I think my first memory of finding pleasure in art was at my grandmother’s kitchen table. We lived in a small town in the upper Sacramento valley near the foothills of the Sierras, far from any urban Chinatown. I guess my parents wanted to make sure we were aware of our Chinese heritage, so after coming home from public school we were marched upstairs to our grandmother’s, which functioned as our informal Chinese school. There, we held brushes dipped in jet-black ink that gleamed in the sunlight as we traced basic Chinese characters on snow-white paper. But what I remember most was that after formal lessons, our grandmother allowed us art time where we could draw or paint anything we wanted. I recall deriving great pleasure from sketching out my favorite comic strip characters, like Dennis the Menace, and then lighting them up with messy, bright watercolors.
I grew up a child of the 60s. I indulged myself in the excess of color, squeezing out chunks of acrylic paint onto paper like toothpaste and loving the earlier generation of Abstract Expressionists. Surprisingly, I found the brush got in my way and wasn’t tactile enough, so I began to work the paint over the surface with my fingers. Still, it was a long, circuitous route. Like other things in life, one must travel many roads before realizing that you’re on your own path. I began to pore over art books of Chinese and Japanese brush painting. Something in the way ink moved unfettered across paper inspired me and remained lodged in my subconscious. When I eventually arrived in Japan, I wanted to study aspects of the culture but didn’t know where to start. I made abortive attempts at tea ceremony and other genres, but I finally focused on brush painting. There was a calming emotion that came over me when I moved the ink across a blank sheet of white paper, and there was something I loved about not knowing exactly how the ink would flow, like water, across this white terrain.

“I think what is most important about the viewer and the artwork is our shared experience. I don't want to impose a fixed meaning on what my work conveys. Instead, I would hope the audience brings their life experience to their visual understanding of what lies in front of them.”

“The most transformative experience for the artist is when he or she loses the self and becomes a vessel through which the creative spirit flows. It is never finished; when you complete a work it's not over. The next day when you walk into your studio, you have to start again with that blank space.”

“We are not entirely self-made. We stand on the shoulders of great artists who have come before us. They inspire, and you feel that you are communicating with them across centuries and borders.”

Alan Lau

Tara Tamaribuchi

Holly Ballard Martz