60

A common theme around Taiwan is how fast time is going. It gets faster and faster all the time. Our weeks just fly by here. Being away from home for a long time leaves you in this strange place mentally. Time is passing here, but it's also passing at home, but you don't really see it passing at home the way you are used to. It makes Taiwan time sort of feel like a dream.

This really hit me the other day when I realized that my mom's approaching her 60th birthday. I will be working on a painting for her dedicated to a specific way in which she's inspired me for my entire life. In a way, the subject of the painting (which I'm not going to show or write about until after her birthday in May) sums up who she is and how cool and special she is.

I'm going to call this one 60.

Happy almost birthday, Mom!

April 21st
As I'm painting this one, I'm thinking about the many "ugly" art conversations that my mom and I have had ever since I started drawing and painting in high school. We've had a lot of interesting conversations about it.

My mom has an appreciation for modernism and expressionism, but when it comes down to it, her preference of style in art weighs more heavy on beauty than mine. I tend to have more of an appreciation for what she jokingly call ugly art like my college art project where I took an engine out of a broken down car and painted it.

I really like that she kept me thinking critically about these things. I still love "ugly art." Scary Goya paintings, graffitti, comics, Francis Bacon, etc. I still love experimental ideas. I have a profound respect for an artist doing something brave that's never been done before, even if that brave thing is shocking, uncomfortable, or "ugly". I see visual art as a massive broad area that simply by its own nature welcomes any expression (however, there are certainly varying degrees of skill or achievement).

Yet, while maintaining an appreciation for the experimental, I like that my mom has nutured an appreciation for something that is simplistic and beautiful. As I paint 60, I'm looking for a way to combine these two ideas.

Hmmmmm. Funfun.