origins - walls

Tim Biskup - The Tim Biskup serigraph in my living room was purchased online in 2005.  I paid a few hundred bucks for it.  It's called Hazel's Field.  Tim Biskup is a SoCal-based artist.  His style is psychedelic pop, with Japanese anime touches.  I was a big fan of this style for a period.  I even have a skateboard designed by Tim Biskup.  Of course, for me, skateboards are for hanging on the wall, not for riding and scratching up.

Paul Klee - In my college days, if you had asked me to name a favorite painter, I would have said Paul Klee.  I love the child-like quality of his works, as if kids had painted them but you know they couldn't really.  My old friend Henry gave me a framed Paul Klee print.  I cannot remember what the occasion was, but I have it hanging in my hallway.  Henry was a solid good guy who kinda disappeared from the face of the earth a number of years back.  He made a conscious decision to cut off ties with all his friends, so I think it was not just me.  I wasn't sure what was going through his head, but I wish I could have helped or was good enough of a friend whom he could have confided in.  But yeah, out of the blue, I just couldn't reach him.  I heard through another friend who knew his brother that Henry ended up moving away to Arizona and then did construction work or something like that.  I also heard that he is now back in Northern CA but I have no idea where.  Anyways, sometimes when I look at the Paul Klee in my hallway, I think of him.

Doors - I knew a girl named Alice in my college days.  She was a foreign student from HK, a rich girl who drove a BMW and had a $1000-plus per month apartment near Lake Merritt.  She was probably the closest friend I had at Cal.  But her taste was always too rich for my blood.  She liked going to nice Japanese restaurants for lunch, when all I really could afford was a fast food sandwich.  And she was high maintenance too.  But somehow we got along.  Most of the times.  Anyways, when we graduated and she had to return to HK, the last gift she gave me was a photographic print that showed a series of weathered doors.  On one of the doorways laid a lazy, sleeping dog.  I supposed this print symbolized all the doors that stood in front of us at that time.  Well, this many years later, those doors are still weathered and closed, and the dog is still lazy and sleeping.  I didn't really bother opening or walking through any of the doors in front of me.

In The Mood For Love - I have a small reproduction Japanese movie poster of In The Mood For Love in my bedroom.  It is probably my #2 favorite Wong Kar Wai movie, and I love this poster I got from eBay, which has Maggie Cheung in recline pose and Tony Leung with his face on her lap and his hand caressing her leg.  I miss Wong Kar Wai movies of those days - starting with Days Of Being Wild to Fallen Angels to Happy Together.  Chungking Express is my favorite by the way.  I think he lost his magic with 2046.  I haven't seen Grandmaster yet - I am not even sure whether it's coming out in the U.S.  My enthusiasm has waned.  Maybe one day I will be in the mood again. 

Project Hearts - Back in 2004 there was this public art project in San Francisco, where heart sculptures were installed over all the city.  Regina went around to take pictures of them for a photo collage.  She gave me one of her collage prints which I have hanging next to my front door.  I love her caption which says "Pictures taken with great fun..."  I imagine it would have been great fun to do a project like this - exploring San Francisco looking for hearts.  The thing that is inconceivable to me is that this was all the way back in 2004!!!  That's almost a freaking decade ago.  In fact, looking at these prints on my walls and telling of their origins make me somewhat melancholy and nostalgic.  I feel like I am one of those old people in the movies who is looking back at his life in flashbacks.