Mid-range porcelain, underglaze painting

There are folklores and fairytales revolving around dreams. Dreams are a universal phenomenon and private to people; they have been a common, yet mysterious, entity for everyone and are sometimes perceived as a revelation or annunciation. Sometimes people took actions based on their dreams and changed history.

My Japanese grandmother told me to never tell a good dream to people. On the other hand, if it’s a bad dream, I should tell immediately to release it. Whether it was good or bad, bottling a dream in my soul would give it a power to manifest, the power would force the oracle to come true.

Luckily I am not so superstitious as to worry about the nightmare coming true (since none of the good ones seem to either), but it fascinates me as an artist to explore the ideas around dreams.

Creating artwork with the theme of dreams had been on my list for a long time. The challenging part was that I was not sure what kind of function to enhance the theme.

The ceramic pillow has been a functional item for the upper-middle and noble class in Eastern Asian countries for centuries. Unlike the Western equivalents with soft feathers to support the entire head, Asian nobles preferred to use a small, tall, hard pillow to support their necks in order to keep their elaborated hairstyles intact.  They believed the ceramic surface helps to keep you cool and improve the quality of sleep in summer. Many ceramic pillows were considered as luxurious artwork rather than a practical item, a symbol of taste and class.

I started creating these pillows a few months ago; it has been like accumulating dreams. Like dreams, there is much to learn and explore in them. I hope my work to manifest to something powerful.

Mid-range porcelain, underglaze painting, enamel

Mid-range porcelain, Underglaze painting, enamel

Mid-range Porcelain, 2016, pinch construction, underglaze painting

2016, Mid-range Porcelain, pinch construction, underglaze painting

Mid-range porcelain, Sgraffito

“White rabbit of Inaba”

Once upon a time, there was a white rabbit, who lived on a small island. He wanted to test his chances in a bigger place but the ocean between his island and the land of Inaba was known for the many vicious sharks.

So the rabbit decided to trick the sharks. He told them that he would count their numbers if they lined up in the ocean from the island to Inaba. The rabbit started hopping on sharks, counting up loudly, and heading toward his dreamland. But a few steps before arriving at the land, arrogance got the best of rabbit; he yelled out his plan and mocked the sharks. The rabbit thought he could jump to the land, but the sharks got him as he touched the shore.

It is interesting to me that both the West and East give sharks so much credit.

Mid-range porcelain, Wheel-thrown, Sgraffito

Mid-range porcelain, Wheel-thrown, Mishima, Gold luster

Mid-range porcelain, underglaze painting

Mid-range porcelain, Wheel-thrown, Sgraffito

2014, Mid-range porcelain, carving and Sgraffito, gold luster

All the Japanese kids get annoyed to learn that rabbits have to be counted as a bird in the Japanese literature classes. In those classes, kids were told that every animal has to be counted as "1 animal, 2 animal, 3 animal"(no singular/plural in Japanese), and every bird has to be counted as "1 bird, 2 bird, 3 bird". Except rabbits, which were counted as "1 bird". No teacher offered the explanation.

After I became relatively old, I found the reason rabbits were "counted" as a bird. The custom was born in the medieval time in Japan, while the majority of the population actively practiced Buddhism. In the version of Buddhism the Japanese practiced banned eating of four legged animals (such as cows), while allowed people to eat two legged animals, such as birds. Naturally, people decided "Hey, the bunny ears are so big, just like bird wings, let's call them a bird!" to satisfy their animal protein needs. Necessity is a mother of invention, indeed.

When I told my husband this story, he told me back yet another bunny abuse story in religion. In the medieval time (must be the time of creative solutions), catholic monks were bummed out for not able to eat animal meat during the certain ritual practice time. They were allowed to eat fish during the time, but it must have been awful, because they came up with the idea of "hey, look at those baby bunnies! They are so small and white, they must actually be a fish!" I don't know whether this story is accurate or not, but it is strange to see that two completely separate, major religions decided to abuse rabbit identity. There must be something about bunny to trigger the abuse.

Additionally, a church in New Orleans made a national news a few years ago by categorizing alligator meats as fish during the lent.

2014, Mid-range porcelain, carving and Sgraffito

2016, Portuguese earthenware clay, pinch construction, underglaze painting.

This series was made at Cerdeira Village in Portugal, while I was invited to be the artist-in-residence for two weeks in July, 2016.