Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kathy Liao. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Kathy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
One of the most meaningful project I’ve worked on is an public art commission for the new Kansas City International Airport terminal. The piece is titled “Hello and Goodbye.” I immigrated to the US from Taiwan as a teenager. Growing up in the suburbs of Southern California, I remembered my father visiting every three months, traveling between my Taiwan home and my America home. My family became intimately familiar with the airport – we had our established routine of finding the same spot in the parking garage, which line was the fastest to check-in, followed by the exact same food court menu as our final parting meal, before we send my father off to the long-winding security line.
These routines were etched in my memory like a well-worn track through repetition; these are familiar rituals performed by many immigrant families, navigating the distance and the liminal space in between.
During this pandemic as travel came to a stop, my family felt out-of-reach and the distance felt further than ever. Our screens became a portal bridging long distances, but also ironically a dividing wall. From this side of the screen, I watch as my grandmother’s memory deteriorates through dementia. We wave hello and goodbye, and watch our loved ones mirror us back – how casual and instantly gratifying a swipe or tap is, versus the physical impression and gravity of a squeeze of the hand, or an embrace.
“Hello and Goodbye” documents a fluid state between experience, memory, and place. In the design, I think about the division of space and it comes through in my composition and color choices. Ceramic tiles that capture a fragment of memory inserted onto the panels, interrupting once-familiar patterns. Tracing my grandmother presences, she is often turned away, just out of reach. The artwork is a nod to liminal space of airport, which held so much layered stories and experiences. It is a space where one can traverse from one state to another, heavy with the emotional charge of transformation.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My family traveled a lot during my childhood. I was born in Taiwan. I spent most of my elementary school years in Taiwan, and middle/high school in Southern California. As a child, I felt like I lived two lives and I existed in two worlds. The holidays were different. The colors and decorations were different, the food was different. The way I looked and spoke and acted were different. From the sleepless nights in Taipei with its endless columns and rows of neon signs, to the quiet, dark suburbs of Southern California, I found myself adapting, absorbing, and molding into the various places I called home.
As a first generation immigrant, I am constantly reflecting on my relationship with my family. As a visual artist, my work pulls thread out of moments and instances where I felt both so close and so far to my family, physically, emotionally, or mentally, in value and beliefs. Those moments sing out to me, feel high pitched, they are at once strange and familiar, light-hearted and overbearing, happy and poignantly sad.
My recent paintings and installation are populated by people en route, often migrants physically inhabiting transitional spaces such as airports, bus depots and train stations. The act of being in these borderland places produces a liminal state of mind often born of the bureaucratic and emotional tripwires that immigrants must navigate.
Phone calls at the same time every day, packing and unpacking luggage, eagerly waiting at Arrival and saying good-byes at Departure, getting into another long-winding customs and border security line– these are familiar rituals performed by many immigrant families, navigating the transient spaces of the in between.
This distance made me mindful of the gaps that permeate our existence and separate us from others. In my recent body of work, I am cognizant of the potential hazards of these gaps – separation, loss, marginalization; yet, I lean into the boundless depth of human conditions within these spaces. You can see my artwork at www.kathyliao.com
I have a day job as an arts administrator at a regional arts non-profit where I advocate for holistic support for artists’ livelihood and working towards a more inclusive and equitable arts and culture ecosystem for creatives.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
As a society, we have to see creatives as whole human beings. The value of creatives is NOT only the product they produce, but their holistic human worth to this society. It is their creative process, it’s the way they show up to spaces, the idea and perspective they bring; it’s their contribution to economy, innovations, health and science, education, social movements, human services and so much more.
Taken off the Be an Arts Hero website: “The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports that Arts & Culture accounts for $877,809,406,086 and 4.5% of the U.S. economy, contributing 5,107,889 jobs,” and “Arts & Culture add 5X more value to the GDP than agriculture, $87B more than construction, and $265B more than transportation.”
The arts need representation on Capitol Hill, we need to recognize the value of arts and culture in our economy and provide funding and relief support to arts workers and the creative industry.
For organizations and businesses working with creatives and artists:
1. Pay for their time and labor.
2. Bring them to the decision-making table. Listen and trust artists’ perspectives. Involving and centering voices of those most impacted by the project.
3. Trust artists and creatives, trust their experiences.
4. Remove barriers to access – make it easy for creatives to work with you, and to access resources and opportunities
5. Think of them as human first, not just their product or service.
6. Build relationships: attend events, learn more about their process and craft. And again, invite them to the table, pay them to be on your board, advisory and programming committee, and have their voices and expertise at the table.
For everyone, employ creatives and artists, follow/share makers on social media, and make conscious choice to support local and small businesses. Pay attention to ongoing discourse in the media regarding the livelihood of creatives (for example, AI and the writers and actors strikes) and be an advocate for artists and creatives (there’s no Art without the artists!).
Website references:
https://beanartshero.com/
https://www.arts.gov/news/press-releases/2019/latest-data-shows-increase-us-economy-arts-and-cultural-sector
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
As humans, we are constantly learning and unlearning through our lives – I see it as cyclical and part of our ever-changing life circumstances.
Throughout my education and training, my examples of what success means as an artist is very limited. For example: the solitary artist in the studio, the professor artist, museum shows, making full-time living off of their craft. One of the most profound concept is understanding the strength and the expansive possibilities that come from being in a community with others.
I’ll share this quote from painter Chie Fueki in her interview with Jennifer Samet:
“There is that famous Philip Guston quote about how you begin in the studio with all of history and your friends. Then, one by one, all of the people leave. Well, I don’t want for them to leave. I always hear them. I hear every comment. I hear everybody. It is not only my teachers or art history. The friendship and the dialogue I have with my peers is really important. I learn so much from them. ”
There is this myth of the solitude of an artists’ studio, the notion of stripping away everything but the work. I don’t think that is true. As artists, we are translator of experiences. And especially in this day and age, we’re are bombarded by so much. This quote is a beautiful reminder of the importance of my peers, of my lived experiences, of my learned history, of everything that is happening around us, and even towards the imagination of the future. These are not only building blocks of my work, but a gentle reminder we are part of a larger the community and web of human relationships. Through a strong artist peer network, we find friends, colleague, collaborators, cheerleaders, mentors, that will open door to endless possibilities.
The second unlearning has to do with the shame and guilt of “not making it” if you’re not a full-time artists. Instead of following someone else’s path, I have to figure out what MY values are and to chart my own path. There is no one size fits all. There is no shame in having multiple sources of income to support my artistic practice; in fact, in building a sustainable practice, it is empowering to be able to make choices to support my practice as I see fit. As my life changes, I can elect to shift my sources of income to better align with what I value.
Lastly, the biggest lesson I have to unlearn is idea of “not enough” and the perpetual hustle. I want to acknowledge we live in a capitalist society here in the US, and the work, labor, and contribution of artists and creatives are often devalued. To create a sustainable and enduring practice for ourselves, we have to first VALUE our own time and labor and worth. We have to know that the system will keep us hustling and continue to extract from us. I have to understand the cyclical nature of an artistic practice – to give myself grace, time to rest, to reflect, to dream, to imagine, to play. To take care our basic needs, to stay healthy, mentally and physically, so I don’t burnout. To know that even when I am not making, I am an artist and my creativity is enough fundamentally shift how we approach our practice. To know that my artistic practice is not linear, and it will flow and change and pause and shift directions across my lifetime – it is powerful deep knowledge.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.kathyliao.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathyliao.art/
Image Credits
“Without” – Jeremy Underwood Artwork Images: EG Schempf