Since I have decided to do a series of paintings on Cheongsam shaped canvases, I started to look for more efficient ways of making the canvas to give me more painting time. I was asked by my tutor if it was important for me to make the canvas myself or if they could be made by someone else. My response was that I felt I had to make them because that was part of the making process for me. I have become increasingly aware that the process is more important for me than the outcome since the process provides valuable thinking and reflecting time for me.
The photo below shows the design of the Cheongsam canvas that I have been using up to now. It is made of relatively light calico material and the design is easy to make. It is a loose fitting design and I have been putting in darts on the front and back to give a more fitted look in line with modern Cheongsam designs that have been influenced by European designers in the 1960s. This design has worked well as I have been painting simple pop art designs in acrylic and the materials worked well together.
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However, for the next few pieces of work, I wanted to make more complex paintings in oil. So I needed a more robust canvas material and ideally a dress design without having to sew the darts which could be difficult with a thick canvas.
METHOD
I sourced a book from Hong Kong that has a simpler Cheongsam pattern that didn’t involve sewing darts to achieve the traditional fitted look:
I copied the design into my sketchbook and customised the measurements:
The measurements were checked against an existing dress of mine:
Dressmaker’s drawing tools were used to add in the curves and complete the pattern:
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The pattern was pinned to the 240gsm cotton canvas for cutting:
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The dress was sewn according to the instructions:
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A mistake was made when cutting the front hence a part of the seam was showing. Hopefully it would be less obvious once the dress was painted.
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Back view:
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The dress was painted with a vibrant yellow colour – a mixture of gesso and acrylic paint to prime the canvas.
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Due to the stiffness of the fabric, there were areas around the waist where the painted fabric was creasing heavily. That’s not great for painting so would need to find a way to minimise this problem:
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REFLECTIONS
I was very pleased to find the simpler dress pattern especially because that made it easier to use thicker canvases for painting as I wanted to go into painting in oil which is a medium that I preferred.
However, not sewing in darts has caused the fabric to crease heavily around the waist and I needed to find a solution rather than adding darts to such a heavy fabric. Despite this, I was very pleased with the progress of experimenting with a new pattern that would really speed up the process of making the Cheongsam canvas.
LEARNING
I was frustrated by myself in missing out one small step when cutting which led to the seam being shown on the front chest area. Lesson learnt and I have made a clear note in the pattern as a reminder for next time.
NEXT STEPS
Find a solution to minimise the creasing around the waist and start painting!
While I was on holiday in Scotland during summer 2024, I had a dream one night about making a piece of art work with pieces of laddered (torn) stockings or tights. The ladders were ‘repaired’ using nail varnish. Then each piece was framed individually in an ornate thick gold frame. It was such an unusual dream that as soon as I woke up, I captured the dream in my sketchbook in case I forgot the details as I often struggle to remember my dreams.
Mending stockings or tights with nail varnish was a technique that I learnt from my mother when I was little. If I laddered my school tights then she would mend it with her nail varnish. If the tear was small or in an area under my dress then it was fine to repair in this way without having to buy new tights all the time. Otherwise it would have been costly with an active child. In hindsight, it was ridiculous to make small children (girls) wear tights as school uniform, it was most impractical!
When I returned home after the holiday, I decided to realise my dream to make some art by mending a stocking.
METHOD
The first challenge was that tights and stockings nowadays are usually made of ladder-resistant materials which means they don’t ladder!! I had to dig out some old socks in order to find materials that would ladder. After laddering the material, a piece of white card was rolled up and inserted into the sock.
Some tissue was placed behind the ladder then red nail polish was applied at various points to stop further laddering.
This process was repeated with a second piece to create two pieces in total:
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The two pieces were placed on a large piece of white card, in different arrangements, to experiment with composition:
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REFLECTIONS
It was such a strange dream that I could not think of what would have triggered such a memory during a holiday in Scotland. Throughout the planning and making process, I thought about all the things that we learn from our parents. My mother didn’t actively teach me to mend my tights, I just watched her and that technique was cemented in my subconscious.
During the last year when I have been making Chinese Cheongsam dresses as painting canvases, I have been thinking a lot about watching my mother dressmaking when I was little and how much I learnt from her without being conscious of it.
Thinking more about it – a week before I had the dream, I was looking at some old family photographs shown to me by a family member. Many of the photos of my parents that I had not seen for years. Perhaps seeing those images somehow unlocked the memory of mending my school tights. The act of mending tights is uniquely personal and it only happens between mother and daughter because boys do not wear school tights and it’s unlikely that fathers have nail varnish to hand. Also, a mended pair of tights hidden under a dress is a secret between mother and daughter, or between women when such techniques are passed from one to another. Those moments are precious.
It is usually at this point of reflection that I start to feel sad because I left home so young (14) and I must have missed out on so much learning from my mother, or just time with her to enjoy that unique bond, sharing secrets that only we knew about and that united us from the world. As always in life, we don’t appreciate how precious those moments are until much later.
I decided to stop after making two pieces and didn’t realise the whole dream of making multiple pieces into an installation. I may come back to it at a later stage. For now, I feel that this experiment has served its purpose in testing out the process and triggering reflections that will keep me thinking for some time. Overall, I am happy with how this quick experiment went and pleased with some of the images I produced.
LEARNING
I usually make work after lots of thinking and planning. This piece of work came from ‘left field’ (a dream) and the making was quick and experimental. I enjoyed the diversion from my main project and to get some results so quickly was enjoyable. A large painting often takes so long that having some quick work in between can help to feed my need for results as well as interrupt the agony of painting. I recently heard an artist on TV saying that painting has the word ‘pain’ in it – too true!
Also, I have become increasingly aware of the importance of my thinking during making. Before I start making work, I think a lot about how to make it. But during making, the work takes my mind to many places that I have either long forgotten about or didn’t know existed. Hence I am becoming aware of the quality thinking time that ‘happens’ when I am making art. In a recent discussion during one of our MA online sessions, we talked about process vs product. That was very helpful as I feel excited about my discovery of how important the process is for me, much more important than the product. In fact, I am usually not so bothered about the product as it is secondary to the process for me. Perhaps for me, the purpose of the product is merely to provide a process.
NEXT STEPS
– Continue to enjoy the thinking and reflecting time during my making process.
– Do not feel guilty about taking diversions from my main projects; quick diversions like this one has provided invaluable insight from my subconscious. I should value it.
After completing two Cheongsam paintings (‘You’re a banana’ and ‘No, I’m an egg’), I wanted to revisit the first Cheongsam painting I made – ‘Appropriation. Appropriation.’ because I felt it was an unfinished piece. I knew it was unfinished at the time but I was eager to move onto the banana and egg paintings, so I left it. After some time had passed, I felt the urge to finish it off. The areas that I was not happy about were:
– The lack of depth in my representation of what I was trying to say.
– In fact, it wasn’t clear what I was trying to say and how it was relevant to my practice.
– It felt like an unfinished or abandoned piece of work.
I am not always bothered about abandoning work, but so much effort had already gone into this piece, the making of the dress, sewing and painting etc.. I felt it would be worthwhile finishing it.
Below is the unfinished work from earlier and the original blog about my feelings towards the Blue Willow pattern:
In carrying out additional research for this piece of work, I referenced a book about the Willow pattern:
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In my earlier blog, I talked about the incorrect depiction of a tree on the Willow design. What should have been a large pine tree that was common in Chinese paintings, was instead depicted in a way that led many to believe it to be a disproportionally large fruit tree. This particular tree was discussed extensively in the ‘Willow!’ book with many suggestions of the different types of fruit tree that it could have been, but without any clue about what tree it really was. So to expose this classic example of an appropriation of something without having basic understanding of what was being appropriated, I decided to add the said tree to my Cheongsam painting and copied some texts from the book to highlight such cultural challenges.
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Texts that were added as part of a fence on the painting were copied from the above pages describing the (pine) tree as leafless, bulbous, grotesquely laden… apple tree. Close up of the texts copied are as follows:
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Another paragraph was copied onto my painting which gave insight into the attitude towards Asia during the time when the Willow pattern was designed:
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Close up of the texts copied:
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The ‘bulbous and grotesquely laden fruit tree’ was added to my painting:
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Masking tape was used to mark out the shape of the fence for the texts:
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The second set of texts was added on the back of the painting next to the large tree with some ornate borders like those on the edge of some Willow plates:
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The finished painting:
Back viewFront view – leftFront view – right
REFLECTIONS
I am pleased that I have reworked this painting because my practice is not just about making work, it is also about examining issues relating to my identity which includes understanding my heritage. In the case of the Willow Pattern, it highlighted the casual and incorrect appropriation of Asian art during the colonial era. My original idea for this piece was always to highlight the mistakes made in the Willow Pattern appropriation. In particular, the pine tree. I have researched numerous design texts about the Willow Pattern and most of them express puzzlement about the disproportionally large ‘fruit tree’ towering over the building. The debate surrounded what kind of fruit it was, apple, pomegranate, peach etc.. All acknowledging that no fruit tree could grow to several storeys high hence description such as ‘grotesquely laden’ was used here. I am certain that if any Chinese artists were asked, they would have said it was a (badly depicted) pine tree.
My research shows that there are many species of pine trees in China. Ranging from the common Pinus tabuliformis which can be 20-30 metres tall, to the famous Pinus hwangshanensis (or Huangshan pine) with some being 1,500 years old. Pine trees are often depicted in Chinese paintings. The pine needles are typically formed in dense round clusters:
The pine needles are often depicted as below in traditional Chinese paintings with a few needles radiating from the centre of the cluster and a thin wash of colour (usually green) to give a sense of the overall round shape of the cluster of needles.
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Here are my pine tree paintings that I made in one of my Chinese brush painting lessons, the left hand image shows the round clusters of needles with a green wash:
My Chinese pine tree paintings
Carvings of pine trees often take on a more accentuated round shape such as this example:
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The Chinese pine tree was depicted as follows by the Williow Pattern designers:
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The Willow Pattern became very popular in Britain as a result of demands generated for Chinese artefacts during the British colonial period. Subsequent generations of people who buy or study the Willow Pattern have wondered what tree that was and due to the rounded shapes coming off the branches, they concluded it was a fruit tree of some kind – such as the hypothesis in the ‘Willow!’ book even though they all acknowledged the disproportionate size.
When I made the discovery of the mistaken identity of the tree on so many design documentation, I wanted to do something to capture my findings and expose the lack of research that I have witnessed. I am not a design historian, nor a botanist, nor am I that experienced a Chinese painter, even I could tell that it was meant to be a pine tree. So it shouldn’t have been difficult to deduce. I could only conclude that people just didn’t really care enough to find out. Even those who were writing books or papers on the Willow design didn’t seem to make that extra effort to find out and just accepted that it was a strange fruit tree or badly depicted overly large and grotesque fruit tree. Hence I wanted to make a painting to express this example of our casual laziness towards other people’s culture. The second set of texts that I copied from the book aptly acknowledged the ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude towards Asia at the time.
When I first did the painting, I stopped before putting in the pine tree. This was because I felt the painting was turning out to be a bit ‘twee’. I didn’t like it. In hindsight, what did I expect when I was copying from a design that was a bit twee! So I left the piece at the time and went onto make two other paintings. I am very pleased that I returned to finish this painting because I had spent much time in researching the Willow Pattern, especially the mystery surrounding the pine tree; I really wanted to say something about it. Hence I am pleased that I returned to complete the pine tree as well as copy some texts that confirmed the casual approach taken towards other people’s culture.
LEARNING
I have learnt a lot about the history of the Willow Pattern. That also helped me to understand more about the British Empire and its history at the time. I am not really that offended by the poor appropriation of the design, it amused me more than anything. However, it highlighted how easy it is to poorly appropriate and that is usually out of laziness, ignorance or not being thorough in research. That is good learning for me and has helped to make me more mindful about my work – if I were to borrow ideas from other cultures, or my own culture, I need to pay more attention to get my facts right. It is often not difficult, just takes a little more time to ask or research. Otherwise, I would be just as bad as those that I’m criticising here.
NEXT STEPS
With completing this painting, I have now done three Cheongsam paintings. I have several ideas of other Cheongsam paintings so I will get on and make some more!
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RESEARCHBACKGROUND – WILLOW PATTERN
Below are some examples of mistaken identification published for the large pine tree in the Blue Willow pattern. The examples shown here assume the tree is a fruit tree.
Wikipedia describes the tree as an orange tree even though orange trees do not grow that tall and if the round shapes were fruit then it would have been a leafless fruit tree.
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Example 2: Liverpool University – Victoria Gallery and Museum
Liverpool University’s Victoria Gallery and Museum has a blog dedicated to the Blue Willow design. It details the key elements of the design but does not mention the largest tree depicted. It does, however, include an insert of an illustration stating that the large tree was an apple tree – did they really think that it could be a leafless apple tree that was nearly twice the size of a three storey building?
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Example 3: Quote from ‘Antiques Collectors’ magazine by ‘World expert on the Willow Pattern’
This article includes a quote from a ‘World expert on the Willow Pattern’ talking about the oranges on the tree, whilst acknowledging that there are accounts of other fruits such as apples or pears being published.
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Example of a correct identification!
Finally, the example below correctly identifies the tree as a pine tree:
I have been learning Chinese brush painting in parallel to doing my MA Fine Art Digital course. I am new to Chinese painting and there is a lot to learn. So practicing is key. Below are some of my latest Chinese paintings, some of them are copies from books and worksheets that my tutor gave me. I believe it is important to periodically capture my progress but I do not plan to reflect extensively on these paintings because they were mostly learning exercises.
Shrimps – inspired by Qi Baishi
Trying out different compositions, colours and canvas sizes:
Image of one of Qi Baishi’s famous shrimps paintings:
I also tried to paint them in oil to compare the process and effect:
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Sunflowers
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Abstract experiments
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Pine tree
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Mountain water landscape with silk wash
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A basket of grapes
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REFLECTIONS
– I am increasingly enjoying learning Chinese painting and have improved to a stage where I actually can enjoy it rather than get frustrated by it!
– I am particularly interested in learning more about Qi Baishi’s shrimps because I admire his style of painting. I have been advised by my Chinese painting tutor to start with understanding the fundamental anatomy of a shrimp before going free style. I will do that next.
– Much of Chinese painting involves symbolism. After researching more about the symbolic meaning of shrimps, I found (and remember) that the word shrimp in Cantonese sounds like ‘ha’ which is the sound of laughter. In Mandarin, it also sounds like the word ‘laugh’. So it symbolises happiness which is good to bear in mind for future use in my work.
– I was disappointed with how the shrimps turned out in oil. They seem clumsy compared to the ones in Chinese ink.
LEARNING
– Always start with understanding the anatomy and doing some sketches of them (in pencil or thin line paint) before going free style in Chinese painting.
NEXT STEPS
– Do the shrimp anatomy sketches in meticulously style before painting more shrimps!
This blog details my overall reflections for the Cheongsam Series – Food as metaphor for cultural identity. I made two paintings on this topic and they are captured in the two blogs below:
The finished paintings are intended to be displayed as a pair because they respond to each other.
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REFLECTIONS
It has taken me some time to write this blog as I am not sure where to start. My reflections on the making process, composition and technical learning are captured within the individual painting blogs. This blog is meant for reflecting more deeply on what making these paintings has meant for me. I shall capture my thoughts as they come into my mind as a form of free writing.
The dressmaking part:
– Throughout the making of the Cheongsam dresses, I thought a lot about watching my mother dressmaking when I was a child. The way she designed the clothes, for herself and for her children; measuring us, making her patterns on waxy paper, chalking the cloth aided by her special yellow wooden rulers and cutting the fabric with the long sharp scissors. Then sewing using her manual Singer sewing machine with a leather belt that turned the wheel as she pedalled. I remember having fitting sessions with part-finished garments and then she would do the final finishing off. Every button was chosen with care. It’s not until I made these canvas dresses for my paintings that I realised how very clever she was. Although dressmaking is not difficult, making it well requires talents and skills just like any craft. She made evening gowns, tailored jackets and trousers! Those are very difficult items!
– One could ask, so what? Many people made and still make clothes. What’s the big deal? I reflected much about her life while making my canvas dresses because the process of dressmaking is largely unchanged therefore I could clearly visualise my mother going through all the steps that I am now replicating decades later. My mother married at 17 years old and became a mother at 19. Hong Kong in the 1950s and 60s was a very patriarchal society and she as a Chinese woman was confined to her role – wife, mother, cook, cleaner, homemaker etc.. However, it is clear on reflection that she had ambitions that were not fulfilled by her role ‘assigned’ by society. There were few avenues for a woman of her time to express herself and she chose to do it through her dressmaking. She later went onto Chinese painting and became an accomplished artist with many students. Two weeks ago I was shown the various awards that she was given as an artist by cultural institutions in Hong Kong and China – I hope to explore more about her journey as a painter at a later stage.
– As my father’s career advanced in the Colonial Hong Kong Government, my mother would accompany him to official white-tie dinner balls (British style). She would always design and make her own evening dresses. She was the only woman who made her own dresses at those events. She always sought to be different and I believe in those days, her dress design and making was where she found a channel of expression as well as solace. It gave her an escape from the shackles of societal expectations of a traditional Chinese woman.
– I left home when I was a young teenager to boarding school in England and never lived with my parents since. Sadly they both passed before I really had the time or inclination to get to know them properly. So in a way I’m reflecting on her as a stranger with fragmented information from my patchy memory. Despite that, how did I end up picking up art in later life and in a strange way walking her path? I don’t think I have the answers yet but my own artistic journey has given me insight into what she was seeking as a person, as herself.
The painting part:
– It took me a while to decide what to paint. I like using metaphors in my work and when I stumbled across an image of Warhol’s banana, it gave me the idea to paint something in pop art theme as a contrast to the traditional Chinese dress canvas – I like making work that has an undertone of incongruity because that is afterall the metaphor for myself. Furthermore, a banana was the perfect subject as a cultural metaphor – yellow on the outside and white on the inside.
– I researched the use of the word ‘banana’ to describe a westernised East Asian person and I was delighted to find many insightful and humourous articles that resonated with me. The highlight was finding the film clip from the Hollywood movie Crazy Rich Asians talking about the protagonist being a banana – it was for me an endorsement of the phrase and bringing it into contemporary popular culture.
– As I got older and started to take time to look into my heritage, I felt that ‘banana’ alone was an insufficient metaphor for me. Growing up as a child in Hong Kong, a British influenced Chinese society, it was (and still is) so culturally rich that my core is deeply rooted in that heritage. Hence when I read an article about an egg with the yellow core as a cultural metaphor, I was hooked by the idea and felt it was a good response to the ‘banana’ metaphor.
– As I was painting both dresses, I was keen to adhere to the pop art theme painted on the Chinese dress canvas to capture the incongruity, or perhaps the fusion of the different cultures that I seek to represent in my work. At the end, I felt I have largely achieved what I intended despite much time spent on getting the right ‘green’ for the banana dress.
– The most poignant moment came when I was mixing and remixing to search for the correct shade of yellow and white colours to use for the eggs and bananas. I kept asking myself – ‘Is the white ‘white’ enough?’ or ‘Is the yellow too ‘yellow’?’ The constant search for the right shade of colour to use was a good metaphor for my attempt to fit in especially in my early years as a youngster in a new culture. Like many young people in a new environment, one was always working out how to behave, how to dress, how to do the makeup, what jewellery to wear etc. in order to fit in and be an insider. Or not to be treated as an outsider. It was a mutation process over time.
– The making of the two paintings here has turned out to be a better metaphor for my cultural transmutation journey than I ever expected.
LEARNING
I believe this blog concludes the ‘Cheongsam – food as metaphor’ series of work. I want to continue to make more Cheongsam paintings including looking for a more efficient way to make the dress canvas – it is time consuming but I want to continue with the idea so I need to find better ways of making the canvas.
I will continue to use the Cheongsam canvases to explore my identity which is a fundamental part of my practice. I feel using a Cheongsam canvas is a turning point in my practice, the idea came to me just as I was struggling to find a way forward to bring my ideas together. These two paintings are just the beginning of something, not sure exactly what yet, but I feel it’s a beginning.
Since much effort goes into making these canvases, I want to revisit the first Cheongsam painting that I made with the ‘Blue Willow pattern’ to see if I could make more of it so as not to waste the piece because I was not that satisfied with the outcome at the time.
NEXT STEPS
Revisit the Blue Willow pattern painting dress to give it more meaning.
Explore more efficient ways to make the Cheongsam dress canvas.
This is the second painting of the Cheongsam Series – Food as metaphor for cultural identity. The blog below is the introduction to the series with background information on my thoughts on this topic as well as some research.
The blog below is for the painting that responds to this one, called ‘No, I’m an egg.’. I was meant to do the ‘banana’ painting first but due to shortage of green paint at the time, the second ‘egg’ painting was completed first.
Since I am not an experienced dressmaker, I am rather slow in making the dress canvases. I constantly look for ways to be more efficient in the dressmaking process, so the canvas materials for this dress was cut at the same time as the ‘egg’ painting canvas by doubling up the calico material to save time.
Here is the completed dress canvas ready for the banana painting:
Different banana images were considered for the design. I wanted a ‘closed’ banana and a half peeled banana.
Clear gesso and fluorescent green acrylic paint were used to prime the canvas and for the background:
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Banana shapes were marked onto the canvas using white chalk to map out the overall composition before painting.
Then initial blocking out of the banana images were made:
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I was not satisfied with the Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic fluorescent green colour – it was too dark and dull, I wanted a neon-look. So I bought some brighter paint by Pebeo.
The Pebeo paint looked brighter which was better.
The Pebeo paint dried slightly darker but still brighter than the Daley Rowney System 3 paint.
Since the Daley Rowney System 3 acrylic paint is a student grade paint, the pigment density was not great. I had to paint three coats to get a good coverage. Then I changed to the Pebeo paint and a further two coats were added. In total, there was five coats of acrylic paint which made the canvas stiffer than the ‘egg’ dress. This made sewing on the ‘frogs’ (Chinese style fasteners) much harder. See below for the not-so-tidy sewing where I had to just push the needle through wherever I could due to the thick canvas by that stage.
Finished work – ‘You’re a banana!’. Acrylic on handmade Cheongsam dress canvas. L105 x W76 x D30cm.
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REFLECTIONS
The making of this painting did not go as well as the ‘egg’ painting because of the additional coats of green background colour required making the process more extensive than before. Nonetheless, I am satisfied with the outcome and the way the two dresses respond to each other. I will capture my reflections in full for both dresses in this blog:
There are several learning areas from this painting…
1. The Velcro ‘zip’
The learning from the ‘egg’ painting on the making of the Velcro ‘zip’ was very important and I am pleased that it worked out well for this painting.
Reminder of the problem on the ‘egg’ dress with the Velcro seam being visible from the front, not ideal aesthetically:
Taking the learning from the above has helped me to improve the Velcro seam for this painting:
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2. Paint materials
Much time was spent on the many (five) coats of paint required for the background green colour. This was frustrating at times, but it was good learning. I should do more research into the colour and materials before embarking on a large painting. I knew student-grade paint typically has less dense pigment load and I should have been more prepared with this knowledge. The pink background of the ‘egg’ painting was ‘abstract innovative acrylic’ by Sennelier. It was relatively inexpensive with higher pigment load than the Daley Rowney System 3 acrylic. I was very pleased with the Sennelier acrylic and will bear this in mind in future paint materials selection.
3. Time saving methods
Doubling up the calico materials and therefore cutting two dresses together saved time. I will continue to look out for ways to be more efficient in making the dress canvas. I want to continue to make the dress canvases going forward because I enjoy the making process and it is good opportunity to think. However, I don’t want to spend excessive time on that part of the process because I knew I would become impatient and would want to get on with the painting.
4. More research up front
I could spend more time up front to test out materials, colour and composition (e.g. in my sketchbook) before proceeding onto the canvas. I think this will be useful and become more necessary going forward as I expect the next series of paintings to be more complex, both in idea and composition.
NEXT STEPS
After making these two paintings, it is a good point to pause and reflect properly on this series of work. I will capture my overall reflections in a separate blog. After that, I will go onto make more Cheongsam paintings because I am still excited and enthusiastic about this method of art making. I hope to crystalise my thoughts about the topic for the next painting while reflecting on this series.
After accidentally finding my late mother’s silk Cheongsam (traditional Chinese dress) in my loft, I have been exploring making my own 3D canvas in the shape of the iconic Cheongsam for painting. My reason for wanting to make such a canvas is captured in this blog:
Below are two blogs on the first experimental 3D canvas painting that I made as a start to the Cheongsam series of work. I have gained much invaluable learning through making this first dress because I am completely new to dressmaking:
Then I started to think of subjects for my next paintings. I thought of doing something about my identity which is a foundation topic of my art practice. I explored using food as metaphors for cultural identity and started with a digital sketch of pop art ‘banana’ theme. The blog below explains what ‘banana’ means in this context with more background information:
Then I decided to capture more about my thoughts on the subject with additional research findings. Hence I created a blog as an introduction to the Cheongsam Series – Food as cultural identity metaphors. This blog includes an extract from the film ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ where the meaning of ‘banana’ was explained as ‘yellow on the outside, white on the inside’ – a metaphor for a ‘Westernised’ East Asian person.
Within the above introduction, I also talked about my personal response to ‘You’re a banana!’… my response would be ‘No, I am an egg.’ The two food metaphors were chosen as subjects of this Cheongsam series.
I wanted to make the ‘banana’ painting first, but I found that I didn’t have enough paint in stock for the chosen green background colour that I wanted to use. So while I ordered more green paint, I proceeded to create the ‘egg’ dress first.
METHOD
I made the canvas Cheongsam dress using the same dressmaking pattern that I had used before. Like the last dress I made, the material used here was also calico.
Learning from the first dress that I made, the pattern was a very loose fitting dress therefore darts are definitely required on the front and back of the dress:
The first dress that I made was hand sewn because my old sewing machine gave up on me. I bought a new sewing machine for this dress and I chose a heavy duty one since I was planning to sew thicker canvas materials going forward.
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Below is the completed dress canvas in calico:
I chose to use fluorescent or neon colours with a pop art theme for this Cheongsam series because I wanted them to be fun. These food metaphors are often used in a light-hearted way from one East Asian person to another, hence I don’t want these paintings to be too serious. I decided to use fluorescent pink for the background for the ‘egg’ dress as a response to the fluorescent green that I had planned for the ‘banana’ dress. Pink was meant to be a fun response and I felt it would help the eggs to stand out in the design. The medium below was used to prime the canvas:
Below are the front and back of the pink dress canvas:
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A variety of egg images were considered for the design:
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The shortlisted eggs were marked onto the pink canvas with white chalk prior to painting:
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Below are images of the finished painting:
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The painting is wearable:
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Finish work: ‘No, I’m an egg.’ Acrylic on handmade Cheongsam dress canvas. L105 x W76 x D30cm.
REFLECTIONS
I am pleased with the outcome of this painting. I feel the colours and composition worked out well with the eggs. I am also pleased that the canvas is wearable. Although I had not intended for it to be a piece of garment, being wearable will give more options of how to present such a piece of work. I enjoyed the making process, too. I will capture my full reflections for both the egg and banana dresses together at the end of the series in this blog:
Since dressmaking is so new to me, there were lots of good learning from a technical making perspective:
For this design, making the darts from the start (before painting) worked better so should bear this in mind. Get the dress to fit (if intending to wear) as well as possible before painting is key. Once the paint is applied, the sewing becomes harder and manipulating the canvas would risk creasing the paint.
The most important learning was the fitting of the ‘zip’. Instead of using a conventional zip, I used a strip of Velcro because that was easier. Since these dresses are not really garments for everyday wearing, I believe Velcro is sufficient and a good alternative. However, I learnt from this dress that how the Velcro is placed can make a big difference aesthetically. The two Velcro pieces have to be placed on the interfacing of the opening in a way that minimises its visibility from the front view. I hadn’t appreciated this because I accidentally did it correctly in the previous ‘blue willow’ dress, but I did it incorrectly here.
Incorrect way meaning the Velcro is visible from the front:
Correct way below – the Velcro is not visible from the front. I must remember that the edge of the seam for the zip-opening on the back piece should be left free, i.e. ‘not sewn down’; whereas the corresponding edge for the front panel should be sewn down so that the Velcro seam is rear facing when in place.
Further to my blog on the Cheongsam series where I introduced the idea of using food as metaphor for racial or cultural identity, I want to capture more of my thoughts, ideas and research on this subject to document the meaning behind this series of work. Here is my earlier blog with some background and where I had generated a preliminary design digitally:
In the above blog, I referred to the Hollywood film Crazy Rich Asians where the American-born Chinese protagonist was referred to as ‘a banana’ by her best friend because the protagonist was perceived by her future mother-in-law (a traditional Chinese woman living in Asia) to be ‘yellow’ on the outside but ‘white’ on the inside.
In my earlier blog, I mentioned that I remember being called a banana, too, because I moved to the UK as a young teenager and have lived here for decades, hence I have inevitably adopted much of the British culture. As a result, I consider myself a transcultural person and have based my art practice on this subject. I personally do not consider the description of ‘banana’ an insult, it is very widely used within Chinese communities and its meaning is widely known. Also, there is the legacy of colonialism where being considered ‘westernised’ is not necessary a bad thing (reference The Location of Culture by Homi K Bhabha, chapter ‘Of mimicry and man: The ambivalence of colonial discourse’) if one wants to get on in ‘the west’ and avoid being treated as ‘an outsider’. This point deserves to be explored in a dedicated blog so it will not be covered here. All I will say here is that I feel neutral about the term ‘banana’. In fact, I think it is a clever metaphor and a good seeding idea for making art!
In my research, I also found this article which summarises how different types of food are used as metaphors in the context of race and culture identity:
Although I acknowledge that reducing a race or culture to a colour can be problematic as described at the end of the article, I remain undisturbed by the use of food metaphors for myself because it helps me to start a thinking process. The point about ‘overthinking’ in the article refers to ‘an egg’ which means a person that is yellow in the core but with a white outer layer. As someone who is prone to overthinking, I liked the egg metaphor immensely. Yes, I have a ‘yellow’ shell and much of my core has become ‘white’ due to living in Britain most of my life, but I was born in Hong Kong to Chinese parents and lived there until I was a teenager. The very rich culture and heritage in the Hong Kong Chinese society are deeply rooted within me and will always be part of my core. It is not something that can be erased and also not something that I want to change. So, after much overthinking, I have decided that my response would be, ‘No, I am an egg’ to anyone who thinks I am a banana. Of course, it would be a boiled egg to be precise, but that would be really over thinking it.
NEXT STEPS
In my earlier blog, I had planned to make a Cheongsam painting with bananas as part of the process to explore my transcultural identity. After this research, I want to make two paintings, one with bananas and one with eggs as a response to the former.
ADDITIONAL READING
Here is a list of interesting articles about the ‘banana’ metaphor for East Asians living in ‘the west’ with different points of view and lived experiences:
Since publishing this blog and making the Cheongsam paintings, there has been a trial where a teacher went to a protest march holding a placard referring to the then Prime Minister Sunak and Home Secretary Braverman as coconuts. The teacher was trialled and found not guilty.
Her lawyer told the court the placard was “a pictorial attempt” at “political criticism” of Mr Sunak and Ms Braverman.
After a two-day trial, the judge ruled that the placard was “part of the genre of political satire”.
Using ‘coconut’ to describe a person who is ‘brown on the outside but white on the inside’ is equally common as using ‘banana’ to describe an East Asian person.
During the MA low residency at CSM in March 2024, we had a book art workshop where we learnt to make zines and some simple book. The artist hosting the session mentioned a book art event that takes place in Bristol once every few years. I was delighted to find that it was on this year and I attended the fair.
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There were nearly 100 stands; it was a great opportunity to talk to and learn from experienced book artists. I came away feeling enthusiastic to try this beautiful art form.
Another reason for my enthusiasm was that I recently attended a Suminagashi workshop. Suminagashi is an ancient Japanese technique of making handmade marble paper and washi by floating water-based inks on water, then laying the paper on top to absorb the ink and water pattern. See post:
Here are some of the Suminagashi paper that I made during the workshop:
Small A4 size sheetsLarger A2 size sheets
METHOD
From the techniques learnt during the low residency workshop at CSM, I made a few different types of simple books using the smaller sheets of Suminagashi paper:
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I experimented with some Chinese ink calligraphy on one sheet of paper, then folded it into a simple book:
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On another Suminagashi book that I made, I chose four Tang Dynasty poems and wrote them in the book using Chinese ink calligraphy, each paired with a small painting:
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The seal on the last page of the book is a new Chinese stone seal that I designed. I managed to have it carved in Hong Kong and brought back to the UK by my Chinese painting tutor. The phrase on the seal means ‘The Third Space’, a concept that my art practice is based on so I will use it like my artist’s signature. The seal is carved in an ancient Chinese font.
Below is a video with my narration, reading out the English translation of the poems. Note that traditional Chinese books open from the opposite direction to English, Romance or Germanic language books:
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REFLECTIONS
I was really inspired by the visit to the book art fair. It helped me to understand how broad the scope of this art form can be. I knew very little about book art until the low res workshop earlier this year and I am excited by it. I enjoyed making the simple books in this exploration, especially using the Suminagashi paper. Here is a summary of what I enjoyed about this exploration:
– I enjoyed the quiet pleasure in the act of folding paper carefully, especially with beautiful paper such as the Suminagashi paper. The feel of the material surface, the edges and creases all added to the meditative effect that this art form has to offer.
– I enjoyed learning a new skill in making books. Although I am only making very simple ones at the moment, I am excited by the potential complexity and scope that book making can offer. It is new knowledge and a new challenge for me.
– Once a book is made, it is like having a new canvas calling out for creativity that requires a new way of thinking compared to my other work.
For me, it is a two stage process: (1) Think about how I want ‘the canvas’ to be and realising that idea through physical making; then (2) express my art on the made canvas. The stages are similar to the Cheongsam (Chinese dress) canvases that I have been making for painting. That approach also requires creating a 3D canvas first through a step-by-step ‘technical’ process before any drawing or painting can take place.
The similarities between my book-making and dress-making to create canvases only occurred to me during the writing of the above reflections. I was beginning to feel concerned that I might be going from one thing to another too soon in my practice. I am not dropping the dress-making work, in fact, far from it – I have planned many other projects based on Cheongsam canvases. But I also want to explore book art and I now realise the similarities between the two in the context of my practice. I believe it can be explained as follows:
– The book-making or dress-making processes start by my following some guided steps, this way of making gives me a structured approach to starting a project. Meaning, it is unlike just getting out a plain sheet of paper or a pre-made blank canvas where you are immediately faced with having to decide what to paint. Through the structural and systematic start of the creative process (i.e. making a book or a dress), I can proceed to create ‘productively’ and while I am making the ‘complex canvas’, I can think about what to paint on the canvas or to finalise the ideas in my head. The process of making the canvas (which in the case of a dress can take several days) gives me quality thinking time whilst doing something productive and not just sat in front of a blank canvas feeling bad that nothing was happening.
LEARNING
Attending the book art fair taught me a lot about the scope that this art form can offer. In my own experiments, I have learnt more about the art of making books from a technical perspective – I am at a very early stage right now but I definitely want to learn more to make more complex or larger books.
My reflections above made me realise that the process of making the canvas myself (e.g. a book or a dress) has been a key part to my enjoyment in making art recently because I have been using the canvas making time and process to aid my thinking and to finalise my creative ideas. I have been doing this without consciously knowing it. I value the fact that making items such as a book or a dress are established processes and therefore give me a secure and stable route to start each piece of work. On the contrary, if I were to create a completely free-form assemblage from found items as a starting point, I would be inhibited by such an open and abstract process at the beginning of a piece of work – I would not know where to start and therefore it would be like sitting in front of a blank canvas again. This realisation is very important and useful for me because I can now think about other potential canvases that I can make from an established method in order to expand my practice.
NEXT STEPS
– Continue to make books and learn about book making to expand my knowledge.
– Think about other canvases that I can create in addition to books and dresses that would enable me to have the quality thinking time as part of my creative process and to avoid the ‘starring at a blank canvas’ problem.
UPDATE:
I made another book using a piece of Suminagashi paper folded into a small long book. In it, I wrote four short Tang Dynasty poems in Chinese calligraphy and coloured some areas using Chinese painting colour.
elizarawlings 