No one believes me, even myself. Most people cannot imagine that calligraphy could be this way. I don’t believe it, but I conceived it. Everything seemed fated, but from the beginning, I didn’t know it. Fate provided a very special path for me. In the early years, I thought nothing was more thrilling than fighting destiny.
In 1977 my entire family moved to New York from Hong Kong. My first job in New York was driving around Chinatown, delivering goods to restaurants, and very routine. No one thought that after so many years I could be an artist. Finally my childhood fantasy became reality.
No one believes me when they hear of my academic background. Half of my friends have their PhD, even my sister. When they ask me where I studied, who I studied with or what kind of degree I hold, their only response is “you are joking” to my reply. After primary school, I began to work. By the time I approached 30, I saw my future, like a movie I had seen so many times before. Everything was fixed, predictable, and very depressing. Was this my life? Often reflecting on that special period of time, I think maybe I shouldn’t ask what is the meaning of life.
I don’t believe it. How come freedom is so difficult to attain? I walk in a lonely land without any support, with art as my only ally. When I look back today, I can’t believe the huge sacrifice it took to gain the little piece of freedom to do what I wanted to do.
Following my own artistic instincts, I was met by adversity, cynicism and doubt from the outside. Especially calligraphy friends looked down on me. To them, the line I created was so simple and easy that anyone could make it. But what they didn’t realize was the challenge in arranging simple lines together in order to make it all work. The line was not the primary factor, and making it work required theoretical development and technical reconstruction. The most challenging time was working an average of 16 hours a day in the studio, and for ten days nothing came out right and everything had to be destroyed.
No one believes it. Not because the lack of formal education liberated me from the mental box that the system puts on so many people. It is because the result, the freedom to construct something progressive, extending from the traditional. Through the creative exploration, I came to understand the meaning and technique behind and beyond the tradition of calligraphy and can discuss or debate my work with any scholar.
No one believes I could create so many different script styles, especially those who understand that calligraphy comes from internal senses. Some may appreciate my work from the aesthetic aspect or theoretical viewpoint; they may grasp the contribution of my work to the evolution of calligraphy, but this is only one dimension. However it is my history, the number of places and various locations I’ve lived, the experiences I’ve encountered, how extreme my life has been which has fed me. How could I enjoy a living hell? How could I stay in heaven with a devil? Fate revealed her unique sense of humor by offering me all this as my muse that I love.