Artist Statement
It is January. Outside, the harsh winter wind rails against the icy windows of buildings shut tight against the cold. Jack Frost rushes by with the wind, tapping against the glass panes, trying to find any open crevice to creep in through.
Inside, the furnace full of molten glass rages on. The furnace is set at 2175ºF, and I am standing three feet away, dipping my pipe in for a third gather of glass. I can feel my flesh start to boil. I am trying to make a plate. A small, cool breeze drifts in through the window left slightly ajar. It feels good against my burning skin, though my core is still hot. I can’t help but think that I am like the glass that I am shaping: cold on the outside, hot on the inside. I shape and blow the material; near the end of the process, I examine the final product. She is perfect. I give her one final flash of heat, praying that when I give her to my assistant I do not sweat on the thin glass; she is still hot, but any shock of coldness, even from warm sweat, would crack the piece at this stage. I ask my assistant to open the window all the way, hoping that another cool breeze would cool my body enough to prevent that.
Outside, Jack Frost is delighted. He finally found a window cracked slightly open. As his frozen fingers touch the glass pane, a figure approaches from inside and pushes the window all the way open. He rushes in through the now fully open window.
Inside, I am swearing. A blast of cold wind had come in through the window just as I had brought the plate out from the heat, resulting in a large crack along the side of it. Now, I must decide whether to trash the imperfect plate and start over, or quickly reimagine the piece and make something new. As always, I choose the latter option. I cut another line at an angle towards the crack, joining the cut and the crack at the center. The slice falls to the ground. I now have a lily pad plate. She is beautiful.
As I rest after a long and very hot project, I reflect on the process. Jack Frost comes and goes through the open window. He may have destroyed my original vision, but I am glad he is here, both for my own now blistering skin and for making me think creatively. Glass, being a creature one communicates with rather than a material to be used, always keeps me on my toes. As an amorphous solid, it is constantly shifting and inherently unpredictable. Because of this, glass is a creature full of converging dualities: it can be cold and hot at the same time; it can move fast, and it can move slowly. When creating with glass, one must be patient while maintaining a sense of urgency. One must be aggressive, and gentle. This is why glass is my chosen medium: I respect and identify with its dualities. I am flexible with my work, allowing unpredictable errors and issues to appear; always considering them, not necessarily as a problem to be fixed, but as a potential detail to enhance the concept. At the same time, I am stubborn. When I have a vision for a project, I will stick to it until the final product reflects the feeling of the vision.
I make art that deals with and combines conflicting concepts: normal and neurodivergent; perception and reality; nature and urbanism; sexuality as a force that is both draining and empowering; identity that is both Chinese and US American. The themes of my pieces are eclectic, but they always address concepts of converging opposites.
Even outside of my work with glass, the concept of duality is ever-present in my conscious and subconscious life. My identity and experiences are rooted in binaries from which I draw the inspiration for my work. Working in glass has just heighted my awareness of dichotomy in my life: helped me recognize the presence of binaries; and understand when they are constructed vs. inherent, and where opposites merge.
I aim to use the compartmentalization of dichotomies to show that opposing concepts, ideas, and emotions can coexist. I use visual, auditory, and gustatory symbols to combat and combine with their opposites. The process is a balance, and hopefully the final pieces inspire conflicted emotions and thoughts in the viewer. Because I grew up being hyper-aware of my own dualities, I have become hyper-sensitive to the ones around me. I am aware that the idea of opposites is a social construct, and that the assumption that opposites are mutually exclusive is a fallacy. That awareness is what drives my artistic practice. The ideas and inspiration behind my body of work are always related to my thoughts on this subject and my desire to deconstruct the dichotomies.
