to consider the piece without allowing the paper itself to guide the trajectory of the brush, or palette knife.

I started thinking how minute manipulations to your daily schedule, or tiny decisions you make at the spur of the moment, may alter the fabric of your existence. Are we blinded to how each choice can impact our lives, because we lack the foresight and the capability to view how each piece of "paper" shapes the future?

I started this piece by painting blots of colour on canvas, then applied paper overlay on top while the paint was still damp. I brushed a thin layer of dilute acrylic medium on top of that, just to set it. When it was all dry, I started painting over the paper. It took many permutations before I was able to achieve a balance I was happy with -- I wanted the original paint to show through and highlight the texture and paint on top, but most importantly, have all components speak to one another so that there would be continuous dialogue amongst all the disparate portions.

As the piece took shape, I started seeing the tree of fate in the painting. I read a lot of Greek mythology* as a child, and liked the idea of the threads of fate running through this painting as an allegory. Some threads are more visible than others; some are as of yet, still hidden and may never be revealed.

I don't know where my path leads, but I trust enough that somehow, I shall end up where I need to be -- through my own determination & will, and the threads of fate.

*Yes, I am aware that the tree of fate in fact refers to Yggdrasil, which is from Nordic mythology. Fate itself was determined by the three Norns, the goddess of Past, Present, and Future who wove the threads of fate for all life. There is overlap between Nordic and Greek mythology, so I used creative license to combine the concept of fates and destiny into my painting. The Norns became the Moirae. 

I understood classical music. Separated by centuries and the wide expanse of culture and heritage, I nevertheless connected on a visceral level with the music of Beethoven and Schumann and Chopin and Liszt. With young hubris, I played their masterpieces with depth and feeling, with my own interpretation and meaning layered on top of theirs. Jazz was a completely different animal. I couldn't get past the syncopation and odd rhythms; even when I could, the discordant chords and minor progressions perplexed me. All in all, it was too much for me to comprehend, let alone try to emulate. Needless to say, it was an unsuccessful year for me as a jazz pianist. At the end of the year, I gave back my folder -- relieved, but also defeated.

Years and years later, after college and graduate school and numerous friendships, heartbreak, challenges, and living life -- it was only after growing up, that I could understand the language of jazz. In a way, I had to learn its language through piecing together its alphabet.

I've been painting since I was a teenager. Art always served as an out for me, or a way to express my deepest self without words or explicit emotion. It's only been recently that I've learned that the creation of art forces you to not just look inward, but outward. Through opening my heart, I create work that can foster better dialogue -- with others, but also myself. For me, my understanding and appreciation of art and jazz are similar. It's been only through unobstructing my heart & eyes, and living life with openness and love, that I've grown as an artist. Aging is a blessing. The experiences I've gained through the years has built so much more depth in the art that I'm able to create.

To life.

How can we look at the discarded things around us and learn to look at it differently? What have you tossed from your life that could be recycled into something else? Would someone else view your garbage as trash, or as treasure? I challenge society to reconsider what it is we -- as a collective -- let go of so easily, and if we can redefine our unwanted possessions into something desired.

What other detritus of our lives have we cast off without seeing its beauty and value?

It's been many moons later and I've kept my original promise. Part of the reason it's taken so long is because I've only been using the residual mixed paint from my other paintings; sometimes I way over mix, and other times there's only a bit remaining. The main reason, though, is that as the painting slowly took its own shape over the last few months, I've not been using all the leftover paint all the times I've painted.

I started off by painting a base layer of black and gold paint across each half of the canvas. At some point I was working on a collage and had some scrap paper leftover (you can see it on the right hand side -- black with goldfish) that I affixed to it with acrylic medium. After that, it was a little of this & some of that. It's coming along nicely! Its transformation is not quite complete, but the journey there has been interesting, and fulfilling.

What would have been trash, is now treasure. Maybe. Almost. :)

Autumn came, in part, by accident (happily so, like many paintings). At first I wanted a stately and refined pronouncement of the changing leaves against the yet vivid blues and greens of sky and earth. As I painted, though, I realized that part of my love for this season came in the unpredictability and ebullience of its expression -- whirling leaves finding flight in the air torrents, a cacophony of yellows, oranges, reds, sienna and umber swirling around you. Once I found the spirit, it was surprisingly quick to capture it. I actually finished this piece in a relatively short period of time, compared to many of my other works (which end up taking weeks or months or years).

And thus, a chapter comes to a close. Autumn symbolizes an end of a period, but also another beginning. I bid farewell to an old friend, but on her exit, she opens the door for further opportunities. I give another piece of my heart away, but willingly and with the openness that will allow for greater experiences to find me.

So, I cut it up.

In this art class I took at the RIchmond Art Center, our instructor had us work on a project where we painted a tableau of a still life (eg, vases, boxes, decorative objects) on one side of a paper, then flipped it over and illustrated the same vignette but as a continuous line drawing. We then cut out shapes, roughly following the lines from our continuous line drawing, then rearranged the pieces on another larger piece of paper and painted over it. It was an exercise in composition -- to train ourselves and our eyes to look at the shapes and be able to compose these disparate objects in a way that was pleasing and engaging. Abstraction from objective forms. To be honest, I wasn't too excited about the exercise at the time because I was in the midst of working on a series which I really wanted to devote my entire attention to. In retrospect, the exercise was interesting and worthwhile as a way to look at the anatomy of your own art.

I didn't quite follow the original parameters, but I did sketch out a continuous line drawing of the plants I have along the windowsill, then cut out those shapes. Since there was so much of the blues/greens and texture, I thought chopping it up a bit might be a little easier to work with. 

It's not fully formed yet, but it's coming along. Right now it feels a bit like disparate pieces on a page and I'm working to make it more of a cohesive piece, or at least so the aspects speak to one another. In any case, I'm more pleased with the direction that it's going in this permutation.

At least it doesn't quite look so JLo/Versace anymore, right? 

With my respect for the English language and my love for its lexicon, I do not fail to see the irony when it comes to describing my own art. I'm not sure if this is a common theme amongst artists, but the majority of the time, I can firmly state that I vacillate on a scale of "I hate it" to "I don't hate it". It's not so much that I'm trying to be self-deprecating. I realize that I'm involved with a creative process and that sometimes, it's painful. Perhaps it's that I'm used to turning a critical eye on these pieces -- I always think about how I could have made it better, or what I could've done differently. In part, this is probably what drives me to keep painting. It's that elusive pursuit of possible [self deemed] perfection that is so tantalizing. 

I bought some mixed papers a while back as an idea to create some art pieces with them. One of them came out pretty well -- I cut out some free form shapes and applied an acrylic medium wash to the backs in order to adhere them to canvas, and painted over them. All in all, I was fairly pleased with Dreams. 

The one I'm working on now is with this handmade paper with a lot of texture. It's fairly heavy in weight, and due to parts of it being translucent and having holes, I "glued" it to regular painting paper with acrylic medium. 

Well, other than it being a bitch to work with, I also didn't realize fully that in order to appreciate more texture, you have to change the way you apply the paint. If you use thicker paint, it will not apply as evenly, and the natural colour of the paper will show through more prominently. If you use a softer wash of colour, it softens the texture somewhat, but then the pattern of the paper is more apparent. Thus I have to figure out which is the lesser evil, and how I want to work with the paper.

My friend Janell works with paper and mixed media and collage a lot in her art work, and she once told me that if a paper is too pretty, it becomes harder to work with. I had no idea what she was talking about until now.

I've experimented a bit so far and I can quite emphatically state that I HATE it. It reminds me of JLo's infamous Versace dress.

I'm going to sleep on it and decide what to do with it tomorrow. Unless it magically disappears overnight.

I realized several things: First, there are some dark subjects in those lyrics, which is not surprising, and yet it had been a while since I actively thought about the world during that time. Second, I had subconsciously been painting in nostalgic hues and melancholy tones, and didn't notice until I stopped and stepped back.

Growing up in the 90s, a lot of this music appealed to me. I felt -- like many young adults -- that these musicians understood what it felt to feel alone, marginalized and confused; some of the rawness of emotion and feelings of frustration combined with sadness and self-loathing shone through so beautifully in the melodies. Growing up as one of the few Asian Americans in the mostly Caucasian, Italian town, I still connected with with music despite the differences in cultural make up and outward appearances.

With my love affair with this genre neverending, I thought it might be interesting to layer in text of snippets of actual lyrics which influenced this painting. It's still a work in progress so I'm not sure how much of the text will be visible when it's complete. I also don't know if this is a completely crazy idea and if it'll just look very contrived when it's done, so I'll have to let this piece breathe and see where it goes.

One day, though, while counting breaths, something my teacher said broke through. He talked about how we always try to separate the different aspects of our lives -- our work life from our home life; personal from professional. And ne'er the twain shall meet. But, life is life. So invariably how we are in one aspect will impact all others. So, then, how do we find balance? Instead of thinking that our lives must be segmented and compartmentalized, how about thinking about it in terms of making effort vs. allowing?

Sometimes we must effort more in some areas -- maybe there's a busy project at work, or else a loved one who is sick that must be taken care of. We must, then, allow in other areas in order to compensate. When the project is over and the illness has resolved, we find other areas in which we effort and allow.

For the longest time, I held steadfastly to the notion that I must keep my work life and home life separate. I was one person at work and quite another one when I left the hospital. I had friends, it is true, who saw both facets, but for the most part, work was work and play was play. This idea of "life is life" resonated strongly within me. With time and reflection, I'd started to feel that I no longer wanted to engage in a life that was so divisive. 

Not having worked since May, I've had time to explore other passions, such as art. I've made efforts much more in the realm of creativity, and allowed my scientific brain to lapse for a time. I'm feeding the artistic side of me as it was famished for so long and there was a glut of science in my life. At some point, I think there will be more effort in the realm of science, and some allowance for art -- but seeking balance in both.

Art, too, is about effort and allow. You have an idea in mind as you start, but you allow the piece to take shape organically and make itself known on canvas. Recognizing this push & pull has made me more forgiving of an artist, and towards myself.

Somehow I lost track of when it was that I gave up dreaming -- I'm not talking about routine daydreaming (eg, winning the lottery; bumping into Mario Batali on the street and striking up a conversation with the end result being that you become lifelong friends and accompany him on his European eating adventures -- I admit, that was a detailed one). I'm talking about the dreams you have about what you're going to do with your life, or what you're going to accomplish. The dreams of doing something that you've always wanted to, but lacked the time/courage/resources/______. When children are young, we encourage them to dream big -- to not curb their imaginations; as they grow up into teenagers and young adults, we still tell them that they can do anything they set their minds to. With the boom of start-up companies and e-commerce, and fundraising campaigns like Kickstarter, kids are growing up these days to realize they really can do pretty much anything they set their minds to.

So, then, as an adult -- where did I lost my propensity to dream? When did I stop exercising this part of me -- the piece that yearns for art? To see it, to create it, to live it, and love it? I didn't paint for so many years, and I didn't even realize how much a piece of me was missing until I started doing it consistently again. I forgot how much I loved dreaming and then translating some of my dreams into reality. I gave up on nurturing this part of myself because I was too preoccupied with all of the other things in my life, and didn't realize how much fuller and richer my life is when I'm able to create. Art is both a question and the answer. It is balm to the strife of everyday living. I didn't even know I could be this happy until I started painting again.

And now that I know this, that I can still dream: What's to stop me from dreaming further? Painting is by part selfish, and selfless. You give of yourself for yourself, but also to create dialogue with others. I paint because now that I've begun again, I cannot stop again. I made a portfolio so I can dare to dream bigger -- to connect with a community, and so perhaps maybe someone will see one of my pieces and smile, as so many artists have done for me and countless others. And now that I know that I can still dream, I shall never stop.

For me, having not painted in so long, it was incredibly daunting to resume -- as with anything, I suppose, the hardest step is always the first one. But, once I started again, I encountered all this doubt and hesitation. I had plenty of ideas that I wanted to execute, but felt uncertain of my skill or that the ideas would come to fruition on the canvas. There were many a idea that never blossomed fully in vivo. I remember distinctly that I had this idea of layering pink and orange paint on a canvas, then creating additional layers of color and texture on top. The first day I worked on it, I felt great. I loved the colors together and was so excited to keep working on it. But the second and third time I painted, the original idea that I had kept escaping -- I felt it was just outside my reach, and frustratingly either my hands or mind were unable to translate what I had dreamt. It got to the point where I hated the piece. I couldn't even look at it for a while, so I hid it away behind several other canvases. I remember disparaging my work to my one-time art instructor, Joyce [Conlon], and she gave me some really sound advice. She told me that hating a piece was a great place to be. If I hated it that much, then I shouldn't be afraid to experiment with it, or wreck it, or work on it. 

That was a reminder to me to not be afraid. Also, it taught me an important lesson for myself and how I work -- sometimes I might have a fairly concrete idea of what I want to create, but I should never be so rigid as to not allow the work to be an organic process. Coming back to that original pink/orange piece was challenging, but the end result is one that I'm happy with.