HKNight

art by Shu Nung Lee

Yay! I have a new artist to share. After only one tiny nag, my old friend Shun Nung Lee sent me this œuvre (musn't forget this is a Salon) that falls perfectly into the theme of Night Of Grace: the tone, the color, its nighttime setting, lights reflecting on water...the whole nine yards. I'm not surprised that he came up with such a perfect submission, he was always one sharp cookie. I am surprised that he works with paint, I always thought his medium was words. Even in the sixth grade, he could paint the sharpest insight with wit and a dash of ire.

To be honest, I don't really know much about the artist as an adult, at all. I hadn't had contact with him in over twenty years until our mutual arrival on facebook. I don't even know where he lives. I was guessing he lived somewhere in Great Britain because of his use of words like "cheers" and "keen" and dating things the European way: today is 13 Oct. I am pretty clever at picking up subtle language cues. Like the time I was able to ferret out the mystery of my brother's stay in Afghanistan because of little things he would say like: "Inshallah" and "it's getting cold over here in Kabul". True, the going away party the family had for him was a pretty big tell but I still think I deserve some credit for my powers of deductive reasoning. I used these powers to detect a clue from my artist friend when he sent me his work entitled "HKNight". I've been mulling it over and although I might be going out on a limb—I'm thinking HK might refer to Hong Kong. Maybe he lives in Hong Kong? Sometimes you amaze me Miss Marple!

As I know next to nothing about Shu Nung the Adult, besides the fact that he has gamely shared his art with my blogspot, I will tell you some things I remember about him from back in the day. His family owned this enormous store we called the "Wicker Store" I am not even sure whether that was the store's actual name. I loved the smell of that store: the closest I can come to describing it is to compare it to the smell of Cost Plus. Only, the Wicker Store was like Cost Plus' stylish and quirky older aunt from whom Cost Plus stole all her ideas and most of her wardrobe. I loved this store, filled to the brim with exciting and exotic wares. Mostly I liked Shu's mother who was always at the store. She called me Micki which I chose to receive as my first coolish sounding nickname. Nobody ever gave me a nickname that didn't sound goofy like: Duper, Booboo Taffy Doggie, Doolyhoffer. Why not just call me Doofus? Oops, I seem to have digressed onto some of my own issues. Back to the artist.

When Shu cruised into town, he was quickly pegged for being smart. What I found compelling was the fact that he was different. He didn't seem to be snared by all the small world trappings of our little village. I think I remember that he used to wear this Joe Cool t-shirt. Joe Cool-spot on. (as the people who say cheers and keen might say) Completely unswayed by the rest of the Peanuts gang, he certainly wouldn't take any guff from me. As a child I could describe myself as equal parts Harriet the Spy, Pippi Longstocking and Attila the Hun. If I had to pick a Peanuts character others might have associated me with, it probably would have been Lucy. (although what I looked like to the rest of the world was not necessarily an accurate picture of who I really was) A bossy know-it-all with a her fair share of physical strength, Shu Nung Cool took all that in stride while managing not to completely hate me. Correction: at first he might have hated me. I remember a time when he threw rocks at me—actually, he threw rocks to a point just shy of me as if to say, "I could hit you, I would like to hit you but check out my restraint." Intriguing. I wasn't often intrigued back then. Joe Cool.

In some ways I have to guess he hasn't changed from when I knew him. Every time he makes a comment on facebook, his sardonic wit makes me chuckle. In class back in high school, his asides always made me laugh. I remember, I think it was in French class, he passed me this furled up piece of paper. I wish I could remember it perfectly but I will have to ad-lib as my memory is not what it used to be. The paper read a little something like this:

Textbook

He sat admiring her beautiful golden hair

and promptly buffeted the back of her head.

The casual violence cracked me up in an Edward Gorey kind of way and I was just glad that I didn't have blonde hair and that I sat behind him in class.

Thank you Shu Nung, for sharing your art. I appreciate you keeping me company in my endeavor and helping me to avoid quitting for as long as possible. I hope the font is big enough. Cheers!