Kent R. Wallis is currently a member of the prestigious Society of American Impressionists, as well as the Society of Plein Air Painters of America. Being captivated and then following the great painters of the 19th century, he painted the surrounding countryside near his rural home. While I more or less try to convey a message or an internal struggle of myself through my art works, the pure and quite scenes he depicts in his painting brings me comfort and delight in viewing. To me what is interesting about him is that he was a professional in the business world who had never picked up a paintbrush twenty years ago. According to his retrospects, it were some other people’s works that inspired him to start his art career. He proved me that art is a latent talent that lies inside everyone, but only a few uncover this hidden ability of creating art. I am really grateful that I have this environment and condition which allows me to paint, to sculpture, to draw, and to create art.

Possibility

        After this college application trek, I, although released, have no idea where my future is going to fall into. MIT, Williams, UMich, UCB, USC, BC, squash, basketball, rowing? I do not know where these schools and activities will lead me to. The future is always full of infinite possibilities, but the actual number of possible outcomes decreases as I grew up. I can dream about anything when I was young. Everything just seemed so possible at that point of my life. The reality, however, has been pulling me to be more and more realistic. I cannot be an astronaut because I have a scar on my face; I cannot be a pilot because I am shortsighted; I cannot be the president of America because I am not American. One can argue that there are still so many possible things left I can strive for, but at this moment of life, waiting for the college results and still taking seven courses so that I do not slack off for my senior spring, I cannot imagine my life after graduation. I am like a puppet hanging on balloons, who does not have control on where he is flying to but will fall if he cuts the strings. Therefore, he would have to hope he is flying to somewhere he wished for. 

        The first three pieces of my possibility concentration works were done on sketch papers with pencils. Outcomes of rolling a die, tossing a coin, and drawing cards from a deck of cards are all possibilities. My fourth piece of this project will be a collage. Students in high school will receive tons of college booklets, introductions, descriptions of their campus, academic quality, sports, and etc. While I try not to deny that some of them might be helpful, none of them brought me anything useful. It seems to be that all colleges are identical according to their slogans. 

Senior fall swung by drastically and dramatically. It was a period of time even the most draggy and sluggish guy started to be sensitive about time and dates. Grades, SATs, Toefls, extracurriculars, transcripts, emails, basketball, rowing, and etc are like loaded pistols pointing at me. If one of them goes off accidentally, I am...They are like those black monsters in the TEMPLE RUN, chasing me incessantly. They are deadlines which are constantly drawn behind my heels. However, I am not the guy in Temple Run but the guy playing; I have the control of my life, fortunately.But anyway, the guns are still there. There are fifteen days left on my calander before the deadlines for regluar decision, thirty days left before the mid-term exams, four months before the results are released, six months before high school graduation. 

The winter sports season has just started since this Monday. The transition from after-school Art to Varsity Basketball is quite drastic. While I was still doing some sedentary work-- painting and drawing--last week in the art studio, I am suddenly standing on the basketball court and hustling with guys who are a head taller than me. Don't worry. I have the agility and the strength.

Ms. Almighty-Smith  talked to me last week about doing this TRANSPARENCY project by performance art. Although I don't feel like coming up with any ideas how I would perform now, performance art is definitely something I will try in the future.

Yesterday, I was thinking about swirling some wires to make some letters or words in form of shadow under lights. However, after I tried so, I found it too difficult and time-consuming to make the wire irrecognizable and the shadow under the wire readable. Again, I will try this form of art later this year if I were to be given some free or independent time in class.

Lastly, I remebered my previous blog post about my mother. (This is a good thing about blog post that as I record my ideas down, I can trace these thoughts on my blog--gratitude to Ms. Smith.) I am going to do some, about four, water color paintings to show my mother's unrequired love to me. As I grow older, I tend to complain more, appreciate less about her love, to which I turn a blind eye, since it is too common and too obvious in my everyday life.

Transparency

“There is a male artist… He lived for a period of time in a big box made of glass so that other people are able to see through and know what he is doing inside that confined room.” This is the part of the discussion I caught between Ms. Smith and other students last week in class while I was working on my painting. To be quite honest, “pervert” and “weirdo” were the two words for that female artist as well as for people who would like to watch him that came up to my mind at that moment. However, I started to understand this when I was watching other people playing squash in the other day.

As an audience, I was no different from those people who had watched that artist. On the one hand, we, people who are outside of the box, are interested in find out what is going on in that small space. This is the point where the wall made of glass plays an important role; the transparency allows us, the audience, to look through. On the other hand, we enjoy the fulfillment of knowing everything of that limited space and the sense of being omniscient. We suppose that they do not know about us as much as we know about them since we gratuitously believe that the world we are living in, contradicting to their small boxes, is too big to know well. However, the fact is that there is no difference between the people inside and the people outside. As soon as they walk out of that space, he squash players and that artist both live in the same world as we do. It is just the matter of the transparency of the wall.

My point is that we, mankind, are all living in a confined world. But the walls that confine us are too transparent to realize and see, or we have gotten used to live with limited space. Unlike the squash players and the artist who clearly know where that transparent exit door is, we do not. The path of escaping from the stereotype as well as from this “imprison” is almost extremely difficult yet still possible.  

My initial plan for this painting of rowing is to show the abysmal condition of rowers on erg and to try a different painting style. I was petrified by the difficulty of abstract painting; I have always thought that those who do abstract things are just unable to paint or draw realistically. But this painting has proved  my misconception.

Unlike realistic painting which contains a sufficient amount of details for people to read, abstract painting somehow needs to be laconic yet still makes good sense to readers.

Anyway, although this painting of rowing does not turn out to be as abstract as I initially planned, I enjoy it a lot. It really demonstrates my pain while erging.

I just finished talking to my mother, shouting, may I clarify. Like always, I felt so awful during the talk and even more awful after this talk. As I recall our conversation as well as conversations we had before this one, I do not understand why I get so mad every time I talk to her. But as soon as I hanged up my phone, regrets prevailed in my heart. She is always so kind on the other side of the phone, seven thousand miles away in China. She would have shouted back if we were to talk face to face. But she did not do so in the phone. She is always so patient in the phone maybe because she does not want us not to talk to each other for a month, maybe because she feels it enough for her to hear my voice, no mater nice or mean, maybe because she does not want me to have no one to turn into when I have a hard time here in Tabor, maybe because she understands that I am not in a good mood every time I talk to her, maybe because she is my mom. I hope she understands how much I love her even though I shout at her in the phone, hope she still loves me as much as she did before the phone call, hope she does not cry alone on the other side of the phone, and hope she is happy and healthy with or without me on her side.

“Please, just a little more patience next time.”