For Ramla Roussel

The Sky Having Fallen, Have Clouds for Breakfast
21.4 x 29.5 cm
acrylic on paper
sue-ching you © 2008

Ramla and I had lunch together at Fritto Mistro. I was very surprised that she had been lived in various places: Germany for 2 years, several trips to Nepal from the past 10 years , India, China...

Ramla is an Angelina, and she used to work as an legal consultant before she came to the 18th Street Arts Center. She is a Tibetan Buddhism, and that is the reason why she has been traveling and living in Asia for years. She also is interested in studying Fengshui.

She asked me to paint "The sky having fallen, have clouds for breakfast". Ramla has been wanted to paint this optimistic attitude for a long time, and this attitude matches her personality well. She is a warm and soft spoken mom. Whenever I am around her, I feel calm and delightful. She has a very magical aura around her.

When the viewers see the paintings, I hope you will realize that an optimistic attitude is within yourselves. You are the one who is capable to see the bright side of any challenge. The painting is just a hint of reminder.

Miguel R.

Miguel came to the open studio for the first time with his family (wife and 4 children) on 9/27. This morning, he was trying to fix the Continuum's sky window, and he stopped by to borrow the switch and transmission in my studio.

Almost noon, I invited him for lunch, and we chatted a bit. Miguel's mom is from Oxaca, and his father is from Jalisco. They met in Yaqui, Sonora and got married there. His father is the only child in the family. It is not too hard to see why Miguel has 11 brothers and sisters. Each of them is 2 years apart -24 years age difference from the oldest sibling to the youngest.

Every year, a 7 days celebration of reunion takes place everywhere. Miguel told me that they would kill a cow in every hour to give a continuous feast for everyone. It was a celebration combining religion, tradition, feast, music, and dance, etc...

He visits Yaqui from time to time. It will take him driving 20 hours to get there from LA. He and his family usually leave at 3 am and arrive around 10 pm. Most of people in Yaqui seldom leave the place. It is a large closed community. A highway in between divides the people into two groups -east and west. People from the east do not do business, go to school, communicating with people from the west and vice versa. Miguel said during his elementary school years, he made some Native American friends, and they still keep in touch with each other. He visit them whenever he goes back to Yaqui.

He will let me know if he has a topic for me to paint and to participate this project.

note: He did not tell what to paint after that.

For Yvette Gellis

Wave

21 x 29.5 cm

acrylic on paper

sue-ching you © 2008

Yvette is Vedran's neighbor, and we met at the Kim Light Gallery, a representative of Yvette's large scale paintings. The first impression that Yvette gave me was lively and warm. Since last month, she has showed us around the city and visited China Town, Beverly Hills, and the Getty Villa. Today we went to Torrance Art Museum (TAM) for a Curator's Talk with the Artist-Eric Johnson. TAM is a nice boutique like museum. Yvette would like to have an exhibition there someday.

Vedran said that Yvette is a curious person and she has great potential to be successful. Yvette used to be a dancer, actor, opera singer, and a model. She chose to be an artist because painting to her is an ultimate combination of performance, musical, and personal expression that can be last for a life time. She likes to talk about her family, especially her children. When she is around, it's never dull. She likes to laugh a lot, too.

She asked me to paint about "immigrant" from a female perspective. She is going to send the painting to her best friend in Napa, California. Her friend is also an artist, and she believes her friend will be able to contribute some great opinions to this project.

note from 11/7:

A few days ago, Yvette told me that she would create another painting for responding my painting for her, and she would submit our paintings to the Korean Cultural Center Art Gallery's Call for Participation-Women Artists on Immigration. I show her the finished painting today, and she likes it. I really think that she understands those unspoken words in it. A BEAUTIFUL collaboration project!

For Yumi Takayama

Sasha
26 x 29.3 cm
acrylic on paper
sue-ching you © 2008

Yumi went to the same college with me. We have a mutual friend, Francoise. When Francoise knew that I was going to be in Santa Monica. She gave me Yumi's e-mail, and we met again for the very first time after graduation in 1999.

She now lives in Santa Monica, married and have a two-year-old daughter. We had lunch together for catching up updates from each other.

She asked me to paint her daughter and she will give the painting to a couple who made the announcement of husband and wife for them at the wedding ceremony.