Okay, this is getting liiiiittle crazy!
I was told yesterday morning that my Yao Ming portrait video was featured on Gizmodo, and I thought, 'hey...they're quite a well-known site, right?' (sorry, bimbo-moment!). I called one of my techie friends and he sounded way more excited than me, and told me that 'they're not big; they're HUGE!'.
Next thing I knew, my views shot up from 12k to 50k in a matter of a few hours, and the video was featured on the Huffington Post and Yahoo and NBC! I couldn't wrap my head around what was gong on before my eyes. The next crazy thing: Good Morning America and ABC news contacted me to request permission to show the video on their channels! I'm totally blown away by the power of social media. All I did was shared my youtube link on my facebook page, and the rest happened from there. I was totally not expecting this - I'm really overwhelmed and extremely nervous - I'm getting mostly good, but some bad (and rude!) comments - and I guess I have to realise I can't please everyone!
I am so so so thankful for the encouragements, comments, video-sharing and emails...I'm really blessed by you, and by God. Thank you!
Yours,
RED! :)
ps: I've placed all the media articles under the tab MEDIA on the top of my site!
pps: I wish I worked on my dribbling skills more - this was shown on some ESPN and NBA sites and viewers were laughing about my sloppy dribbling towards the end, haha
ppps: would love to stay connected! Here's my Facebook page!
Jan 26, 2012
Jan 13, 2012
Painting with a Basketball - Yao Ming Portrait
The first time I attempted this was about 2 weeks ago, at the little laneway where I did my Ai Wei Wei portrait. I had all my tools, everything was laid out on the floor, and the videographer was ready. However, 10 seconds into the project and it was already a big fail - the wind was super strong, and all 12 pieces of paper (it was double the size of the painting above!) were blown away. I was really disappointed, and doubts started creeping in...was I able to do this?
That night in bed I flipped through my journal, and re-read what I wrote on new years day. My resolution as of 2012 is to organise my first personal art exhibition...to put time and effort into my passion for the arts. I thought about what happened that afternoon, and told myself that I should try again. And trying again may mean trying again and again.
So the next weekend, Joel and I went to another place to get this done. I reduced the scale of my canvas by half, and prayed that there wouldn't be wind. And guess what? Everything went incredibly smoothly; you can't imagine how relieved and happy I was! :)
A big big big thank you for all the kind comments and support from the Facebook community, and if you got to this page through other sites like 9gag.com, thank you for taking interest in my work! And of course, there wouldn't be this video if not for my good friend Joel Lee who shot and edited this video! :)
ps: Just an interesting note - Joel was the one who first started calling me 'Red'!
pps: I'm featured here on Feel Desain! :)
Dec 28, 2011
Advertising Myself at Shanghai's Marriage Market
Go to People's Park 人民公园 during the weekends and you'll see hordes of middle-aged people, chatting with each other. The noise, excitement and crowd makes you wonder if you've stepped into an outdoor market...but there aren't any veggies or meat or fruits in sight. Instead, these guys are trying to advertise people.
Yes, you read that right. PEOPLE.
Hundreds of posters are displayed by worried parents, in hopes that their children might have an opportunity to find a good partner in the Market. The crazy thing is, many of these candidates do not know that they're being advertised here - nosy parents sneakily try to match-make them and set up blind dates for them. You can even pay an agent to help you suss out potentials. Each poster displays the profile of the candidate in simple phrases.
The photo above shows some typical posters in the Market, with the one in the middle stating,
"Male. born 1972. 1.72m tall. Works for Shangqi Group. Earns 12-15k yuan a month. Owns a car. Owns a house. Requirements: Around 5 years younger. Willing to have kids."
You may already be gawking in disbelief by now, but there are some other pretty ridiculous ones like, 'must have perfect eye-sight', 'must be around 1.65m tall', 'must be born in the year of the dog', 'must earn more than 10k yuan per month', 'must have big eyes'.
And I thought I was picky!
My grand-aunties occasionally nag that I should find time to get a partner soon, so I thought I'd show them that I have actually been putting effort into my love life (which is non-existent btw. Good men! Where are you!?!?), so I advertised myself! While a typical girls' poster would mention stuff like, 'polite', 'makes good wife and daughter-in-law', 'can cook' etc...here's what mine wrote:
'Female. Born 1986. High-school grad (i mistook 大专for masters grad). Loves to eat. Very lazy. Requirements: Must look like Wang Lee Hom. Must be able to sing like Jay Chou.'
Subsequently I added my phone number (which many candidates have included too):
'123 456 7890'
Ha. This should be able to teach these ShanghaiNING weirdos a lesson for being so serious about something so ridiculous!
So I held up my poster, walked around, fully expecting that whoever read it would throw dirty glances at me,disgusted by my incompetency at being a good wife and by how shallow I am. Instead, what happened next traumatised me.
Men started following me around, asking for my REAL number, and whether I really was interested! At first, I responded by proudly declaring (with hand on hip), "I'm super lazy! I can only cook instant noodles! I hate cleaning!" but these Shanghainese men responded by saying, "No problem - I can do ALL of those!"
OMG. My little prank was an EPIC FAIL. How could I forget that Shanghainese men are known to be super submissive, handbag-toting, and can MA DA SAO (meaning 'wash clean cook')?!?!?!
So I spent the rest of my time in the park trying to get some photos taken (thanks Joel!) while running away from many, many men.
I found a spot by a pond, and Joel and I laughed about this mad experience. Out of nowhere, this man came over, expressed his interest, and just as I was about to take flight, he dabbed some wax onto my leather shoes.
"If you don't want me, it's okay, I help you clean shoes. Only 10 yuan."
He seemed like he had a good heart. I could have dated him, but he was no Wang Lee Hom!
_
If you want to go:
The "Marriage Market" takes place every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from noon till about 5 p.m. at the north end of People’s Park (人民公园, 75 Nanjing Lu, near Huangpi Bei Lu 南京西路75号, 近黄陂北路) The closest metro station is Metro Line 1, 2 and 8 People’s Square Station.
_
To read more, go to this article at CNNGO.com.
Yes, you read that right. PEOPLE.
Hundreds of posters are displayed by worried parents, in hopes that their children might have an opportunity to find a good partner in the Market. The crazy thing is, many of these candidates do not know that they're being advertised here - nosy parents sneakily try to match-make them and set up blind dates for them. You can even pay an agent to help you suss out potentials. Each poster displays the profile of the candidate in simple phrases.
The photo above shows some typical posters in the Market, with the one in the middle stating,
"Male. born 1972. 1.72m tall. Works for Shangqi Group. Earns 12-15k yuan a month. Owns a car. Owns a house. Requirements: Around 5 years younger. Willing to have kids."
You may already be gawking in disbelief by now, but there are some other pretty ridiculous ones like, 'must have perfect eye-sight', 'must be around 1.65m tall', 'must be born in the year of the dog', 'must earn more than 10k yuan per month', 'must have big eyes'.
And I thought I was picky!
My grand-aunties occasionally nag that I should find time to get a partner soon, so I thought I'd show them that I have actually been putting effort into my love life (which is non-existent btw. Good men! Where are you!?!?), so I advertised myself! While a typical girls' poster would mention stuff like, 'polite', 'makes good wife and daughter-in-law', 'can cook' etc...here's what mine wrote:
'Female. Born 1986. High-school grad (i mistook 大专for masters grad). Loves to eat. Very lazy. Requirements: Must look like Wang Lee Hom. Must be able to sing like Jay Chou.'
Subsequently I added my phone number (which many candidates have included too):
'123 456 7890'
Ha. This should be able to teach these ShanghaiNING weirdos a lesson for being so serious about something so ridiculous!
So I held up my poster, walked around, fully expecting that whoever read it would throw dirty glances at me,disgusted by my incompetency at being a good wife and by how shallow I am. Instead, what happened next traumatised me.
Men started following me around, asking for my REAL number, and whether I really was interested! At first, I responded by proudly declaring (with hand on hip), "I'm super lazy! I can only cook instant noodles! I hate cleaning!" but these Shanghainese men responded by saying, "No problem - I can do ALL of those!"
OMG. My little prank was an EPIC FAIL. How could I forget that Shanghainese men are known to be super submissive, handbag-toting, and can MA DA SAO (meaning 'wash clean cook')?!?!?!
So I spent the rest of my time in the park trying to get some photos taken (thanks Joel!) while running away from many, many men.
"If you don't want me, it's okay, I help you clean shoes. Only 10 yuan."
He seemed like he had a good heart. I could have dated him, but he was no Wang Lee Hom!
_
If you want to go:
The "Marriage Market" takes place every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from noon till about 5 p.m. at the north end of People’s Park (人民公园, 75 Nanjing Lu, near Huangpi Bei Lu 南京西路75号, 近黄陂北路) The closest metro station is Metro Line 1, 2 and 8 People’s Square Station.
_
To read more, go to this article at CNNGO.com.
Dec 1, 2011
SPIKE!
Since my post on the Ai Weiwei portrait I did, there has been a steady increase in my blog traffic. Today, however, my visitors tripled in numbers (and it's just mid-day!), and I'm not entirely sure which websites are responsible for this spike...Sitemeter tells me that most visitors most people are from the States and China. So if you're here for the first time, a big warm 'Hello!' and '你好!' to you!
I've had a very exciting past few weeks as I found out I was featured on a few design websites, including Feel Desain, Design You Trust, and Imagineers. Art Below also invited me to exhibit my work at the Angel Tube Station during the London Art Fair in January 2012! Some friends have shared my link on Facebook and on their blogs (thanks Sean!), and I'm really grateful for all the encouragement and support!
I've always dreamed of becoming an artist since I was a kid, and 6 months ago when I moved to China, I told myself I'd continue to pursue this dream. The goal is that before I leave China (in probably 1-2 years?), I would have held my own art exhibition. I've got a lot of ideas in my head, and will be setting aside a lot of time working the next few months working on my project of painting portraits of famous Chinese people. This weekend, I'll be working on a portrait of Yao Ming/ 姚明 and Luxun/ 鲁迅...and again, I won't be using any conventional painting methods with paint tubes and paintbrushes. It'll be interesting. And entertaining. So watch this space! :)
Nov 16, 2011
"Wei Wei Who?" "未未谁?"
If you've been following the news lately, or are working in a creative industry, you cannot NOT know who Ai Weiwei is!
Weiwei was recently named Artview's most powerful person in the art world, and is also in TIME magazine's Top 100 people of 2011, which is why I was really surprised when friends back in Australia only gave a 'huh?' response when I rambled on about his recent issues with the Communist Party of China. And when I accused them for living under a rock, the response was, "Hah...you're becoming too Chinese...who knows what's going on there?!" SIGH! That seems to be what everyone's been telling me when I go on about stuff going on around here!
Now, if you're clueless about who he is, I'll be nice and tell you a bit about him. :)
Weiwei is an artist, photographer and curator, best known for designing the Beijing Olympics Bird's Nest Stadium, a collaboration with Swiss starchitects Herzog and DeMeuron.
One of his most controversial works, "Dropping the Urn", shows photos of Weiwei nonchalantly dropping a priceless Han Dynasty urn. I'm not sure how you'd intepret it, but when asked, Weiwei said he did this on a whim, 'to show how gravity works'. Whoa. An apple would've been cheaper. I can't help but wonder how he was like as a kid. His poor mother!
At first glance it doesn't look like much - but take a closer look and you might notice that these are not actual seeds; they are hand-painted replicas made of porcelain. Weiwei gathered 1,600 people to to individually hand-make one hundred million seeds, to speak about the mass-production, 'Made in China' phenomenon taking place today.
I was inspired last weekend to do a portrait of Weiwei. Initially the idea was to just do a small A4 sized portrait of him, but then I thought I'd bring my materials out to the little lanes of my longtang and do a portrait of him in public...what an attention-seeker, huh? But Ai Weiwei does that too! Oh, guess what medium I used? No, not paint - that's so BOH-RING! - I collected 100,000/7kgs of sunflower seeds, and this is what I did:
My curious neighbours came over to check out what I was up to!
...and more curious people gathered around! Eventually, someone said, 'Hey! That's that Beijing artist...Ai Weiwei!' WHEW! At least someone could tell!
Da Popo: "Hmm...he looks cross-eyed. I think you need to move that eyeball to the right."
"Yes, much better!"
Weiwei was recently named Artview's most powerful person in the art world, and is also in TIME magazine's Top 100 people of 2011, which is why I was really surprised when friends back in Australia only gave a 'huh?' response when I rambled on about his recent issues with the Communist Party of China. And when I accused them for living under a rock, the response was, "Hah...you're becoming too Chinese...who knows what's going on there?!" SIGH! That seems to be what everyone's been telling me when I go on about stuff going on around here!
Now, if you're clueless about who he is, I'll be nice and tell you a bit about him. :)
Weiwei is an artist, photographer and curator, best known for designing the Beijing Olympics Bird's Nest Stadium, a collaboration with Swiss starchitects Herzog and DeMeuron.
One of his most controversial works, "Dropping the Urn", shows photos of Weiwei nonchalantly dropping a priceless Han Dynasty urn. I'm not sure how you'd intepret it, but when asked, Weiwei said he did this on a whim, 'to show how gravity works'. Whoa. An apple would've been cheaper. I can't help but wonder how he was like as a kid. His poor mother!
Another famous piece by Weiwei was his installation in the Tate Museum in London in 2010, 'Sunflower Seeds'.
At first glance it doesn't look like much - but take a closer look and you might notice that these are not actual seeds; they are hand-painted replicas made of porcelain. Weiwei gathered 1,600 people to to individually hand-make one hundred million seeds, to speak about the mass-production, 'Made in China' phenomenon taking place today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
