A native of China, Hua Nian is an active exhibiting artist and art instructor in Champaign-Urbana. Her paintings have appeared in international and national art exhibitions, winning awards on the local, state, and national level. Her works have been featured in the Chicago Sun-Times, Dialogue: An Art Journal, as cover art for books and music CDs, posters produced by Stanford University, and American Artist Magazine. At her home studio in Urbana, she teaches children drawing and painting as well as creates her own artwork. Married to a University of Illinois faculty member, the couple have two children, a 13-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl.
See why we think Hua Nian is a Chambana mom to know.
Q: How has motherhood influenced your work as an artist?
Being brought up in China, a country whose culture cherishes the past, I was taught all my earlier life to master the lessons refined by our predecessors, to achieve the goals expected by society. The past had built up a closed tradition in which I felt content and secure. But after several years living in America, I have been bombarded by new events happening everyday. I was terrified to discover that the world is actually moving tumultuously, open-ended and unpredictable. I felt incredibly restless and groundless until the day when my son was born.
I entered motherhood with uncontrollable tears in the delivery room. My anaesthetist was worried that something went seriously wrong. With a broken voice I told him that I was just too happy. Overwhelmed by the miracle of my son’s birth, I suddenly realized that I am no longer an onlooker of life, but a participant – the river of life just running through my body, carrying part of me down to someday, somewhere I would no longer exist. The amazing physical experience created an intimacy between me and reality. I felt like a drifting bottle caught by a branch in a flood–although we are constantly on the move, the moment of tranquility created between the two, floating together, is enough for me to be grateful.
This shift of view had gradually yet profoundly changed the way I think about art and make art. For my abstract paintings series, each one of them stepped out of the shadow of its previous one – colors getting brighter and warmer; lines running to meet each other, forming stories instead of passing through each other and rushing out of the picture frames; instead of mindlessly roaming in no where, dots bounce with joy and energy, some of them started to root into the ground. My upcoming exhibition at Amara Yoga and Arts in March is all about flourishing flowers, in vases, in the wild – I know their journey of growing because I am one of them.
I used to take a lots pictures of my children but still couldn’t ease the anxiety of possessing the fleeting moment. That was when I started to pick up a pencil to draw, to record their growth. Many years later, when I look at my sketches of them rolling, eating, waking, playing, I am thrilled as if I was right there at that particular time of that day because I had used my eyes, my mind, and my hand to trace them rather than having a simple finger movement, a “click” on the camera. These drawings helped me successfully launch a new medium – pen and ink drawings. (Some of my works are currently displayed at Asian American Cultural Center until March 16. The opening is next Monday, Jan. 23, 6:30 – 8 p.m.)
As for my paper-tearing art, the whole body of work is about celebrating motherhood and childhood. (They can be viewed at www.huanianartstudio.com) My playful children have bought me so much joy as well as inspiration.
You work in many mediums. Do you have a favorite and why?
I work in acrylic painting, pen and ink drawing and paper-tearing art. Three of them balance to each other to fulfill my vision of life and art making.
But among the three I spend the most energy on painting, simply because it is more time consuming and demanding both in ideas and techniques.
Q: What is your teaching philosophy?
People like to use the word “talented” to label somebody who can draw well, and I am fortunate to work with a few who appear to have the inner ability to draw. However, most of my students are just like I was when I was a little girl –someone who just wants to make something happen on blank paper, fascinated by the power of magic.
I have been teaching children art lessons for 17 years. My teaching aims at developing students’ drawing and painting skills. I believe that without solid knowledge of how to do, creativity will only end up with what to do, and sooner or later it will lose its appeal. Study shows that majority kids quit drawing at around 9-10 years old. One of the reasons is that children at this age start to get more aware of and interested in the world around them, they often get frustrated by lack of ways to depict it; also, kids this age are smart enough to quickly tell the truth if grown-ups give them indiscriminate praises. If there is someone in their class that can draw well and is being praised being “talented”, then they are more likely to view themselves being not “talented” and give up. I would like to equip these kids with some fundamental techniques, so they can express their ideas confidently and efficiently. I am not against creativity at all, rather, I am trying to complement it – especially in this creativity-oriented society.
With love to draw, appropriate and creative teaching methods within a pleasant and encouraging learning environment, we work to build a solid foundation in drawing and painting, opening doors to future possibilities. Through practice, children can all become “talented” as demonstrated through our annual art exhibitions at the Children’s Department of Urbana Free Library. Drawing is an integrated part of childhood. Learning to draw makes a child’s life much more imaginative, creative, fun and rewarding…
Q: Do you have any tips for parents on how they might encourage their kids’ creativity?
I am speaking of my own experience working with my two kids, in the hope that it might apply to others. Many children at age 1.5 (or maybe earlier) can grab a pencil to make marks – most of the time by accident while waving the pencil. This is the best the time to introduce them to drawing. If you give them colored markers, they will be surprised by the change of the color marks; then if you use these markers to draw simple lines (short, long, curve, wiggle, etc.), and at the same time make some sound effect to accompany certain lines, and exaggerate the drawing movement, you will be surprised at how quick the kids want to imitate everything you did! Later, you can try simple shapes like circles, big and small, along with the sound effects. When they make one, cheerfully add a line to it and say, “look, a lollipop!” or add more lines and say “a kitty cat!” These will surely get their attention and make them want to play more. You can quickly add two dots as eyes or a few lines to any shapes they draw and point out the creatures that both of you just created. Ask what they are making, listen to what they say and back up their stories. If your kids get frustrated because they can’t achieve what they want, you can help them to do it – by holding their hands to draw, making a dotted line for them to trace or even finish for them. Or, you can simply stop the activity and try to distract the kids to other things. The goal here is to create a pleasant, playful and encouraging environment so they will more likely to continue in a long run. The chances are they will become more independent as their fine motor skills develop.
You really don’t have to be an artist to be your children’s first art teacher, all you need to do is to follow the leads of your children, play with them with lines and shapes, and imagine whatever you want them to be. Frankly speaking, many young children really don’t care how well you can draw. Expressing ideas is more important than drawing well at this stage. So a parent’s job is to keep their interest, and the interest along is the drive to learn more, that’s when you might start to think about finding an art teacher to help them develop the drawing skills so they can express their ideas more efficiently.
Q: You are originally from China – will you be celebrating the New Year this upcoming week and what are your favorite New Years traditions?
I have four red Chinese lanterns in front of my studio on Race Street. I try to replace them with new ones around this time of the year so the bright color will delight the cold winter. Sometimes we would invite friends over to have a Chinese potluck. But every year I help to celebrate it by teaching an art lesson as a part of the Chinese New Year celebration at the Urbana Free Library. The event this year is on Saturday, Jan. 28. I am going to teach the kids to draw Chinese dragons since this is the year of dragon.
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