Following suit, I decide to reveal a little bit of myself in posting the following pictures (explanation follows). Thanks, Co KC, for showing us how our relationship with space can become recordation of life.
ABOVE:
--the view of a college days' workspace in what appears to be an apartment setting: perhaps this is what college days often look like for a humanities-and-fine-arts major: glass jars for flower vases, rugs, and big pillows on the floor!
--a view of the entrance to my little gallery in Denver, Colorado during my law professorship. There, I literally lived in my gallery in a gated building in Cherry Creek (the only Vietnamese who lived in that area, so I had no choice but to celebrate my solitude away from "Vietnam town"!). Yes, I lived in my gallery. (Much of the artwork on display has since been lost due to interstate and inter-continental moves).
--me in between Matisse in Paris' museum and art scenery (There I stood, on flat shoes and in a bulky black wool coat, in my beloved Paris!)
--my studio work space in Paris (you can see two of my original posters and my notebook; this was where I wrote my mind-challenging and heartfelt article on legal measures against human trafficking (published by Seattle University) during my leave of absence/research residence in Paris. There, in that stark space, I also painted "The Three Magnolias" "Dalat" and "Four Vietnamese women: Past and Future"), displayed in the bedroom reserved for the sweetest daughter I loved. (In such a sparse environment, Paris is just...like any place in urban transient lives, but memory of neighborhood croissants, baguettes, and Charlottes and the sweetness of daughter-mother relationship is forever!)
-- my love for roses (there were roses from my own front and backyard in Texas, which have all died after my mother's illness due to lack of care. Care went to her, and no longer roses (This reminds me of the poignance of St. Exupery's Little Prince, the lonely traveller of space, forever young, forever pure, forever devoted, whose mission in life is to care for his one rose! I painted him, too, in his day and in his night, standing alone with his rose against the universe! My "Little Prince and His Rose was painted in 2015, after I had learned what it meant to care for your loved one, to whom you would readily give up your own life, and that is a privilege not all of us can have! My mother, that is.). I think all forms of love are the same, measured only by the boundless love between mother and daughter, as love is evidenced by giving and never by taking.
--my favorite red bud tree overlooking a tranquil little lake in my backyard (I painted a version of my peach tree, based on the view of this red bud tree, just this week).
(Roses and Eastern red bud trees were brought into the settings for several scenes in my novel (remember Mimi was the woman who ate her rose during a romantic dinner, and Simone was the woman who woke up to her pink magnolia and red bud trees, and the silhouette of her aging mother walking among long-stem roses reminded her of the family mission of finding the magnolia tree of the past).
--a view of the breakfast area/glass table overlooking a side yard.
--a view of a piano in crowded space behind a "barricade" of "roses!"
(Lovers of contemporary mid-20th century visual art would recognize that the patterns and colors of the fabric chosen for the window valance came from several pieces of Picasso's cubism on women, and the fabric used for window decoratives actually match the colors from one of Van Gogh's most famous pieces (scene of an empty street corner, late at night, brightened by stars -- you know which piece I am referring to!).
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