The Introduction essay for A Prismatic Mirror, AAWAA annual group exhibition catalog, 1999.

By Yan Kong

Art creates a visual dialogue between the artist and the viewer, a dialogue which ideally transcends language and nationality. Currently a wealth of multicultural crossovers exist in the United States. Although America is a land of ethnic diversity, art does not seem to be a free agent; instead it seems to be tethered to the shifting winds of political fashion. In the 1950s America was hailed as a great melting pot, a concept which changed in the 1960s with the advent of the Civil Rights movement and the spotlight it threw on specific social injustices. Out of the great melting pot emerged the hyphenated Americans: African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, along with other self-identified oppressed groups.=, the gays and lesbians, the feminists. What began as a struggle for equality (equal pay, equal opportunity, equal rights) seemed to fracture and splinter. Things took on a different light. Culture and art began to march in single file, following the dictates of ethnic and group-specific categories. Now there is African American art, Asian American art, Hispanic American art, Native American art, feminist art, gay and lesbian art, and the list goes on. Inadvertently, culturally and artistically, we seem to have fallen into a separate but equal solution that in legal terms the Supreme Court of the United States found unconstitutional and untenable decades ago. This course of development has marginalized and ghettoized the art of so-called American minorities, segregating it from what is still perceived as mainstream art. Minority art has become a subculture of consciousness-raising which sometimes translates as grants or job opportunities for minority artists, including women artists.
Asian American women, in two ways delegated to minority status, face the same challenges as other oppressed groups. For many Asian American women, accepting without protest has been the traditional route. More often than not, our upbringing has ingrained in us the acceptance of personal injustice. Our culture and our families tolerate our artistic pursuits only if we have the financial means to indulge in art. Otherwise, our need, our desire, our ambition to be artists make us a target of ridicule. Much of this applies to American women as well, for sadly, contempt for the impracticality of artistic pursuits crosses all too many ethnic and cultural boundaries.
Recently I tried to encourage a fellow AAWAA member to participate in the exhibition. She claimed she did not feel her work was good enough. I told her that what she felt was a natural part of the process of making art, that in reality, she may never feel quite sure of what she has produced; that we artists needed to accept each step of the creative process, pushing at the boundaries of the unknown, challenging ourselves to proceed in spite of our doubts and fears. She replied, "If we keep making art and are never able to feel sure about what we have done, shouldn't we have our heads examined?" I said, "Damn right we should!" Why should we doubt ourselves so much? Why should this most natural of human urges, the urge to be creative, to play, to explore, to express ourselves, take such a psychic toll of us?
We artists must follow our convictions. Art is not about making money, impressing critics and art dealers, or even about having an art career. It is something we do in spite of ourselves and our circumstances because it enriches our lives, answers deep-seated aesthetic needs and gives shape and purpose to our experiences. The trend in our materialistic society, whether Asian or American, is to value money, placing it on ever taller pedestals. Artists are gauged by how well their work sells, by the prices their work commands. The art community, made up of artists, curators, dealers, cannot escape from these capitalistic demands which threaten to choke art itself with their vise-like grip. Too many of us artists, regardless of the quality of the work we produce, feel like outsiders. We feel ignored, not part of the dialogue, and we inevitably spend time and energy pursuing the goal of getting in. Many of us, in spite of feeling like outsiders, know that these tricks of perception do not detract from the artistic merit of our work nor the validity of what we individually have to say. It is from this deep knowing that we continue to do our work and gather together to foster a sense of community and to celebrate the common ground we share.
As the millennium approaches, many of us, Asian American women who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, strengthened by years of survival and perseverance, are finally able to shed our fears and insecurities. We have new and continuing challenges to face. The struggle for empowerment among Asian women, though far behind the American feminist movement, is reaching global scale. Younger generations of Asian women are able to tap into an ever-widening scope of choices in their lives. Attitudes change slowly, but they do change. As Asian American women artists, we identify ourselves as part of a minority in America and we believe we have our work cut out for us.
The original founders of Asian American Women Artists Alliance were four immigrant Asian women: Yan Kong, Ellen Hsiao, Michelle Chung-jui Lui and Terumi Kaneyasu. We were brought together by the recognition that by coming together, we can better give each other spiritual and artistic support. AAWAA was formally incorporated in May 1998 and its primary goals are to promote the work of its emerging artist members through a venue of annual gallery exhibitions, and to reach out to the broader community through workshops, seminars, and exhibitions. Our membership is open to women of all ethnic backgrounds who share our values and support our goals. We are grateful for the many fine established artist who are joining us; they serve as a great source of inspiration. Our annual exhibition, a means of self-empowerment, celebrate our efforts, serves as a stepping stone to proper recognition, and is our way of accumulating spiritual capital.

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