I can’t believe my name is next to this work. And that it’s really here and not a dream. I came to the gallery last week and the sculpture was still there - didn’t collapse or anything. I looked at it and wondered who did it. It’s so incredible - like the day my daughter was born and I stared at her like I couldn't believe she came out of me. And I got to take her home, as if she were mine, just as my name is attached to this piece. But in a deeper sense, neither my daughter nor my art are mine to begin with. I am a vessel, through which creation flows constantly from a source beyond me.

I am probably best known for the silkscreen work I have done up till 2003. They were mostly done for community events and causes. The themes of my artwork – women, family, culture, protests, and celebrations – are universal. I like to depict various emotional states and to evoke sensuality through curved shapes and fluid lines, with a minimum of detail. I favor the single image in my work, to have one figure or gesture be the symbol for universal truths.

My new piece is a drastic departure in media from the work I have done before; yet the aesthetic core is the same. I still favor a single spare focal point, but I am exploring 3-D mixed media installation work. In the past I have used the face or the figure as that representative image; now I am exploring abstractions. The new journey has led me to very unusual places; space awareness workshops, poetry workshops taught by a neuroscientist, mandala workshops, etc. have all played a part in this transition. The introduction of dance (salsa, swing, blues and improv R&B) in my life over the last 4 years, and the spatial awareness that it has evoked in me, has propelled me to think three dimensionally. 

On the practical side, I had to do extensive research and experimentation to realize this project. So I sought advice from many friends and colleagues who have done installation and sculptural work. My Buddhist studies were also useful. Buddhist notions of “Beginner’s Mind” are important here. There is playful exploration and engagement with the raw materials. I had to be willing to try new things, and practice non-attachment to fixed ideas or outcomes. Besides dance, I had taken space awareness workshops with one of my Buddhist teachers in Seattle, which gave me a sense of place in 3-D space.

The question posed by APOHO is a very profound one. If you had a place of your own, what would it be? Even though I had been one of the originators of the project, I had no idea how to respond. The process of contemplation on this question took about 8-9 months, with me first just sitting with the question and not even consciously trying to shape it into an art form.

Eventually, an intuitive feeling of a gesture grew inside me and wanted to come out in physical form. Then I was ready to seek a community of support to midwife it. But there were other trails on this journey, which I pursued before paring my ideas down to this one image.

I started contemplating on the question by thinking about my own physical space and what it would be like. I never had a physical place of my own – I was always living with people. A Place of My Own is one where there is no other sound other than what I want to hear, no other voices but my own. What would be in this space, what would I bring in? There’d be flowers, fountains, plants, sunlight, jewel-toned colors, art, etc. Lots of bookcases and warm wooden decor. Much less machinery and cold black things.

In the contemplation of the physical place I also thought about where I come from – the place where I was born and how I got here. I started a series of key remembrances, called Colors of Memory. Each memory is a color of a memory.

The psychological space is a place where I am nakedly facing me, before a mirror that reflects everything back, the pleasant and the not so pleasant. It’s a peeling away of layers of judgments and conditioning put on me by myself and others. It involves dragging things out of the darkest corners and bringing them to light, then blessing them and letting them go. It’s a hard and painful process. Having my own place in this context means to embrace all that I am – physical scars, psychological wounds, and all – and to love myself as is. My artwork is the expression of this ever-evolving journey of longing for acceptance and love from the inside. My depictions of joyful affirmation are really a prayer.

The spiritual aspect of the journey is to find my place in relationship to the world, and to the natural order of the universe. I am not I alone; we are all interconnected and interdependent. The quest for a place of my own has to also be a quest for a place where I am not taking myself too seriously, where my ego is not made stronger but more transparent as I delve deeper on the path.