I ran into Young Chung at Speranza in Silverlake while dining for a friend’s birthday.  Speranza is a spirited place because they allow you to bring your own wine and even though their specials never change you return for the spirits and the homemade noodles.  I felt that Young gave me a look that considered me and he mentioned how important I had been to him when he was an undergraduate at Irvine.  I had been his TA for a couple of classes when he was finding himself as an artist, as a young adult discovering life away from home.

A few weeks later he hit me up on facebook about my work and I directed him to my website which has a logic of it’s own.  I am still not fixed.  (This is an inside reference for Irviners.)  When I first planted myself in LA I extended the no fixed address by devising a little poem, “seer sayer singer player,” and it’s the device of shorthand for what is housed there.  Then we had a pleasant phone conversation and he invited me to participate in this show that he was curating of the women and men who had had an impact on him while at Irvine (at this point I’ll simply say, “Read the invitation. it’s beautiful.”)

We had a studio visit so he could select the work he’d like for the show and he told me about the mama-san.  The initial source of meaning being one of respect and how in using it for this show he hoped to infuse the word again, contemporarily with one of deference and honor accorded an elder.

I don’t think I mentioned two things to Young in our conversation and studio visit.  The first is that this kind of exchange has been on my own mind heavily through my travels in old time music.  This music, which has its roots in early American fiddle and banjo tunes is an oral tradition.  You learn directly from other older, more experienced players.  I became a musician through punk rock/grunge/riot grrl which has a distinctly DIY, irreverant ethos.  Fuck tradition.  Make it up yourself.  Although I wasn’t quite that rude, when I started playing old time music, going to jams, learning tunes from others, I did, however NOT consider reverance.  I did not think about the value of the experience, the mastery of the older musicians around who have been playing this music for decades.  The fortune of being able to play with people who actually played with the musicians who were links to the original sources for the tunes and songs.  As I have dug more deeply into the music and cultural heritage all that’s changed and I find I wish to pay tribute to the legacy of my masters–to honor and learn and master in turn.

It’s an ethos that is missing in Art Now.  Young is giving public voice to that that is missing.  It’s an incredible gift.

The second thing is the other side, which is I hope he knows how a student like him is equally unforgettable.  For myself it’s really direct.  I remember the first class I ta-ed he was in and his emotion and expression so raw in trying to articulate what his photograph was about that I knew I was witnessing someone literally finding their voice. His enthusiasm, his poetry were like the beginning letters of the alphabet, the vowels in the wrong place to form a word, but the symmetry there unfolding.  Just a little time, a little care and the space to let it happen.  I am so incredibly honored to have played my own small part in his tradition.  And grateful to be a mama-san.  Lastly, it is such a thrill like by way of a rollercoaster to be sharing space with these women and men, some of whom were also my mentors and colleagues and heroes and lost friends.  Irvine in the mid 90s was a ripe ground what took over the bulldozed orange groves, the juice sticky and bitter and sweet, the people powerful, the artworks distinct and beautiful and the time a blink.  It’s nice to be welcomed into this space these years later and reflect and rejoice and as I said elsewhere…to remember.

In closing, Robert Blanchon:  I miss you everyday.

and to Young, what a great idea and thing you’ve done.

Love YOU long time!!!!!!!