Well, I missed my X-mas, New Year’s, Chinese New Year’s, Leap Day and Eclipse Day deadlines for my annual 2023 summary. Here we are one-third into 2024, so a short summary of both. Still alive.
In many respects, a somatic year to forget. Four major health hurdles, including COVID inopportunely contracted in Canada that lead to quarantining and delayed return to the US. These obstacles necessitated multiple Emergency visits, three surgical procedures and two with long-term implications. Certainly humbling, both physically and cerebrally. Naturally, these challenges induced serious musings about my mortality and legacy.
Of course, many good things happened in between.
I was surprisingly asked to give nine invited talks in Portland, SF, Columbus (X2), Austin, San Diego, and Milwaukee, which I suspect will decline precipitously forthwith (including one on cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome – pot reveals it violent vomiting self!). As a result, I visited the Japanese garden in Portland, saw one of Margaret Chang’s painting (see below) at Portland Art Museum storage, learned from headache neurologists, had dinner with niece Jeanine, attended the annual Koslov's Thanksgiving extravaganza, gathered MCW colleagues and Milwaukee friends, and watched my mentee's high school girls BB phenom.
And despite four cancelled trips, my peripatetic path persisted. Tony, Martha and I chased cherry blossoms in Japan, which came two weeks early, yet managed to capture its full bloom at Oshinohakkai at the base of Mt. Fuji. With g’kidz Jack and Naomi, Glacier yielded the most spectacular reconnoiter with the King of the Mountain goats. My annual Vancouver Chen Tai Chi boot camp 2½ hours a day. And X-mas in Vail with Rachel’s family, downhill for them, flatland for me.
2024 has been rebooted, so far, so good. Marianne and Mark (off/on) came from Hilo for a sabbatical at Colorado U. (physics/education). During her 2½ month stay, we had stimulating discussions on race and identity (does anti-Asian racism exist in HI?), educational strategies in STEM, and the universe (black holes). Then, with Cora and Kathryn from Vancouver, we embarked on a 3,000 mile art road trip to west Texas, chasing minimalists Agnes Martin, Donald Judd (in Marfa), Mark Rothko (Chapel), Georgia O’Keeffe (Santa Fe, Abiquiu, Ghost Ranch), and Ruth Asawa (Houston) – with many other museums in between. To this group, I added artists Xu Bing (Houston exhibition), Ren Light Pan (shown in Dallas) and Margaret Chang (Houston). Carlsbad Caverns. A thrilling montage betwixt nature, natural inspiration (Georgia O’Keeffe clouds), minimalism, abstract expressionism … Viewing the artists’ studios as well as the breadth and evolution of their art provided a much more profound appreciation of their entire vision than viewing an individual work in a museum as is the usual case.
One major milestone for Margaret Chang (Hong Xian) an artist whom my father and mother were close to, collecting her work, writing catalog introductions and traveling together. I have also become close to her and avuncular husband TC, traveling together to view art (play tennis) together. Margaret was the only woman in the mid-century avant garde abstract ink painting 5th Moon Group in Taiwan but has sadly been forgotten. What makes her unique amongst her abstract ink peers is that she retains the fine brushwork learned from Pu Xinyu (emperor’s first cousin and top classical painting teacher in TW) while expressing her unique landscapes of the mind full of Zen ('negative') space and flowing motion. Despite having no curatorial clout, I have been pushing for a solo retrospective of her career and as of two weeks ago, it is now official. With a consortium of curators from Denver (Art Museum), San Diego (independent) and Houston (Asia Society), her retrospective will take place in Houston, April 2025! This long overdue exhibition is at last happening!
