Just Getting By July

A small update on what I've been up to

Hello Sketchbugs,

Apologies for the long hiatus. After my mom died in April, life has been…..hectic to say the least. I wanted to thank everyone that reached out to me in the last 3 months regarding mom’s passing, from the sincere condolences, mysterious venmo gifts, delicious treats, beautifully written cards, and so much more. Once the initial adrenaline of the memorial faded away, those small gestures made the post-funeral period less lonely. Post-funeral did not mean I would get to go back to a normal life though. No, some higher power has decided that I should be living 4 movies at once.

I’m a husk but I am alive

On April 24th I was scheduled to go on a trip to Yunnan province in China for the first time since I was born there in 1995. The trip would start in Kunming (the capital) and then go around cities in the province that friends had recommended to me. The trip came 2 and a half weeks after mom passed away and although I was still reeling from grief, it felt important to go. No, it felt like mom wanted me to go. And…..a lot of stuff happened. Suffice it to say I lived my own Joy Luck Club. I will make a longer post dedicated to my emotional rollercoaster of an adventure when I am ready. It was just so much and life did not let up once I got back to the states. If anything, everything just got more hectic.

There were so many cute Imperial Guardian Lions in China. They reminded me a lot of Mo

After my life-changing trip to China, a world of death bureaucracy awaited me. I thought it was bad when my dad died but this process proved to be daunting. After many calls, in person and online meetings, court visits, and multiple emails, I was able to become mom’s executor. The problem was, there were still some accounts where mom forgot to take dad’s name off, so many things still need to get sorted out before we’re in the clear. Many people have told me that this stuff can take years, so I guess I’m in this quagmire for a while.
I hate paperwork with a burning passion!

The paperwork never ends

In addition to all the paperwork, I was informed that I would have 80 days to move all of our stuff out of the apartment my mom had been living in for 9 years. (It was originally going to be 40 but we were able to bring it up to 80 because I cried). So in the midst of my mom dying, coming back from an emotional time in China and going through piles of paperwork, I was saddled with moving my parent’s 50+ years worth of stuff out of an apartment before the end of July. To say I have been stressed the last few months would be the understatement of the century.

Hoarders is a great motivator to clean, but it sucks that my parents had a lot of cool stuff.

With the help of my amazing partner and friends, we were all able to collect the things I wanted to keep and organize everything else for an estate sale. If you're in the Mount Laurel, NJ area this weekend and are interested in buying some high quality mid century modern furniture, glass, art, art prints, art books, art supplies, leather goods, kitchenware, and cute cat knick knacks please feel free to stop by! There will be original art from high school, college and my early career on sale as well.
You can also feel free to stop by, say hi, and appreciate the things my parents collected over their 50+ years together. I can't keep it all and I would love their stuff to go to loving homes.
The sale runs this weekend July 12 at 9:00 am - July 13 at 3:00 pm in Mount Laurel, NJ. If you are interested in stopping by the sale, you can find info about it HERE.

Some work from highschool and RISD that will be at the sale

To add even more fuel to the fire, I am still teaching at Hollins this summer. I have been going back and forth from Virginia to New Jersey almost every weekend just to prepare for the sale. Despite all the stress, teaching has been a wonderful reprieve from the madness and my students have been amazing. I am excited to share their work once the semester and the estate sale is done. We were even able to get some amazing speakers this summer like substack famous

Lian Cho

, Ezra Jack Keats 2024 illustrator Sarah Gonzales, Caldecott 2021 Honoree Noa Denmon and iconic illustrator Jess Hannigan!

On the other art side, I was in a few shows on the west coast! Film School was a fun show hosted by Giant Robot and curated by the awesome Kellan Jett and Woodrow White. All the artists featured were asked to make studies from films so I chose the Green Knight, The VVitch and Past Lives (I love A24 films I guess). The VVitch piece is still up for sale if you’re interested along with other pieces by amazing artists.
The other show was Nucleus Portland’s Salut 10th Anniversary Show. This was a monumental coaster show with very affordable art. 2/3 of my coasters were already bought but if you want to give the bunny a home, she can be found HERE with all the other art!

That’s essentially the rough outline of where I am at. I am slowly chipping away at other illustrator work like picture books and editorial pieces (shoutout to all my editors and art directors for being so understanding). I am actually doing an illustrator residency with

Narratively

at the moment so if you want to see all of those pieces, check out their substack!
Please know the blog and paid posts will get back to normal once this hectic summer is close to done. As you can see, I have so much to expand upon when things go back to normal (I hope). I just need a good month to rot and process the last 3 months of absolute turmoil. Thank you all again for your support.