Just like mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of healthy fungal networks, paintings are the fruiting bodies of my solitude. Disturbing solitude has the same effect that tilling soil has on fungal networks: bad.
“Painting and magical powers seem very much the same. Sometimes I’m unable to paint a thing. … I tried and tried, but nothing I did seemed any good. They were copies of paintings I’d seen somewhere before … and not very good copies either.”
– Ursula, Kiki’s Delivery Service
Some post-graduation goals I have: (1) run a half marathon, (2) learn to use power tools, (3) read, (4) write, and (5) draw. Am I having a quarter life crisis or do all my post-grad wishes sound like retirement hobbies?
I did end up running that half marathon (never again), but wielding power tools is still in the domain of wishful thinking. Commuting 3+ hours per day is great for reading, and starting this blog is helping me (re)discover my writing voice. Drawing is something I’ve always enjoyed, and I don’t want to wait until I retire to make it a priority.
The Signpost in the Shade is a pair of paintings painted for a very special pair of people in our lives on the occasion of their wedding.
Storytellers as they are, The Signpost in the Shade, is a story written by the bride for the groom on his birthday, about a month before they got engaged.
The Tale of Three Trees was passed down to me orally, as folktales are, while roaming through the streets of GuangZhou last year. The storyteller loved and cherished this tale from childhood. The simplistic yet deep-reaching truth of the story had inspired her to write her own.
8 months laters, by the rarest of chances, that this book caught our eyes while we were visiting a flea market in Stockholm. We only saw it fitting to bring this story back to the storyteller, now a bride, as she goes forth to build a new home (and joint library collection) with her groom.
As this tale has and continues to travel with us wherever we go since that night in GuangZhou.
We hope this book, having traveled from Stockholm to Toronto, will find its resting place in Hong Kong.
… But not before adding a few words of our own 😉