Hello my friends, Last week my blog post on Culture Power is about the mass shooting in New Zealand's Mosques on March 15th 2019, the terrifying ordeal happened when one gunman went into the Al Noor Mosque and performed a mass killing and continued his attack to the Linwood Islamic Centre. The reason behind his massacre is because of the differences in culture and religion.

Life bless us with the Yin and Yang, the duality of the good and evil, pain and joy and past and present. The duality shows us the double sided coin, in this incident, the other side of the coin was this human angel that stopped the armed killer from continuing his rampage of destruction. Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah was praying with his four children at the Linwood Islamic Center on Friday when the gunfire started. Abdul instead of cowering and save guarding his children, he went after the gunman and confronted the shooter in order to protect not just his children but also the rest of the prayers in the mosque. When he was praised for what he has done in the mosque he said:"I got to be honest with you, it wasn't me, it was God that saved everybody. God saved everyone," he said.

Since we are made to the likeness of God, I believe that he was God at that moment. When Abdul was faced with a dire situation, he stood up and took charge. His selfless act was inspiring and it reminded us that the world is made of duality, there may be pain in this world but there is also joy, there may be darkness but it is counter balanced by light. I hoped that when I am faced with a dire situation like that I would have the courage to act upon it as selflessly as he did.

The painting above is called Guardian, it was my intention to paint this painting as a reminder to everyone of us that we have to be somewhat magnanimous. We need to keep each other out of harm's way and stand up for one another against injustice. We need to be united, love one another and be each other's Guardian Angel. It does not matter if the person that we stand up for is a stranger or a loved one because we are responsible for each other's well being. If we continue on the path of enlightenment, the world will eventually heal itself and one day we will live together in a more harmonized path.

If you resonate with this post, please leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you on the duality of life. 

With Honor in spirit and in mind,
Ting Yuen xoxo

"Hello Friends, Just a little "Artist Knowledge" that I would like to share with you. I believe to be an artist you need to have your own unique style. It is true that if you follow trends, your work may be more popular for a short period of time but trend will soon fade and you will be faced with another blank canvas with nothing to say. So if you wished to be an artist, find your own voice and hone in on your own uniqueness because after all art is about self expression and individuality."

This was a post that I have shared on my Ting Yuen Art FB Page and I received a very interesting comment that asked "How can I Learn to let go and be free from my own judgement and accept the praise of others?"  Since this is such a great question I thought I shall devote this blog to it. I will answer this question with two different solutions: one is how to overcome judgment from others and the other one is how to overcome judgment from yourself. 

How do we Overcome Judgments of Others?
Now when it comes to judgment of others, I think being an artist, you got to be tenacious, you can't let other peoples' opinions about your work slow you down or even worse make you give up. I have always being self reliant, when it comes to my art work. I am a self taught artist, so I learn through trial and error. for that reason my style is distinctive but I also know that my work is very different and it is not in the main stream. My art has had many criticisms before especially when I was new to the game. I took other peoples' judgments with a grain of salt, if the criticisms are not constructive then it is really just their opinions and I refuse to take those hurtful attitudes to heart. One of the things that we need to learn in life is to believe in ourselves and our goals with such confidence that we do not let other peoples' attitudes contaminate our ideas and our self worth. 

I find most people that sit around and judge are the non doers, They are the ones that are afraid to put themselves out there because they are afraid to get the kind of treatment that they dish out to others. Therefore do not let them have the power over you.

And How Do we Overcome Self Judgment?
But if you are the judge of yourself then you are the culprit that jeopardizes your own creativity. This might be the worst kind of judgment. Please stop the self deprecation, go deep within yourself and find the reason and the root of your problem. This is not an exercise for you to confront the perpetrator, it is just a practice to find out the root of your problem so that you can begin to heal yourself from this bad habit. Do a ritual to cleanse yourself from your own judgment.

By the way, that inner judgmental voice is your mind playing games with your soul and it is effecting your heart. So silence your mind and trust your soul and heart. They will not disappoint you. 

The other thing is accepting yourself and love yourself. Give yourself grace knowing that your creativity depends on your well being. You can either create through pain or joy. Or if you were like me, I created through pain because painting was my refuge and eventually as I worked through my challenges I started creating through joy and wisdom. 

Know yourself well and create with your own voice 
Creating with your own distinctive style comes from knowing yourself well, knowing that whatever you put out there is from your own voice and you have created it for yourself and nobody else.  And if your audience love it then that is great but that is just a vanity measurement. The important thing is if you have enjoyed the process and if you like it. And if you don't, ask yourself why and what lesson did you learn from creating this piece of work.

Fear and Self Deprecation is your worst enemies
My dear friends, please don't fear and don't let self criticisms stop you from creating because those are your real enemies. Once the voice of judgement is gone, you will feel like a freed caged bird, you would fly high and you would experiment with your talents , you will do things out of trial and error and your life as an artist would be so much more rewarding. Love yourself so much that it doesn't matter if your inner voice is busy putting yourself down or other people are criticizing you because you have the confidence to continue your journey and work through each challenges that come your way because you are strong and independent. Value yourself truly and don't let negativity be part of your routine.

If you have enjoyed this post please leave me a comment, I would love to hear from you. If you have another way to combat self doubt please do share your knowledge with me.

With honor in mind and in spirit,
yours truly,
Ting Yuen xoxo

 

 Hello my friends, Last few blogs I was talking about goal settings. I am very fortunate with the help of my husband Paul, I have been doing my dream business for the past 12 years.

The truth about owning your dream business
The other thing about living your dream is that you need to be very aware of what your economic environment and your sales are dictating, listen to your business intuition and slowly modify it to your satisfaction. I do find as we age and get wiser, our goals change, what seemed to be the perfect set up before may not be anymore as we grow. 

Growth and Changes
For instance, I started out with a part time Brick and Mortar Gallery and seasonal shows throughout spring and winter. That posed a problem once my husband and I got tired of doing shows, at one point we were doing 22 shows a year and that was too much traveling. So we did a huge change on our business and became a full time Brick and Mortar Gallery, which entailed us to move to a bigger center.

After 9 years of being a full time gallery, there is another shift in the economy and our business is in need of a pivot again. I find that business is an entity that has a life of it's own, you got to listen to your inner wisdom and make changes as you grow. And that is one of the beautiful thing about owning your own business, you can test things out to your satisfaction or discard it. Don't be shy about testing things and trying new things out because that is the only way we can learn and improve. 

The Truth
If you wished to be an artist, please believe me that it is possible. If you really want it, you will find a way to do it. You might have to start small and scale up from there. But by all means start now and don't wait.

What make Artists unique is our ability and our need to create but unfortunately if you want to make your art into a business having a talent is definitely not enough. There is so much more when it comes to making a business out of your passion. You need the right mind set, dedication and some business knowledge.
​
Mindset and Knowledge
There are three factors that may stop you from achieving your goal and I believe these are your internal enemies: Fear, Discipline and Faith. If you could conquer these three factors then you have the right mindset  to start your dream business.

And in regards to business knowledge, it is all learn-able. You just have to dedicate some time into being a student of marketing and book keeping. Give yourself grace when you are learning, things do not come together all at once, it takes time to learn, implement, test, rinse and repeat.

​Please check out my video below that explains what being a full time artist is all about. If you have any questions please feel free to ask, I will be happy to help you out.

With honor in mind and in spirit, 
​Ting xoxo