Paper, thread
Varied dimensions, papercut 6” x 5”
Artist Statement:
This papercut was made as I was grieving the loss of my 姥姥 (maternal grandmother), who helped raise me when I was younger. My family has very few photographs of her and having not been able to go back to China in many years, I felt ashamed to say I found myself forgetting her sometimes. She, too, forgot me in her final years as she struggled with dementia.
The cut image is
from memories of eating at the dining table at my grandma’s home in Beijing. She always sat quietly in her chair on the right side of the table, grasping her wooden dragon walking stick. My sister and I would fool around and sneakily feed our aunt’s dog, 小熊 (Little Bear), under the table. Food was always a big part of our trips back. I filled in the spaces that were hazy in my memory with patterns I found looking at traditional Chinese papercuts.
Being able to cut from memory was powerful for me since I was able to create an image that made my connection to my grandmother feel tangible. I think many times relationships within immigrant families can feel distant, and there is a subsequent vagueness in the grief that is felt. In papercutting, there is a sureness, intention, and exactness with every cut. This made the process both difficult and freeing. It made me commit to a memory and an image.
I hung the papercut on a tree by my family’s home and it was nice to see the piece billow in the wind, and cast shadows of the silhouettes onto the snow.