We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ching Chung a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ching, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Growing up in suburban Ohio it seemed that in between school work and lessons I’d find myself either with my nose in a book imagining the scenes in technicolor or drawing and making something seemingly out of nothing. My most favorite classes were classes where I got to draw or make things our of scratch. My mother, who is a seamstress, also created an environment where sewing was fun and you can just make cool clothing out of rolls of fabric and thread.

I used to get inspiration from the most beautiful birthday cards and I would trace them to learn how to draw. Once I even made a large poster replica of a favorite card design that I loved. Incidentally to this day my mom has it hanging as artwork in her sewing room.

After high school, I went the route of college undergraduate degree and wanted to pursue a creative career. At the time the creative art schooling options felt limited except one that resonated with me. It was my father’s discovery and after touring a few of the different colleges at The Ohio State University, I was excited to begin learning all about design, including Industrial, interior, and graphic design. It was fascinating to learn about the products, spaces, and packaging designs that again was designed from a mere thought and then we just made it into reality. From sketch to reality. So we certainly built a lot of models!

Since then I’ve had a career specializing in commercial interior design and working with all sorts of makers including architects, engineers, artists, creatives and makers to create things to enhance the human lived environments.

This lead to specialty retail design and then to aviation design working on commercial aviation interiors, color and material designs. Currently, I am taking my hand drawings and merging that with technology to create digital artwork and sharing my creativity.

From a young age, art, beauty and the creative maker spirit has always been a constant in my life, especially where there is craftsmanship, and meaning and care taken in the design, execution and detail. I do believe those things contribute to the overall beauty in all lived environments. It is the special moments created by interacting with a designed piece, a crafted piece, an artwork piece that bring meaning to me.

Ching, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Since the lockdown, my life has shifted significantly. I found such reprieve and solace in returning to my artwork and specifically sketching and drawing by hand on my new iPad. It gave me a new drawing tool to play with and learn. It provided such joy to me with its ability to instantly translate my thoughts and imagination into sketches. It gave me an ability to not just write my thoughts down but to just draw my thoughts, which I loved. It was my new sketchbook and constant companion recording all the beauty I see.

It was my visual diary allowing me to use images to capture everyday moments in the day into colorful doodles and sketches. They are very special because of the location, the landscapes, the lakes and waterways, of an urban city called Seattle in the Pacific Northwest. It is a different time and place. Unbeknownst to me those quick doodles now represent to me the very preciousness of observing the present moment and memories because those precious ‘mundane’ moments can be quite fleeting.

Since then, I have been sketching and sharing my art first via my studio on Front Street Art in Dayton, Ohio and now spending time setting up my online stores and getting ready to set up my art as a visiting artist at a local photo art gallery.

My inspiration was to get back to meeting artists and art lovers in real time and face to face. That in person connection was really the most energizing aspect of having a studio. It is wonderful to create art and to make it real. It is also in the sharing of it with others and the genuine positive reactions from visitors and art lovers that makes it very fulfilling as an artist. I am learning so much about the art industry and do fully believe that having good networking practices as well as trying new things with my art are the way to discovering what truly resonates with me.

My hope is to bring light, joy, color and meaning into my work by noticing the seemingly mundane and transmuting it into meaningful moments via my sketches.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I truly do love when I sit down to draw something. It is a way for me to capture my daily interactions and life. I love seeing how the energy of the day becomes the sketch of the day. I don’t mean necessarily to draw what I see, but more specifically to draw what I feel. So my artwork lives in solid form via my interpretation of the energies of the day.

Once done, I do feel like I’ve downloaded and documented a moment where inspired messages were received. At other times, I do sketch up ideas ahead of time and then go back to spend more time with it to see what will come of it. Many times I am very thrilled with the final results.

I also want to emphasize that it is very rewarding for me to speak with the people visiting my studio an our conversations about art and their lives. The connections and intersection of place and time allows a human connection thru art.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I believe that to create is to breathe. If I am not creating, I will definitely feel its positive influence missing from my being and my day. I enjoy the creative process, the quiet moments, the moments of staring into space, the moments of frenzied organizing and garden work prior to sketching. Most times there is physical movement prior to the inspired art, other times the inspiration comes from listening to an astrologer or a meditative music piece and sitting quietly. My goal is to be receptive of all of the different inspirations that find their way to me. It is truly paramount that we need to be in observation of things that resonate with us and to bookmark the idea for later review and action. Most importantly to not ignore the little whispers of ideas and inspirations that come your way. As cliche as it sounds, those little inspired ideas are what will lead you to the next inspired steps.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chingchungart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chingchungart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100095434421527/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chingchung/