hosfelt gallery

this drawing is called ‘my favorite neckless’.  i’m showing this drawing at hosfelt gallery in san francisco.  i’m taking part in a group show titled “vocabularies of metaphor — more stories“, all works on paper by fifteen international artists.  the show will run from september 6th to october 18th .   if you’re around in san francisco, please do take time to visit the gallery and enjoy the show.

about the show (by the owner/curator todd hosfelt)

it’s an exhibition of works on paper by fifteen international artists exploring narrative through symbols.  i’m interested in visual languages that are highly personal and lyrical.  the “stories” are also original to the artists and open to interpretation.

the artists’ choice of exploring the intimacy of drawing/painting on paper (and my choice, as the curator) is about giving the viewer a voyeuristic glimpse into private moments.  i’m exhibiting between two and six pieces by each artist to give the viewer the opportunity to observe mutating idioms and to decipher the lexicons of each.    while the show didn’t start to be about work by women, almost all of it is.    i’m including amy cutler, fay ku, shahzia sikander, ruth marten, liliana porter, yuka yamaguchi, yelena yemchuk, baseerah khan, rob matthews, henry darger, sara stites, charlotte schultz, rachell sumpter, crystal liu and seonna hong.

todd hosfelt will be writing about the artists and their works in the show on his blog.  here’s what he wrote about my drawing, ‘my favorite neckless’:

i love yuka yamaguchi’s work.    it’s what frieda khalo would be making if she were alive and japanese.    gorgeously rendered colored pencil (often self) portraits that are seemingly innocent and disarmingly brutal.

i’m reproducing “my favorite neckless” 2008 colored pencils on paper, 11×14 inches.     beyond the play on words, jay brought the phrase “turtles all the way down” to my attention.     the story, in this case, as told by stephen hawkings in “a brief history of time” goes like this:

a well-known scientist (some say it was bertrand russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy.  he described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. at the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “what you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise” the scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “what is the tortoise standing on?” “you’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “but it’s turtles all the way down!”

the story is used to illustrate religious/mythic myopia, but can also be read as meaning that you can never get to the bottom of a difficult question.

and of course there seussian reference to yertle the turtle…

i didn’t know about the turtle book by dr. seuss, but now i’ve got to go buy that for elijah and me ;)

elijah’s separation anxiety began when he was eight months old. in japanese, we call this period ‘ato-oi’, which literally means ‘after-follow’. he began to follow me around wherever i would go. even when i was in his sight and someone else was holding him, he immediately would start crying and reach out to me. it is/was really, really touching and awfully adorable.

i try to stay close to him so he won’t feel insecure. he wants to be picked up and held all the time, so i do that. when i need to go to the next room, i let him know that i’m going. i try not to disappear without saying anything. he always stops what he’s doing and crawls after me. for some reason, if i get down on the floor and crawl out of the room, he doesn’t react anxiously. maybe he thinks i’m off to catch some salmon. it’s all part of the bear game, my friend.

recently, he started to follow after paul, too. he chased after paul when he entered the bathroom. so i thought it might be a time to teach him that papa and mama are around even when you can’t see them.

it’s kind of embarrassing to tell you this, but i’ve been leaving the bathroom door open when i take a shower in the morning. i put elijah in the playpen and move it down the hall in front of the bathroom so that he can see me. as soon as i would get in the shower, he would start crying, and he’d keep crying his head off the whole time. from time to time, i would stick my head (covered in shampoo) outside the shower curtain and say “daijyo-bu! mama kokoni iruyo!” (it’s okay, mama’s here!). he would cry even harder. :D after a couple of try, i stopped hearing his crying. he started to play with toys.

this is one of the drawings for ‘100 stories’ at hosfelt gallery in NYC.

100 stories

photographs by crystal liu
& drawings by crystal liu, ruth marten, rachell sumpter, yuka yamaguchi

11 april - 31 may 2008

hosfelt gallery
531 w 36th street,
new york

this drawing is called “mighty righty”. i drew it for a group show called “100 stories” at hosfelt gallery in NYC (april 11th to may 31st).

i’ve been breastfeeding elijah ever since he was born. i chose to feed one breast at a time. that means i would feed from the right breast at let’s say 2 am and the next feeding would be from the left one. nurses told me to feed from both sides about 10 mins per breast, and to always start with the breast that i finished with last time because better milk would come out from it. but it seemed to me that i might as well keep feeding him from one single breast from start to finish. that way, he’d get from thin milk to thick milk for sure. plus i wouldn’t have to interrupt him.

so that’s been my breastfeeding style. it was really interesting to see my breasts’ size change before and after feeding. before a feeding, both breasts would swell like a melon and get really hard. after the feeding, the one i used for feeding would turn soft and rather sad looking. and the other one would start shooting milk to release the pressure, so i had to press a towel over it.

i sometimes forgot which breast i used for the last feeding, especially in the middle of night when i was half asleep. my left breast coped fine with that, but my right one, oh boy. she would get really swollen and bumpy and her veins would stick out. if it went on too long my breast would look like biologically engineered cantaloupe with tumors.

and it would be very very painful — too full and too hard. i could pump some milk out, but i couldn’t empty as much milk with a breast pump or using my hands as elijah could with his powerful drinking.

so i must confess i had to poke elijah’s arm in the middle of night a couple of times, so he’d wake up and want to suck milk from my overfull right breast. luckily he won’t remember…

park debut

i’ve been getting together with other mothers with young children. when we first meet new people, elijah acts shy and holds onto me. but once he gets used to them he starts grabbing the other babies’ faces…

it’s nice to see him interacting with other babies and young children. whenever he spends time with other people, he gets chatty with me afterwards. i think he’s trying to tell me about his day.

see the process of this drawing:

park debut art recipe 1

park debut art recipe 2

this drawing is for a group show called “100 stories” at hosfelt gallery in NY (april 11 to may 31)