Artist Talk & Demo: Sandra Honda & Tien-chu Loh

FREE & Open to the public with reserved ticket

Embodying Paper: Artistic Process and Identity by Sandra Honda (she/her)

Hear from the artist herself as Sandra Honda explores the use of paper as substrate and medium to dig into her Japanese American identity. Honda discusses the conceptual journey that led her to creating “Love Heals”, which appears in Infinite Possibilities.

Wet-mounting Demonstration by Tien-chu Loh (he/him)

Wanting to find alternative ways to display drawings or paintings? Infinite Possibilities artist, Tien-chu Loh will demonstrate a wet-mounting technique using Xuan paper, a type of paper originating in ancient China. Wet-mounting is the traditional process of gluing a backing to a painting. This practice dates to the Han Dynasty (202 BC to 220 AD) where paper fibers relax when wet, and shrink and tighten when dried. Join Loh as he brings into focus the vital and necessary step for properly framing and presenting Xuan paper works.

Learn more about Infinite Possibilities.

Image: detail of Rapture Birdsongs by Sandra Honda

Sandra Honda Bio:

Sandra Honda (she/her) is a Japanese American visual artist and writer based on Kalapuyan land now known as Eugene, Oregon. She works to elevate less heard voices and stories by invoking historical, contemporary and social narratives. In 2018, she left her career as a speechwriter and scientist to redirect her focus toward using art and writing to interrogate what it means to be Asian and American in today’s America. Informed by the Japanese American experience of ethnically-based mass incarceration during World War II, her drawings, paintings, digital works, assemblages, and installations draw a historical throughline of anti-Asian activities in the U.S. from the 1800s to today. In 2022, she initiated a social practice focused on climate change in which she broadened her toolkit to include sculpture. This climate change-related work draws on her career addressing climate, ocean and science policy through her speechwriting work.

She often collaborates with Taiwanese composer and sound designer Mei-ling Lee to create interactive installations enriched by sound and lighting environments. Since moving to Eugene in 2018, Honda has exhibited (selected) in the Mayor’s Art Show (Eugene, 2020), Arts Northwest Biennial (Roseburg, 2021), Eugene’s Windowfront Exhibition (2022), Maude Kerns Art Center (Eugene, 2022), The Reser Center for the Arts (Beaverton, 2022), the University of Oregon Adele McMillan Gallery (EMU, 2023) and Walters Cultural Arts Center (Hillsboro, 2023). She is a recipient of grants from the Oregon Arts Commission (2022) and Lane County Cultural Commission (2024). She was the first artist selected for two consecutive years of residency at Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture (2022, 2023).

Honda was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, where her family relocated after their incarceration in America’s concentration camps (Pinedale, Tule Lake, and Minidoka) during World War II.

Tien-chu Loh Bio:

Tien-chu (he/him) is a retired pharmacist whose hobbies include Chinese Brush Calligraphy and Chinese Brush Painting. Painting is his Prozac. He paints in the Xieyi genre and exclusively on various kinds of Xuan paper. He often expands his style beyond the classical interpretation of Chinese brush painting. He paints in the spirit of an old Chinese saying, “There should be poetry in a painting, and poetry should be like a painting.” His works have appeared in juried shows around town and in places like Pendleton, Roseburg and online shows in California. Some of his works have found a home at George Fox University and the City of Hillsboro Public Art Archive.