Summer is still on

Sheau — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:19:11 +0000

It reaches 99 F in San Jose today. Spent most of the day in the office with AC. When I got home…our house is quite toasty.

We decided to create minimum heat from cooking…

This weekend is also the Slow Food Nation event in SF. In celebration of Summer and Slow Food, we decided to make some home cooking with some local ingredients.

The salad mixed is from Happy Boy Farms from the Sunday’s Campbell Farmer Market. We also mixed in two green tomatoes from our garden. Ethan made the spiced tofu with fresh basils (from our garden). The halibut is from Race Street Fish & Poultry Market. I followed/modified a recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook by Ruth Reichl with Buddha’s Hand Citron Vodka from Hanger One.

Toast to Summer!

It’s Friday

Sheau — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:36:00 +0000

It is so nice to have the weekend again. Had to work last Sunday.
Fall is a month away.
Not ready to let Summer go yet.
Feeling a bit like the image above today.
Not too define…quiet…

Came home for lunch today.
Saw a hawk in the backyard.
Well…I heard its wings flapping first..through the kitchen window…
the wind sounds beautiful.
A nice encounter.

Maybe to the hawk I was an unexpected visitor.

Return to posting

Sheau — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:00:06 +0000

…after more than a year…i decided to try some postings.

Mostly inspired by my friend Shannon’s blog.

Other inspiration:
Recently, bid farewell to Twitter and focus mainly on Flickr now. Have been very happy to meet some very talented and inspiring friends there. What connects us: background, aesthetic and interest such as cooking, thrifting and so on.

This post is dedicated to our encounters and sharing.

Alicia Lim
Alicia’s photos of still life and street scenes, mostly taken in Malaysia and other neighboring South East Asia countries through her travels, are captivating and poetic. Her images often reminded me of some of my favorite movies by Hong Kong Director Wong Kar-Wai. They speak to me like a story… feeling from fleeting moments… provocative. Alicia and I share the same cultural background. It is funny that we never got to meet each other in our home country, but instead on Flickr.

Below are some of my favorite images from Alicia:

Title: On my way
This particular image reminds me of “Days of Being Wild：阿非正专”

Title: manicure

Title: Ticking Away

Title: Joy.Rain.U 欢乐。雨。你
This image reminds me of “In the mood for love: 花样年华”

redcipolla
An artful chef with talent in photography. Steven put a lot of attention in capturing and presenting his masterful cooking. Steven’s photos resemble Dutch still life paintings. I love the way he brings in plant materials into his composition which gives the overall image a certain rawness and earthiness. Besides making me drool at all the dishes he makes, I also enjoy his travel photos. Steven and I also share the same cultural background. It is such a small world indeed. Click here to see some of Steven’s images.

Title: Raw Ingredients

Title: Winter Baking

Title: What’s Around me now…

Grace Light
My most recent connection on Flickr is with Grace Light. I was first drawn to a photo (a repurposed tin planter) posted by Grace in a Flickr group called “The Unpretentious Garden.” After exchanging comments on our photos, I realized that we are both collectors of antique and vintage items, enjoy gardening and love the idea of repurposing. Grace is a talented professional photo stylist. She also has a blog (Poetic Home) that talks about vintage inspirations/treasures and antique ideas/DIY tips. Besides that, she is also a member of the Etsy Vintage Street Team. Below is a photo by Grace and an antique fan that I dream to have someday.

Surface - Collaborative

Sheau — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:29:32 +0000

Surface is an interactive video audio installation using a table with a contact microphone, and a video display. Ethan and I collaborated on this project (our first). You can see a short movie of the show above. It is an exploration of surface and location mediated through both video imagery and audio feedback. It consists of a series of macro photos of urban surfaces in downtown San Jose. The location of each surface is cataloged with latitude and longitude data. Organic materials are also collected from the urban environment (rocks, seed pods, branches, etc.) and form an interface into the exploration of place and surface. A platform is installed in the exhibition space where the collected materials are placed. A contact microphone is used to detect vibrations caused by tactile interactions with the organic material. The vibrations are amplified into an audio signal, which is broadcast into the space. Software algorithms detect changes in pitch and amplitude in the signal and use the data for two purposes. Short segments of audio input are recorded and looped, forming a rhythmic history of the interactions with the piece. In addition, the archive of macro photos (mapped with lat/lon data) are navigated and displayed through a video projection.

Image locations on Google Maps: http://tinyurl.com/2dthgt

Images of video projection in different phases of interaction. Please click on each image for larger view.

168: 一六八

Sheau — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:21:41 +0000

Artist Statement:

The concept of 168 is a visual metaphor of the concepts of time, cycle of nature and Yin and Yang. It is also a record of my tea drinking over a period of one hundred and sixty-eight days. The installation consists of a tea book scroll, woven monofilament and scattered loose tea. In this context, the tea scroll represents time/cycle; the woven monofilament represents sky; the loose tea represents earth; and the dark gallery space represents the universe that contains all three elements in one. The tea book scroll was constructed using one hundred and sixty-eight used tea bags that were consumed by me. The tea bags were arranged from light to dark to portray a constant cycle of time from sunrise to sunset or changes of seasons. 168 was chosen based on the total number of years of my age and my parents’ age to further exemplify the concept of time passing from one generation or one cycle to the next. The progression from lightness to darkness also symbolizes the harmony of the Yin and Yang. In Taoist philosophy, Yin and Yang are the two primal forces or modes of creation in the natural world. When each force reaches its extreme it produces a seed of the opposite and thus creates a never ending cycle of growth and change. Yin connotes Darkness, Moon, Night, Female, Autumn, & Winter. Yang connotes Light, Sun, Day, Male, Spring, & Summer. In a nutshell, 168 is a journal of my tea drinking as well as a complex visual contemplation of how time functions in relationship to the physical and metaphysical world. Time can be interpreted in fragments of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years or something completely beyond our interpretation of a concept of time.

Location: San Jose State University, Black Gallery, Art Building
Exhibition Dates: March 12th - March 16, 2007
Reception: Tuesday, March 13th, 2007, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Tuesday & Thursday 12:30 - 6:30 PM