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Community
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Stories of Vendors
When in kindergarten, 30-year old Lim Siew Bee used to do her older sister's art and craft. That is her earliest recollection of using her hands to produce a piece of work. "I got an A in my Art for SPM and that is when I decided to take it up seriously", she says. At 19 she found herself in Equator School of Arts doing interior design. It took her a year to realize that it was not her cup of tea and, even though her family was worried about her future working prospects and her friends laughed at her, she went into the fine arts, taking up print making. She was the one and only pupil in her fine arts class!
Bee, as she is called by her friends, decided to major in wood cut print making. This is a relief printing artistic technique in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller, and paper is placed over it to create a print. It is a process which is difficult, requiring strength yet delicacy, not just when carving the image onto the wood but also when transferring the image onto paper. "I like this work. Seeing the image emerge makes me feel very powerful and the process to create the art work allows me to put my hands into all the material", is how Bee describes her love for wood cut printing and lithography.
"Unlike painting, where you use just a brush, paint and canvas, in wood cut printing you feel the process. You have to use your hands to feel the paper, see that the ink is in order. And be very sensitive to the amount and texture of the ink. It is a very tactile and sensual art."
Bee works with Chinese inspired designs and uses just the color red. She began her sojourn with Chinese culture when she worked in a Chinese restaurant as an assistant manager and artist. Here her employer encouraged her to use her skills in the deco of the restaurant, allowing her the mornings just to work on her designs. She had her first exhibition in this restaurant called the Junction Café. The prints she makes are intricate and full of life, with fishes and lions dancing and children playing in rice fields, reflective of old Chinese children's tales.
Her other passion is paper cutting saying that often the designs she gets from her paper cutting can be transferred into wood cuts.
Little Penang Street Market is proud to welcome Lim Siew Bee to the April '07 Market where she will demonstrate and sell her craft. We hope to have a children's workshop with her in the coming year on the art of paper cutting. __________________________________ Written and photographed by Ambiga Devy © All Rights Reserved. |
A
Sensual Art – Wood Cut Print Making
"My
teacher advised me to think very carefully. She said that if I took
up the fine arts, it had to be my life. I said, 'Yes and why not'".
She has had no regrets.
She
works quickly and serenely. Her tools are laid out neatly before her
and she calmly proceeds to transfer ink onto a piece of glass. This
is rolled to a smooth consistency, a process which takes about five
minutes. The ink is then transferred onto her woodblock and a piece
of rice paper is laid on top. She then takes a spoon and presses the
paper onto the wood, ensuring that all ink is transferred to the paper,
until a deeply hued, red imprint emerges.
When
asked why she did this type of lithography, she explained that it is
very much linked to the Chinese culture and that it was a method of
Chinese art form that she wanted to ensure would not be lost in Malaysia.
Wood
cut lithography is not the only art that Bee does, she also working
with oils and water color, having held her first solo exhibition in
oil painting and prints in Equator in 1988.
Bee
grins and tells me that even though she was laughed at by her course
mates for taking up the fine arts, she was the first in her class to
get a job after graduation.