Show & Tell
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Mike Driver
pixel skylines
No title available
bliss lane
Cosimo Galluzzi
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
ojovivo
todays bird
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
RMH
No title available
Interview Vampire Daily
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Noah Kahan
Kiana Khansmith
Not today Justin
art blog(derogatory)
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Armenia
seen from United States
seen from Vietnam
seen from Morocco
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Iraq
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Malaysia
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
@fionaycpsarts-blog
I went to my friend's koto performance at the Clarice on April 28th. It was a really beautiful cultural performance. The koto players wore traditional Japanese clothing and the singer sang in Japanese too. It was a wonderful experience and I'm very glad I got to see my friend play.
This is the current exhibit at Stamp Gallery. The event is called "Residuum," and was curated and set up by MFA students here at the University of Maryland. My personal favorite is a piece called "I Can Only See Oranges" by Jeremy Kunkel. The piece consists of many orange circular objects suspended by fishing line from the ceiling. There is a distorted face on the wall that makes it seem as if it is blowing the oranges away, or creating them. It is a delightfully surreal and interactive exhibit.
Project Pitch
My project focuses on the intersection of language and human connection. It explores exactly how it is that language enables us to communicate to others, and how losing the connection of language means isolation and regret. It also explores family, and how family connections endure even in the face of adversity.
First, we have to begin with some background. I am Chinese, and I speak Cantonese - a dialect of Chinese. I used to be fluent in the language, as a product of growing up in a family of mainly Cantonese speakers. Then I started going to elementary school. Almost immediately, I began speaking mostly English, even at home. My father protested this at first. That conflict culminated in a fight where I proclaimed my identity as American, not Chinese, and dismissed the need to know Cantonese or learn Mandarin. But most of the loss of my language wasn’t as dramatic, nor was it an act of rebellion. I lost it because I didn’t speak it. Over the years, I began understanding and speaking it less and less. This led to several consequences.
First, my mother began speaking English more and more in order to keep up with me and my sister. I didn’t notice this until I began this project, quite honestly. A few weeks ago I was at home and talking to my mother, and noticed that her sentences were mostly English words, with Cantonese sprinkled in. Until now, I had simply assumed she was speaking Cantonese, or at the very least a liberal mix of both Cantonese and English. But no. Her vocabulary now is mainly English.
Second, my father retreated. He still speaks to me and my sister mostly in Cantonese, and disdains English at home. This has led to a disconnect between us. We don’t speak a lot at home. The language barrier remains impenetrable between us. I don’t understand a lot of Cantonese; he doesn’t understand a lot of English. Because of these two barriers, we aren’t very close.
Third, I ended up not having much communication with my grandparents. I can still speak to my father in English; conversations aren’t impossible. However, my grandparents only speak Cantonese. They understand very limited English. This means that conversations between us have ended up being the bare minimum of communication. I simply don’t have the vocabulary to talk to them. Words that I know in English shrivel up in Cantonese. It’s extremely frustrating too, because often I just barely know the word. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I just don’t have the confidence to say it and get it wrong, or I simply can’t remember it. Car rides with my grandparents, or meals with them - which we have every weekend or so - are quiet, strained affairs. It’s painful. I feel guilt every time.
So I resolved to do this project because of that guilt and sadness. Human connection is so important, and the distinct lack of it in my closest family was a source of stress for me. So I decided to try and do something about it. For my capstone, I decided to interview my grandparents and create portraits of them.
Over the course of the project, however, certain things changed. My central thesis about connection and language didn’t. However, I did start with a focus on my grandparents specifically, since I felt the most distance with them. But that changed when I did the interviews. I ended up conducting the interviews round-table, conference style instead of individually. Mostly, it was because I realized their answers would be mostly the same as each other’s. Another change is that I had my parents in the interviews, and they talked in the interviews too. I didn’t come into this thinking I would evaluate my relationships with my parents, but I’m glad I did. It gave me pause realizing that my inability to speak Cantonese had affected my relationships with them too.
My interviews were about my grandparents’ experiences immigrating to America. I asked them about how they felt coming to America, where they lived, how they worked - but I also asked them about the language barrier that exists between them and other Americans. All my grandparents talked about working in Chinese restaurants, which didn’t require them to speak English and surrounded them with other Chinese people. They talked about feeling regret about not speaking English - my grandpa said, at one point, “It’s too late for me to learn. I’m too old.” They also spoke about duty and family, how they came so their children would have opportunities, and how they worked late nights so they could send their children to school.
I paired my grandparents in their portraits, instead of doing singular portraits. I also decided to do portraits of my parents and one of myself. These choices spoke to the theme of family that I had in this project - the importance of the family unit and the connections between all these individuals.
At the end of the interviews, my grandpa on my father’s side said, “你想去吃午饭吗？/ Would you like to go to lunch with us sometime?”
I said, “是 / Yes.”
Second Look Reflection
The Second Look presentation was really important for me in terms of getting my peers’ feedback. I really like hearing other people’s ideas on what parts of my project could be improved upon. For instance, someone brought up the point that I’d need to incorporate the interviews somehow. After a bit of discussion and with input from others, I finally landed on editing a short video of my interviews, with subtitles on screen. That bit of feedback was very helpful.
I also clarified my vision for Academic Showcase and Artsfest. It was just really helpful being able to hear what other people thought of my project!
Advisor Conference Reflection
When I met with Heather, I hadn’t fully realized my vision for ArtsFest - mostly because I hadn’t had to. I hadn’t forced myself to come to terms with the practical necessities of ArtsFest and Academic Showcase. Things like shelves and tables and power outlets were all considerations I hadn’t even thought about. Additionally, the way I was going to mount my pieces drastically changed. For instance, I realized that I could do a family tree design - the perfect thematic and visual vehicle for my project - but also realized that I would have to do a self-portrait.
Overall, the advisor conference was very helpful and very clarifying. I realized a lot of things about my project that I needed to do.
On Saturday I watched Captain Marvel. It wasn't the best Marvel movie I've ever watched, but it was still an amazing experience just because she was a female superhero, taking up narrative space and a movie of her own. One moment that particularly resonated was the climax between Carol and Yon-Rogg. Upon seeing that he is outmatched, Yon-Rogg drops his weapon and raises his fists and challenges Carol to fight without her powers.
She replies, "I have nothing to prove to you."
It was an incredibly powerful character moment. That line felt very true to the character and to women's experiences in general. When we win, they change the rules. Carol stood up and said no.
These are watercolors I did over winter break for Christmas cards. I was really proud of the way I created a mood - cold and cozy at the same time, which is the epitome of Christmas. I gave them to my family. It gave me a lot of joy to create these and give them out.
I posted these as inspiration to myself to try more watercolors and, especially, to try more landscapes. Also as a reminder to work on some things. I need more contrast in my watercolors (and drawings in general). Overall, though, I'm happy with how these turned out.
I went to the Stamp Gallery's exhibition on Visualizing Narratives: Shaping Resistance and was impressed by the symbolic importance of the art there. My favorite one was an art piece set in an Afrofuturistic setting. It was a number of newspapers with headlines saying things like, "FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH DISCOVERED IN BLACK SKIN." It really made me think about a future where dark skin is embraced and loved - in contrast to today.
I went to the CSA Lunar Banquet and for the first time since I was a child, I saw a lion dance. It was a really beautiful and fun experience. I was among lots of Chinese students for the first time in a long time and I felt like I really embraced my culture and met new people. I'm glad I went to this event.
I went to see Crazy Rich Asians with friends. It was an incredible experience. I waited for a ridiculously long time to see it, but I don't know why. After seeing the movie, all I wanted to do was watch it again. It felt true and loving and well-made. As an Asian American, I enjoyed every reference they made to Chinese culture. I liked being able to understand some of the Chinese they spoke. Overall, it was a fantastic movie and I plan on seeing it again.
The bassoon is a unique instrument. Going in, I didn't know what to expect from this performance. I found that the bassoon is a woodwind instrument that sounds a little like a clarinet, and that it evokes the sounds of childhood cartoons. Specifically, the soundtrack of Tom & Jerry, where the music ebbed and flowed with the actions of the characters. It was a cartoonish noise. At one point, the bassoonist was accompanied by a pianist. Unfortunately, the pianist eclipsed him at parts. However, it was still an enjoyable performance.
I personally haven't been to a piano recital since I was 6 years old and performing at one myself. However, I've alway enjoyed listening to the piano. Its music can be so powerful in the right hands - and Richard Goode is a master of the instrument. At times, the music built and built until it reached a stunning crescendo. It was a beautiful thing to witness. I left feeling enlightened.
In the lobby of McKeldin library, there is an exhibit about student protests on campus. It is a thorough, intensely personal history of the school - or as it is called in the poster, "the quiet school of cows." I find it inspiring that the school has had such a long history of activism, and that students these days have precedent. I like to imagine alumni cheering them on. All in all, I loved the fierceness and youth and vigor in the pamphlets and flyers.
I attended the show "Pink Is A Color That Feels Like Love" at the Stamp Student Union. It was an enlightening and interactive show. I enjoyed especially the journals, where you wrote your perceptions of each color. The art pieces were also very aesthetically pleasing: bright colors, reflective pieces, layered materials. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
This was easily my favorite art exhibit this year. Media Lux was a fascinating, trippy experience that left me quietly contemplative and charmed. For instance, there’s one exhibit where you walk into a “cave” of some sort. The walls are projected with a blue, moving film. I don’t even know how to describe it, but when I was in there, I lost all sense of time and space. There is a very real danger of walking into a wall, just because you don’t really know where the end of the cave is. There’s also an exhibit comprised of a white box, dotted with holes through which light is projected. This has the effect of throwing star-like patterns up on the walls. I was oddly moved by this; it was very dainty and beautiful. This whole exhibition was truly a visual experience.
The sharp, cutting commentary by the three comedians at the Spring Comedy Show was delightful. I felt honored to see Vanessa Bayer and Alex Moffat in person. Their humor was a little offbeat and surrealist in a hilarious way. It made light of some of the more serious things in life and allowed us a humorous perspective on several issues, such as trying to get hired, walking home at night, and bad roommates. I walked away from this event feeling thoroughly uplifted.
Melancholy was a bizarrely surreal play that was funny and touching in equal parts. It reminded me of a Salvador Dalí painting: there has to be a deeper meaning somewhere, behind the strange things going on at the surface level, but you just can't parse it right now. The play deals with depression in a frank and funny way, and with the help of the metaphor of an almond. It's as strange as it sounds, but definitely worth it to go see it.