#22. a high school art hallway.
January 12th, 2012#21. new image.
December 21st, 2011working on more night urban landscapes. this the old site of the Chinese American Service League.
#20. chicago. carl sandburg.
April 2nd, 2011HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
–
this is one of the best poems ever.
peace.
#19. Lau family portrait series– in progress.
December 20th, 2010this is a series of images that i’ve been working on for a while now. i wish i had access to a color darkroom, but since i don’t, i’ve been working on them in photoshop (retouch and color-balance).
the series were taken on the day of my sister’s wedding. it was the first time (and maybe the last) in 35 years that my mom’s siblings would all be in the same place and so i decided to try and capture the moment.
i set the portraits up in my parent’s backyard and based the compositions around the squash that my parents had received as gifts from their neighbors. for as long as i can remember, as my family found our place here in chicago, other chinese folks would stop-by and give the gift of squash grown from their own gardens.
the portraits were also pretty informal in the sense that i just asked my aunts, uncles, and cousins to stand in front of the camera regardless of their outfits. these were taken in-between the ceremony and the reception of my sister’s wedding day and so some had temporarily changed out of their formal wedding attire, while others kept theirs on. i found that the juxtaposition of formal and informal were very reminiscent of my own experiences of being chinese-american.
anyway, i’m still trying to figure them out, and am moving on to the next step of printing them.
peace.
#18. at&t customer service.
December 14th, 2010my dignity as a human being has just been decimated by one hour of dealing with at&t customer disservice.
1. why do they keep asking to verify your information after they transfer you to “someone who can help you.” 4 times!
2. why do they ask for a convenient “call-back number” when they intend on hanging up and not calling back anyway?
3. you would think that a majority of their calls are from angry customers, so why do they think it’s a good idea to play that shitty kenny-g crap while you’re on hold. it only further fuels my rage.
4. why would they ask “is there anything else i can do for you” if they didn’t even help you to begin with?!
5. why do they bother making up names for themselves? they should just refer to themselves according to their level of aptitude. the highest possible level of course would be “inept.” “hello. my name is stupid idiot. how may i help you today?”
6. how does anyone not rage quit when on the phone with them.
7. everytime i call, they notify me that my phone call may be recorded for training purposes. training for what!? assmonkey school?!
8. is it too much to ask for one phone call with at&t that doesn’t end with me dropping f-bombs for half an hour afterwards.
9. $&%#!!!
10. is dickhead cheney their main supervisor?
#17. i totally freehanded this pumpkin.
October 21st, 2010
just kidding. i used a stencil. banksy would be proud. if you can’t tell, it’s supposed to be a howling wolf…or maybe it’s snarling. carving pumpkins is hard as hell. this one took me like 3 hours. my fingers were raw for a few days from pushing and pulling that stupid little mini-saw around the pumpkin. pulling out the guts of pumpkin is pretty gross also.
i gotta say, the whole fall pumpkin halloween thing is a bit of a culture shock for me. white folks sure do love their pumpkins though, specially the ones by where i teach in the north chicago suburbs– there was one house that had at least 30 pumpkins on the front porch.
i guess the chinese equivalent would be a chinese winter squash which i can’t really imagine carving out. oh well. what can i say…i’m not from this country.
peace.
#16. student work- photograms.
October 18th, 2010photogram: a photogram is an image created on light-sensitive paper without the direct use of a camera- no negatives are involved and therefore no “shooting” is involved. to create imagery, objects and papers of varying translucencies are placed on the light-sensitive paper and exposed to a light source. the various levels of translucency will register shadows and highlights depending on how they are laid out on the paper– this is very similar to a unburn/suntan. if someone is laying out in the sun, and some jerk comes by and takes a stick and lays it on the skin of the person sunbathing, in a couple of hours, the outline of the stick is left behind on that person’s skin.
in some photo classes i’ve taken, this is usually one of the first assignments and is considered to be basic. i think this tends to convey the idea that photograms are simple. this could not be further from the truth. photograms can be complex and challenging.
last year, i started with basic photograms at the beginning of the year and i was not very satisfied with what my students had come up with. so later in the school year, we revisited the photogram. i had my students create photograms using a variety of layers. they had to use a quote as a source of inspiration. the quote could come from anywhere, and pretty much say anything as long as it wasn’t something that’d get me fired. as part of the lesson, i also taught my students how to create high contrast images in photoshop.
if you’re interested, here’s the lesson, and here’s the photoshop tutorial. (right click and click <save as> to download)
here are the requirements for the assignment:
- quote/piece of text that was important to them.
- imagery on tracing paper
- imagery on printer paper
- imagery on acetate
- imagery on opaque black construction paper.
- all 5 were combined to create 1 photogram.
here are some of the samples– some of the samples include the layers that my students used in some of the samples.
sample 1. this one in particular was impressive because this student took the time to draw the details of the gears in the frame and even cut out all the little sprockets.
sample 2.
sample 8.
peace.
#15. 2nd and 3rd pull of linoleum block test.
October 17th, 2010did a 2nd and 3rd print of the block i cut this past summer. it’s really interesting how each new pull is so different. these two are definitely much better than the first one.
peace.
#14. ahh…good ole’ high school plays.
October 16th, 2010this past week i went with some of the boys in my advisory to a production that the performing arts students at my school write, direct, and produce for the student body. the production is basically a mash-up of skits and musicals based on different cultural details about the school and it’s community while drawing influences from current teen pop culture. it’s generally filled with a lot of satire and humor. some of it is funny, some of it is mean, some of it is way too inside, and some of it is just awkward.
the most annoying part of the evening didn’t have anything to do with the production itself, but with some members of the audience. my group had the misfortune of having to sit near the budding young jocks that you know are either peaking at that particular moment, and/or will eventually start morphing into the stereotypical “frat-boy” types. throughout the entire first half they would shout out lewd names and descriptions for female body parts and sexually explicit acts.
i probably could have sat there and not said anything, since i wasn’t sure what my role was as a member of the audience and not working the event. i was hoping that there would be some other adults that were working the event that would say something. nope. nothing. i do recognize that it was one of those situations where the students should be having fun and yelling and screaming with joy and laughter. but, sometimes, giving them that space to do so means treading a fine line, considering how quickly things can go into that space of innapropriateness.
during intermission, i decided to walk over to confront them, since i didn’t want their behavior to influence my advisees or any other student who might be looking up to these idiots. the only problem is that i didn’t even really know what to say. “STOP IT!” seemed too teacherly. “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!” wasn’t cutting it for me. i decided on…”hey guys, i know you guys are the ones shouting out those words, and what you guys are shouting out is making you look like assholes. all these other people sitting in the audience know that it’s you guys. (pause) do you seriously want to be “those guys”? is that how you want people to see you? as assholes? (pause) i mean, do what you want, clearly not a lot of people are telling you to stop, but you’re not looking too good right now, because right now, even my own perception of you is that you guys are assholes. trust me when i say that i’m not in the minority.” i walked away and sat back down with my guys. they still snickered to each other, but at least they weren’t screaming or shouting anymore.
sigh…
—–
one part that i did enjoy. it was four students, two boys and two girls singing about love and friendship. i couldn’t really hear all the words, but the movement, the music, and of the words that i did catch, it led me to believe it was a song about companionship. as the song performance progressed, it slowly became clear that the song was more about being able freely be in a relationship with someone of the same sex. i did hear some giggles from some of the crowds around me when the two boys on stage embraced and held hands. as the two same-gendered pairs continued towards the end of their song/skit/whatever performance that was, a louder more triumphant cheer came from the larger audience showing their support– which was nice to be a part of. the two boys and two girls, whether or not they are gay/bi/lesbian in real life, took a pretty big risk in making a such a public gesture considering that homophobia is still a huge problem in our society as a whole, let alone in a high school environment.
i thought that was a brave decision on the part of the students in that skit and i’m glad that the audience embraced and recognized their message.
peace.
