Becoming A Phoenix

I am the first person in my family to study abroad and the first generation to attend college; when I bid farewell to my grandfather, he told me to become "a golden phoenix flying out of a cottage," to achieve greatness regardless of my initial poverty. 

Phoenix means good fortune, auspiciousness, and of course, power in Chinese. In ancient China, people used dragon to represent the emperor and the phoenix to represent the queen. In a more general sense, phoenix means a kind of rebirth (just like the American meaning), rising to a higher stage, and prosperity. 

Mysteriously, I do have some weird with the phoenix. My animal sign is rooster, and when I was little, a friend of my mom corrected me when I told her that I'm a rooster, "No, you should say that you are a phoenix," she turned to my mom, "Your daughter is a phoenix."

Since then my whole family started to use "phoenix" to encourage me to make progress. While I was doing my college application, my parents were searching for a phoenix jewelry as a gift for my future acceptance in college. However, I was the one who actually got that phoenix necklace by accidence.

I was hanging out in my favorite store, Michael's, one day and I saw a metal phoenix pendant which I immediately fell in love with. I found a ribbon to go along with it and bought it simply because I thought the gesture of the phoenix was very hopeful and it just had this indescribable power to grab me. 

So here is the phoenix necklace. After composing it, I found it looks awfully like an Olympic metal, which I totally did not think of when I chose that white ribbon. 

I put this necklace away and decided to wear it the day after I came back from Spring Break, which happened to be the date I got all my college results. The phoenix necklace became a symbol for my striving for perfection in senior year; I wanted to wear it proudly on April 2nd, and to declare my rebirth just like a phoenix rising from ashes. 

I did it. And oddly enough, University of Chicago, the college that I'm so honored to be accepted, uses phoenix as its symbol, too! Sometimes I wonder if it is really my "fate" to attend UChicago......

Anyway, these mysterious connections I have with phoenix drive me crazy and I can't stop thinking about it. :D I hope you like my necklace!

April 2nd!!!!! I have been waiting for this day for two months!

New Sculpture!

I just finished another sculpture two days ago and here it is!

I have noticed that my human head sculptures are becoming increasingly scary and shocking. The reason that I continue to shock people is that most of my themes are very disturbing and even controversial sometimes. If you remember the crying baby head, "Mom, it hurts", the sculpture is not only to mourn for the lives lost in the earthquake, but to raise the question of disasters caused by human as well. The 80 kids buried under the ruins of the kindergarden did not died because of the earthquake, they died because of the terrible quality of the concrete which was used to build the kindergarden and because of the corrupted government officials who wanted to get profit in the construction!

Now, this one has a broader theme about the society in general. After making "Mom, it hurts", I became very intrigued by extreme facial expressions and the stories behind them. I chose to make this shocked old man's head to represent the constant stress and confusion people feel in today's society. How frequently are you shocked by the daily news? When you read the newspaper and saw the American soldier who shot 16 Afghan civilians and the young black boy in Florida who was killed just because he was wearing a hoodie and happened to be black, you have probably made the same face as the sculpture. 

The "accidents" of the individuals reveals the hidden problems in our society. The job of the artist, I believe, is not necessarily to provide an answer, but to ask the question and raise people's awareness of things we still have to work on.

This sculpture is made of paper clay with a newspaper core. It took me about two months to complete this sculpture and I hope it makes you think.

If the sculpture makes you uncomfortable and frown, I have succeeded.

More Drawings

Here are two new drawings I just did today. Coming back from China after Spring Break, I was quite surprised to find out that the total page views of my blog have passed 2500 (sadly, this blog site is blocked in China so I couldn't make any updates). So, in order to make up for my faithful audience :D, I did these two drawings just for you! They each took me about an hour because the shading took a long time. I hope you enjoy them!

There will be several new posts this weekend because I have so much new stuff to share with you! Please come check it out!