Blue Sky: Sky and man become one

This book is for those interested in Chinese art; Chinese painting; learning Chinese painting techniques—bamboo, snowy bamboo, birds, peonies, plum blossoms, orchids, pine, water, rocks; the philosophy of Chinese painting; living in Taiwan. It is an illustrated memoir of my experiences as a woman living in Taiwan, a decade of my life. I became a painter whose media are the Chinese brush and ink, and who became educated in the tradition of Chinese painting, culture, philosophy, and art. These forces have become my heart. I lived in Taiwan for about ten years. In art, what enchanted me was the space in Chinese painting. There would be a plum branch or bamboo branch floating free in the sky. I started studying soon after we arrived in Taiwan, hoping to learn ideas of painting resulting in a representation so pure and free. In the West we fill up our canvases with everything, but sometimes the detail in the Chinese painting is the dramatization of the freedom of space. This is Taoist philosophy because the creative energy of the universe is in the space. This is my idea of the meaning of the Tao. The concepts of Chinese painting most moving to me originate in Taoist philosophy. The ideas and methods of the artist have as their purpose the expression of the harmony of Tao. I stepped from the maddened American world into the strength of painting in Chinese culture at the age of twenty-six. The bamboo reflects all the feeling, spirit, vision, emotion of the painter—what the painter paints is his own heart. Painting the bamboo is like stepping out into the blue sky where sky and man become one.