Monday, December 12, 2011

Hi! Here's Ten Updates.

every once in a while I remember I got this blog here. so...here I am! When I find out I have a blog after a period I usually enter ten update items that randomly come to my mind. So here's ten:

1. Kimochi Silver Bells Crafts Faire Just got over doing Kimochi's Silver Bells Crafts Faire at the St. Mary's Cathedral basement. That crafts faire have gotten huge! My guess is there were 200 artisans selling stuff. It's for a good cause... Kimochi Senior Services.

As for the crowd and what I sold, it's mostly $3 note card sales and a few t-shirts. I only sold $180 worth. I had original paintings for sale. Didn't sell one.

But it's nice to be out there and seeing friends. Be nice if I made a ton of money too.



2. Franklin Fung Chow An old time friend, Franklin Fung Chow passed away about a month ago. He was an adult figure I looked up to when I first started getting involved in the Chinatown community while I was in high school. He was always interested in my artwork and was a collector of my posters. We kept in touch when he was assigned to Washington DC. I wanted to go to his memorial which was just this last weekend ...same day as Kimochi's Silver Bells. By the time I parked the car at the crafts faire, unload and set up...it was too late. Oh well...I'm sure Franklin would have understood. Don't worry Franklin...I still remember I still owe you that print of your father in front of the store... don't worry man, I will get on it!

3. Photo Retouching Sunny Leung, a fellow photographer, had me retouch a set of family portraits he did for the former interim San Francisciso Unified School superintendent, Gwen Chan and her family....so I did it the day before yesterday. Here's the before and after to show off my handiwork here...




...and it just so happened I went to my old junior high school Marina for a 75th anniversary celebration and who did I run into but Gwen Chan herself. No, I did not personally know her from before.




I introduced myself and told her what a coincidence that I was retouching her face, smoothing the skin, removing little moles and wrinkles the other day and now I run into the real Gwen Chan. Automatically Iooked at her moles and wrinkles on her face and wanted to get to work. Here she is next to a photo of her when she was a principal at Marina.

By the way... I am available for photo retouching services. Se hablo Chino.

4. Creative Work Fund Grant I got the grant from Creative Work Fund! I didn't think I was going to get it. But the sponsoring organization appear to be very good grant writers. For the next two years I am to work with APILO's youth group on coming up with a series of serigraphs addressing violence and the Asian American community.

The hard part is I lost the working space I had available to me at J-Town Arts which is where I was planning to implement this project. APILO said I can do it at their conference room in the basement. But it looks so neat and it's a pretty cramped space.

I can't say it's a lot of money and I hope it's not too demanding on my time. But I have a feeling it will.

5. WGUISFCT Winter Solstice Party I am hosting this party is going to happen on December 16th. I'm gonna be head chef'ing the event. We're going to make traditonal tong yuen (glutinous rice balls in soup), jiaozi (dumplings), huote (potstickers) and wonton noodles.

A lot of logistics involved in making 1200 dumplings. 800 dumplings, 800 potstickers.

6. Bill Yim of Hong Kong is coming to town!



Yes, you heard that right! He's coming on the 14th is going to be featured caricaturist at our WGUISFCT Winter Party! Bill is an old friend whom I've known for over twenty-five years. We've been in touch, though it's been a while since Bill came to San Francisco.

7. WGUISFCT 2nd Anniversary


The spectacular gala event was held at Pork Chop House. We fit forty seven people in that little restaurant. For $18, members were treated to a prime rib dinner, a big slice of Eastern Bakery coffee cake and a special commorative t-shirt.

8. 1982 at JAM Workshop

I am printing the Kimochi 1st Annual Cherry Blossom Run. These were the early days of my t-shirt printing career. I purchased that machine in 1981.

9. Toilet Roll Art

I want to do some kind of installation with all these toilet rolls and call it 'Faces of PMS'. A project to bring awareness of this conditon especially to young men who are not aware of this condition and wondering why women are so quirky.

10. Sketch'em Night at Pork Chop House

I have been trying to make it a habit to go to porkchop house on Friday evenings to draw and hopefully sell the drawing for $20-$25. So far hardly anyone shows up and no one has really purchased it directly from me. I sold these two when someone saw it online...but haven't delivered yet.





My appearance at Pork Chop house on Fridays have been sporadic too...if I have something else going that night, I won't be there. Like this Friday with the Winter Party. And the time is not consistant. I say I'll be there at 6pm...but often I wind up there after 8pm.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

J-Town Arts Monthly Sale and Men ArT Work





I didn't sell one piece of my artwork at the J-Town Arts monthly art sale. We only sold $10 for the whole day. There were hardly any people walking by on Sutter Street on a Sunday morning. Makes me begin to wonder if we should try another method to sell our art. I'm just trying to do good for J-Town Arts so that they can pay their rent.

Maybe we'll try a Saturday instead. We'll also try to sell online as well.


[Men_art_work] Here is a letter concerning my Men ArT Work workshop at J-Town Arts surprisingly from a J-Town Arts man (names withheld):



Leland,

If the shoe fits wear it. You keep putting yourself in that position by making polar opposites out of yourself and youth and women. YOU keep opposing THEM. It has NOTHING to do with that [community art group] model. The old people just left and the continuum between youth and community was lost. Let's face it. The new people in [community art group] have very different views of community. They were left on their own. Anyone who comes with US will meld with the past for the FUTURE. You can't keep living in the past. But if they come to us they will learn about history and the future also. We need their fresh technology and new experiences or we will just be like dead mummies. Our shit will fall by the wayside. We need them. They need us. And NEVER NEVER NEVER put down women. They have the most discipline and feeling for activism. They keep US awake. And you can see what happens when we are left by ourselves as men. We just cry about the old days and do nothing. When women come around we clean up and wake up. It is a big difference. Women are just as creative if not more than us. And young women have the technology to speak to a new time.
YOU are the one who makes OPPOSITES out of all these things. They don't put YOU down. You just have a guilt-complex and you put THEM down. I don't want to hear you cry about being put down and told to go away. You do it to yourself. Stop crying and face up to a new day. All right, Leland? No one is persecuting you. You are doing it to yourself. Wake up!!

[name withheld]

So...here I am...accused of hating woman and young people...wow. Makes me wonder why I should even continue to get involved with this community art groups. It's interesting that such criticism is coming from a man and not a woman.

Another man who listed the JTA workshops omitted the Men word from Men ArT Work I guess out of fear. It seems like the men at JTA has more of a problem with it than the women. The women have been very supportive of such a workshop.

Men ArT Work happens every second Monday at J-Town Arts, 1830 Sutter Street at 6pm. It's a workshop for Asian American men artists to get together and hopefully issues concerning the Asian American men artist will be naturally discussed in defining what art is to the Asian American man. We'll have food, refreshments (brewskies) and the wide screen TV in a relaxing and supportive environment. Come on by! No monku'ing.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

$ 220


Kind of disappointing to learn that I made only $220 after expenses on this mural/background project for the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Phoenix Rising -- Stage Background/Mural






I started out with a rough sketch on Monday night. Penciled and keylined it on Tuesday. Colored on Wednesday and Thursday. Detailing and touch up on Friday.