Flor Widmar

Life can be crazy and unpredictable like rush hour traffic at 5pm. When I went to Taiwan, I learned that in life you sometimes have to go outside yourself and embrace the situation. During my time there, I asked myself a lot of questions such as “What I'm making?,” “How far I can push myself?,” “Why I'm I making what I'm making?” These are questions that I never thought about before I was making art. The everyday experiences of being in Taiwan were also enlightening. The experience of not knowing the language, the wonderful people I met,  and all of the food food food!!!! It was amazing to find out how to order food without knowing what to say--the only why was to point at and hope it was good. I tried to be very outgoing and wanted to try everything. If it was food and it smelled good I ate it. The eating experience was strange because there were no forks or spoons so eating was challenging with everyone eating 5 different dishes at once. People were friendly, coming up to stare at you and be amazed. They look up to Americans because they think we are rich and famous and they value light skin because it means you don't work. We were all so all so hot but all of them had sweaters and pants in the hot sun because they did not want to get sunburned .

 

The work that I made in Taiwan was mostly influenced by "lose work" not tight before rigid, narrow, and smooth now: loose and wabi-sabi. I did a lot of looking to find the out what makes me me and why am I am doing what I do.

 

I think that going to Taiwan was good for me. To be able to have time to my self and to see what I don’t ever have time to see in my work and in life at home. Since I am usually running all over and have 100 things to do all day every day, I sometimes forget to think about my art and where it is going or where I want to take it. There was so much to learn that I don’t even know how to tell it all although I feel that I do have a better understanding of where my concentration will be taking me.