Last penpal trade of 2013 Seoul // Chicago!!!! Happy 2014~

Heui and I decided to choose a poem and illustrate it for our last drawing swap of the year 2013

I just received Heui's AMAZING illustration in the mail a few days ago, set to Korean poet Yoon Dong-Ju 's poem:

Prologue

Let me have no shame
Under the heaven
Till I die

Even the sound of wind
Passing the leaves
Pained my heart
With a heart singing stars
I will love all dying things
And I must step my path
That's been given to me

Tonight also

The wind sweeps past among the stars

Heui's illo is a beautiful vision of a beautiful poem :)

 I chose a poem by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova:

Your lynx-eyes, Asia,
spy on my discontent;
they lure into the light
my buried self,
something the silence spawned,
no more to be endured
than the noon sun in Termez.
Pre-memory floods the mind
like molten lava on the sands...
as if I were drinking my own tears
from the cupped palms of a stranger's hands.
   -- 1945

I tried out painting on this thin sheet of birch wood

We both wrote our translated poems on the back of the artwork! (and they both seemed to be very emotional poems...ahaha)

Back from a visit to Shanghai and Seoul + BLOOM kokeshi auction + old illos

The last two weeks I took a break from Vancity to visit Shanghai and Seoul and now I'm back! It was a really awesome and fun experience. I've been to Shanghai before a few years back and was excited to see how it's changed and of course to check out the local arts and culture scene. Sadly I wasn't able to stay for very long in Shanghai, but I got to explore Seoul for the first time and meet up with some very dear and old ECU friends! I have to say it is so much cheaper to party there compared to Vancouver...I actually got a little sick from staying out too late in Pusan, a reminder to never try to out-drink a Korean friend...ehehe. Anyways! - though I wasn't able to make many drawings as I had hoped, I did take lots of photos...more to come when I get all the film developed and scanned O_O I will probably post them on flickr. A sneak peek below... 

Shanghai:

(Those leftists!!)

Seoul:

(you can tell it was all about da food)

ALSO, last thursday evening Nikkei Museum held their BLOOM fundraising art auction. I got to hang out with my fellow artists and awesomely cool buddies Jody Kramer (of Juki Museum) and Jeff Chiba Stearns (of Meditation Bunny Studios) 

Some photos from the show:

(my doll hangin' out with Jenn Brisson and Brendan Tang's masterpieces!)

(and some old illos for CAP!)

 article about Vancouver Comic Arts Festival

article about students looking for summer jobs