Finally I wrapped up on the Family Zodiac project.
Whether the finished product has artistic value or not is beside the point. I'm sure it appears to be utilitarian or commercial, but the appeal of the painting is in its meaning. Obviously I am prejudiced since I understand the nuances.
So the painting follows the doctrines of I Ching, where Tai Chi produces 2 Instruments, represented by the Dragon and the Snake. The 2 Instruments produces 4 Images, comprised of a Rat, a Rooster, a Hen and a Baby Ox. These 6 animals happen to be the constituents of the family I am doing the painting for.
The Snake is fashioned in the shape of the word Loh, our family name, in cursive.
The cosmic swirls emanate from the two complementary/opposing energies, modeled with the proverbial Tai Chi or Ying Yang insignia. In the swirls one finds a purple haze. The significance of the purple haze is that it represents imminent auspicious events.
The recipient of the Zodiac painting is a Rat, thus I was going to print my New Year Rat painting on a piece of white silk as an added memento. Unfortunately I didn't know what print setting to use so the color came out awful. I grabbed my brush and color and painted over the printed areas. That was fun and was easier since all I had to do was to cover up the dreadful colors. I decided to use gold acrylic for the writing instead of ink. This actually reminded me of the practice of photo saloons coloring black and white portrait photo prints in the old days. Perhaps I could find a job doing that.
Just as I was going to close the books on this project, I remembered that I had made a seal for myself in the past; a toy chop if you will. I had a friend whose hobby was into clay and ceramics and she had her own electric kiln. I used some of her clay remnants and fashioned a seal for myself. It showed the Big Dipper housed in a hulu gourd. The gourd is omnipresent in our culture, not only as a vessel for storage, but also as a symbol of medicine and an extractor of negative energy. In short, it is an auspicious object.
For the astute Chinese readers, the seal that I use for a lot of my paintings says 大熊 (great bear). My dad named his children after the stars in the Big Dipper, the Ursa Major; so we all borne the name of a star in the Ursa Major. Fortunately my dad did not have more than 7 children. My siblings and I were all addressed as bears ( as in Great Bear constellation) as a way of endearment. Our legal name was strictly for the school and government use. Hence the significance of my using the Big Dipper as a seal. I am paying homage to my dad and my family.
