Artist Booklet - Family Housing Fund

Cy Thao | My Home Through the Years | 2004, oil on canvasDiane Katsiaficas | Home Sweet Home Again | 2004, oil pastel on paperArtist’s Statement | cy thaoArtist’s Statement | diane katsiaficas38For many centuries, the Hmong lost their writing system and neededto develop other forms of communication. Storytelling was one wayto pass on information from one generation to the next. The Hmongsewed their histories onto cloth using symbols. Eventually, they replacedthose symbols with basic scenes and characters to tell their stories.During the late 1970s in Thai refugee camps, Hmong men andwomen started sewing tapestries that recounted their journey from Laos.Those tapestries didn’t use words but pictures of people leaving theirvillages, wandering in the jungle, and finally reaching the resettlementcamps. My paintings try to continue that storytelling tradition usingoil paint on canvas.To begin this piece, I read the poems and essays from the first “HomeSweet Home” exhibition. Then I went into my studio and began to draw.To convey the “bigness” of the narrative, I abutted two sheets of 22- by30-inch watercolor paper to make a 30- by 44-inch sheet. I like the ideathat one plus one equals three. Each drawing can hold its own, buttogether they make a third drawing.Next, I laid down a patchwork of bright colors in harder oil pastels.Then I covered the quilt of colors with a softer black oil pastel. What layin front of me was an old-fashioned scratchboard—like the ones we hadin elementary school—filled with the promise of discovery as each markclears the surface.39. . ................................................................................Born in Laos, Cy Thao emigrated from a Thairefugee camp to St. Paul with his family in 1980.After earning a bachelor’s degree in art and politicalscience from the University of Minnesota at Morris,Thao studied the history of the Hmong peopleat Xiantiang University in China. With grantsfrom the Bush and Jerome foundations, heeventually produced an epic series of paintingscalled The Hmong Migration, which were shownat the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2004.Thao also works as a legislator at the MinnesotaHouse of Representatives.A professor in the art department at the University ofMinnesota, Diane Katsiaficas has an M.F.A. in paintingfrom the University of Washington and a B.A. inchemistry from Smith College. As an artist, she usesa variety of techniques and media, from digital stillsand video images to cut tin cans. Her work rangesfrom small journal drawings and paintings to largescaleinstallations and has been shown throughout theUnited States and Europe. She has received numerousawards, including a Fulbright Scholarship to Greeceand two McKnight Foundation Fellowships, and holdsa U.S. patent for an outdoor recreational structure.