River to the Afterlife
Tiffany L.
Oil paint
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When I was in the third grade, my grandmother, who I rarely saw due to her living in Taiwan, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. She had weeks left to live. I remember flying back to Taiwan during summer break to see her one last time. She passed the day I visited, and I was left with an empty, blue feeling that I didn’t know what to do with. A few days afterwards, my mom told me of the Japanese tradition, folding 1,000 paper cranes after someone has died could make one special wish come true. So I did fold one thousand of those origami birds for my grandmother. The day before her funeral we placed the cranes with her body, and I made my wish, which was for her to be happy and at peace in her afterlife. Ever since, paper cranes have held a special place in my heart, and I have all the steps of folding them memorized. They remind me of my grandmother, who has left a large impact on the person I am today. When making this piece, all I knew was that I wanted to honor her memory in some form. That’s where I got the idea for origami cranes, floating on a small, winding river, into a bright luminous light. The colors are meant to invoke a sense of melancholy, yet calming peace. That’s what I hoped for my grandmother and I hope now that my artwork expresses it as well.
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I believe that creativity means telling a story or expressing an idea uniquely. Anything and everything can be done, as art has no rules or limits. Creativity is a raw, human trait that I am only beginning to explore through various mediums, and there is much more to be learned.
