Tyrus

I started to visit the beach in Santa Monica to photograph Tyrus Wong at the suggestion of Sonia Mak, a wonderful art & community-oriented curator and former Curator of the Chinese American Museum in downtown LA.

Tyrus is now 100 and going strong into his 101st year (next birthday in October!). Retired from the world of animation, illustration and design well over 30+ years ago, Tyrus first took up fishing and then, making and flying kites, the work often related to traditional Chinese kite-making process and design. The Disney animator responsible for the look of Bambi, Tyrus' influence on mid-century and possibly culture in general is significant for a Chinese immigrant of his generation - those who came into adulthood during the years of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Sonia tells me, as she prepares for ‘Round the Clock: Chinese American Artists Working in Los Angeles, a show she is curating in Los Angeles for the new Vincent Price Museum at East Los Angeles College and one in which I hope a photo or two of my work about Tyrus will be in, that Tyrus is one of the few artists who would not fluff over the fact that he was Chinese born, even though he arrived in Los Angeles as a young boy.

I have provided background on Tyrus several times on my SaraJaneboyersAloudBlog, most significantly on 1 January 2010, but since I continue to marvel at the draw at the beach every fourth Saturday, wanted to post a quick composite of his "retirement" here: the kites at the beach.

The artist is always present in Tyrus' kites and the man, now approaching his 101st year, continues to dominate. It is due to his art and his character that each time I venture out to the beach to visit, artists, photographers, writers, friends and family and other kite makers appear along with the always varying beachgoers of all ages who stop for a moment, look to the sky and dream.

Chinatown: Definition

I am often asked how many Chinatowns I've visited so far. I am never sure I like the count for each neighborhood/community is not something I want to "notch" on my belt. That said, it is intriguing how many enclaves throughout the United States and Canada have existed or in fact, are newly created.

"Chinatown" is loosely defined as "a neighborhood or section of a city that is inhabited chiefly by Chinese people." (Free Online Dictionary) or "an area in a large city that has many Chinese restaurants and shops and where the population is mainly Chinese" (MacMillan Dictionary)

I prefer an earlier definition I once read of "Chinatown" as a place where people of Chinese origin gather to shop and meet.

Within this context, I have photographed in the large classic urban cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver and Toronto. I have wandered through small strip malls as in Tampa, Florida where there is a Chinese/Asian market, a small restaurant, a travel store and only one or two other businesses that feed the needs of those residents there of Asian heritage. I have been in gleaming large malls such as Pacific Mall in Markham outside of Toronto or in Richmond, BC outside of Vancouver.

Often the "Chinatown" is a street of strip malls as is Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas where a series of parking lots and the usual dull, block buildings to which small Asian architectural details are appended serve a large and still growing Chinese/Asian community - many second home residents from California - as well as serving as a major tourist destination within this city of destinations. The tourists include many mainland Chinese.

Within the strip mall, a neighborhood lies.

Within this context, I have photographed where the Chinatown is presently no more than a flooded cemetery in El Paso, TX where Chinese immigrants of another century, many with hispanic names, were segregated from the rest of the population. Or in Evanston, Wyoming, a town with two streets and one old-school Chinese restaurant but with an active archaeological dig and a beautiful and thoughtful reconstruction of a Joss House and museum to honor the many Chinese laborers who worked there on the railroads and the mines.

The first "modern-day" immigrants from China arrived on the US & Canadian shores in the mid-century 1800s, now here longer than many Western European immigrants. The Chinatowns of today are historic, archaic, run-down and lonely; vibrant and filled with residents, tourists, shoppers; or they can be amazingly modern mini-versions of Hong Kong (especially in Canada) or just simply suburban. There are Americans and Canadians of Chinese heritage who have probably never stepped into what we think of as a traditional Chinatown, so many generations away from them. There are often elders and new immigrants whose everyday lives exist solely within and there are others who are away but who return for specific foodstuffs, for conversation, to uphold the traditions of family associations or to bring their children and grandchildren to learn about a past. There are those not of Chinese or Asian heritage who come to eat, purchase and appreciate another part of their urban neighborhood. And there are the often wealthier residents from Taiwan and the mainland who have never passed through the traditional Chinatowns, but who land directly into the cultural suburbs of urban Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley; Flushing, NY; British Columbia's Richmond (near Vancouver); or the six suburban "Chinatowns" that ring Toronto. All are part of the cultural fabric of the Americas.

In her book and blog, THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES, the author Jennifer 8. Lee tells us that in Bagdhad in recent years, American government personnel sought out the few Chinese restaurants. Why? They say, "to make us feel at home." http://www.fortunecookiechronicles.com/blog/2008/01/22/chinese-restaurants-return-to-baghdad/

The Americas have always been comprised of "ethnic" areas representing countries and cultures from which so many of us emigrated. While many have disappeared as generations weave into the general population, even today vestiges as well as vibrant communities remain: New York's "Little Italy," Dearborn's Arab-American communities, and certainly in the wealth of diverse cultures found in Los Angeles, my hometown, including the strong Armenian community in Glendale, the large Korean population on Western Ave., "Little Vietnam" in the South Bay, and the large and multicultural Chicano and hispanic communities throughout the Southern California region. Others are new and growing like Detroit's "Mexicantown," as our countries become increasingly multi-ethnic, repeating our original history and providing for new contributions and growth.

The Chinatowns however are unique in that many of them remain, whether for historic, tourist or just to maintain lives and their value for all of us is to help us understand the universals that represent so much of our own individual stories.

Joong (Cantonese)

Preparing for the show and choosing the postcard image. A snap (no pun intended), for Mr. Louie's Window has always been one of my and my gallerist's favorites. But I did not know exactly what the sign meant.

A call out to several friends, few of whom speak Chinese but with relatives or friends that might, resulted in a response from Joy Chu, an incredible art director, book designer - my designer on my teen book on civic & political activism - and lecturer (GOT STORY presently at UCSD extension). Joy's mother has always been one of my favorite resources for Chinese translation, whether for my lunar new year's greetings or in circumstances such as this.

"Joong," Joy writes, according to her mother, is the "Chinese version of the tamale...A sticky rice packet wrapped either with a banana or a lotus leaf, stuffed with either chicken,pork, beef, hard boiled egg or sweet bean paste."

This makes sense for Mr.Louie's storefront was one of many little businesses in Seattle's International District. Just before discovering his store, I had visited a totally modern noodle/fortune cookie factory where the air and light of the space was filled with white flour and where gleaming chrome machines churned out noodles and cookies, dumping them into large, printed cartons destined for the Northwest's asian markets and restaurants.


A far cry from Mr. Louie's store where, behind half empty metal shelves carrying a few Asian cooking utensils and pots, the steam emanating from a back room led me to Mr.Louie himself standing in a small kitchen where he was making what appeared to be pancakes in ancient woks, all to be then flattened, rolled and cut for the most amazing slippery noodles filled with peppers and spices. These Mr. Louie cooked each evening, to be sold the following day.


I returned several times to his shop during the Seattle trip for he allowed me to document his process, graciously and smiling for neither of us could speak in the language of the other.
It is significant that in my exhibition there will be two photographs from my encounter with Mr.Louie, one of my most memorable of the project.

First

It is approximately one month before the opening of the first solo exhibition of my longterm project, FINDING CHINATOWN, an over decade-long study photographing in and inspired by the Chinatowns of the United States & Canada (with a few European Chinatowns thrown in).

My photographic eye is strongly influenced by a lifelong passion for modern and contemporary art and I focus on the detail and often difficult beauty of the everyday. With respect to FINDING CHINATOWN, my narrative hopes to highlight a chapter of the American story, showcasing the almost two century immigration and contribution of those of Chinese descent to the fabric of this continent.

This blog is intended to complement the work in the forthcoming exhibition at Craig Krull Gallery in greater Los Angeles (Bergamot Station in Santa Monica) while looking forward to additional exhibition, perhaps with national and international traveling shows of the work and several publications.