Artist Statement

My art has always been inspired by community life. My work over the last 30 years was mostly done for community events and causes. The themes – women, family, culture, protests, and celebrations – are universal. I see art more as an approach toward life, a daily meditation that infuses creativity in everything we do. In many ways, my leadership of Kearny Street Workshop has been a big artistic production, the colors now fully blooming in the next generation.

For my visual work, I like to depict various emotional states and to evoke sensuality through curved shapes and fluid lines, with a minimum of detail. The vibrant colors and patterns echo the liveliness of ethnic neighborhoods. I favor the single image in my work, to have one figure, one gesture be the symbol for universal truths. I want most of all for my art to make a difference – to individuals and to society, whether it brightens someone’s existence, helps promote a good cause, calls attention to a social issue, or brings hope to mankind in general.

My more recent work follows the same trajectory. My experience as an immigrant, mother, administrator, community activist, and spiritual seeker continue to provide the framework for my creative endeavors, which include writing as well as visual art. The medium may change, but the desire to connect with the audience is still there. For me, the work isn’t successful until you have felt it in your heart, and you cry or smile in recognition of our common humanity.

For the past three years I have been on the Buddhist path. This spiritual grounding has given me a heightened awareness of the interconnectedness of all beings and opened my heart to the deep well of compassion within. Like my creative process, my spiritual practice involves a gradual peeling of extraneous layers of misconceptions and obstructions, until just the essence remains.

My new work combines my concerns about the external world with my internal quest. The difference between the external and internal is lessening for me. As such, each piece can be viewed from both perspectives. "World on Fire," for example, is a response to global warming; it depicts an orderly world unaware of the havoc it is causing in the atmosphere. But it can also be interpreted as reflective of the turmoil we have in our minds, even as our exterior demeanor projects calmness. "Caged Freedom" can be seen as an anti-war protest poster, or a comment about homeland security, but the ethereal image of the bird also suggests a yearning for freedom within us; we are trapped by the same web of negativity that world leaders weave which prevent us from unfettered flight. "Tsunami" points out the fragility of man against the forces of nature. It is a response to the disaster that befell South Asia this past fall, an event that affected me deeply. But to me it is also a statement about surrender of the self and the ego.

For this exhibit, I wanted to challenge myself to create in a different way than before. Coming full circle, I took up pastels again, which was the medium I used before I learned how to silkscreen. But after so many years of controlling my art with precise lines and shapes, it was hard to get used to the unpredictability of the pastel chalk. This loss of control was frightening, but it deepened my practice of surrender. In the end, neither the pastel medium nor silkscreen could capture the dualistic nature of the message; I wanted both precision and looseness. I ended up using a variety of media to make the statements, juxtaposing soft wisps of color with hard-edged shapes to suggest multiple meanings.