Art

Unraveling the Perfectionism of Christmas, Ballet, and ‘The Nutcracker’

I aged out of leotards and ballet—not perfectionism. But tight buns suck. And so do tightly scripted holidays.

Dec 13, 2022
Why Do We Only Value Artists Once They’re Dead?

It is hard not to see that the conditions in which an entity like ‘Immersive Van Gogh’ thrives are the same as those that devalue and exploit the labor of living artists.

Nov 08, 2022
Unlearning the Colonial Gaze in Southeast Asian Art

Southeast Asia is a colonial construct, a modern concoction brewed from the dregs of centuries-long imperial conquest.

Mar 28, 2022
Why Create Art When No One Will See It?

Fritz Kistel was a reclusive artist who produced a body of work so fabulously unproductive—in the capitalist sense—that I can’t help but admire him: He created for himself.

Mar 01, 2022
Tiny Stitches for Big Feelings

It’s difficult to enter an anxiety spiral while cross-stitching. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Aug 24, 2021
The Radical Possibilities of Virtual Theater

When stage shows went virtual, traditional directors declared that the form was “dead.” They are extremely wrong.

Jun 23, 2021
Why Bathing Is More Than Self-Care—It’s Art

To be female and to bathe is to always be prepared for onlookers.

Aug 13, 2020
Searching for My Indian American Life in Contemporary Art

In art, I was seeing the world. Yet, the entire time, I could not name a single Indian artist in my family’s homeland.

May 07, 2020
“What Are You?”: On Mixed-Race Identity and ‘The Buddhist Bug’

Yet, my same racial mutability also poses a threat: “How can you identify a ‘them’ if it can pass for an ‘us’?”

Unlearning the Whiteness of Academic Art History

In Taipei, my disengagement with the silk scrolls wasn’t random. It was learned.

Mar 09, 2020
How a Woman Artist Helped Me Embrace My Choice to be Unmarried and Childfree

Morisot’s paintings of women up close lined the walls, a pastel perspective at vanity tables and in gardens. My breath rushed in: beautiful.

Dec 12, 2019
How My Mother Protected Us from My Father and Found Solace in Art

My mother described the Rembrandt paintings as her friends. I'd never heard anyone talk about art that way, instilling it with something like a personhood of its own.

Dec 10, 2019
How a Picasso Painting Helped Me Move Past Numbness After Trauma

I had not been erased by the violence I’d suffered, but was changed by it. A new, difficult layer had been added to my life.