SHOP OPENING The shop for With Bare Hands, We Reach is now OPEN until June 15! All proceeds will be donated to Red Canary Song. Happy AAPI Heritage month! https://barehandszine.bigcartel.com/
️ FIRST WEEK EARLY BIRD BONUS ️ For the first week only, all orders for any bundle with physical merch will include this set of Manananggal die-cut stickers for free! They are also available for purchase via the merch à la carte option.
STRETCH GOALS Here’s our stretch goals! Want to help us unlock these items? Please consider making a purchase at our store! 30 sales: Mid-Autumn festival lantern die-cut sticker 75 sales: Holographic Bul Gae die-cut sticker
ZINE ONLY - $18 Includes the digital-only PDF of the full zine, featuring the work of 20+ artists and 10+ writers! Note: this bundle is NOT eligible for any stretch goals!
✨ ZINE + DIGITAL MERCH - $25 ✨ Includes the digital zine, as well as 3 printable bookmarks, 2 printable bookmarks, two wallpapers, and social media icons/banners! Note: this bundle is NOT eligible for any stretch goals!
⭐ ZINE + PAPER MERCH - $30 ⭐ Includes the digital zine, as well as a sticker sheet, 5 die-cut stickers and 3 art prints. Note: this bundle is eligible for all stretch goals!
FULL BUNDLE - $45 Includes everything, featuring a special 5x7 pouch! Note: this bundle is eligible for all stretch goals!
MERCH À LA CARTE All of the physical merch items can be purchased separately! ✦ Art prints - $8.00 each ✦ 5x7 pouch - $10.00 each ✦ Die-cut stickers: $5.00 each ✦ Early-bird sticker set: $6.00 set ✦ Sticker sheet - $6.00 each
Cover art created by @beeteal Contributor previews will be featured over the next month! Keep an eye out You can learn more about our charity of choice here: https://www.redcanarysong.net/
Paradise flying snake [ Chrysopelea paradisi ] with Sampaguita and male Danaid eggflies ✿
May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month ♡ I want to take this month to celebrate my Filipino heritage, as well as share some of the beautiful snakes and flowers found in the Philippines.
Paradise flying snakes can be found throughout Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh all the way to the islands of the Philippines. They are able to use their ribs to flatten their bodies a surprising amount, to then glide from tree to tree in the moist forests they call home. These snakes are mildly venomous, and feed on lizards and bats in the wild.
Sampaguita (Arabian Jasmine) is the national flower of the Philippines; it is beloved for its scent, and symbolizes purity, fidelity, and hope.
I’m looking forward to sharing with all of you more of the amazing snakes that call the Philippines home ♡ Keep your eyes peeled for the release of something special from @thewashistation and several AAPI artists, including myself ~ ❤️
“Taking down to street level this time, I wanted to focus in close on some of the endless layers of conflict that has us all bound together… Always locked in, always locked out, winners and losers all…” - Martin Wong
Martin Wong (1946 – 1999) painted urban landscapes such as the tenement apartment buildings in the Lower East Side (LES) where he lived most of his life. He also depicted the lives of people considered underdogs, whether inmates in state prison, graffiti artists, firemen, etc.. Wong was a mostly self-taught Chinese-American artist, who grew up in Chinatown in San Francisco and was openly gay. When he first moved to New York, he lived in a cheap hotel room in exchange for working as a night porter before moving to an apartment in a Hispanic section of the LES known as “Loisaida.”.
“During the ’80s, in an era when Neo-Expressionism was the dominant mode, the largely self-taught artist stood out in subject and style. He sported a long mustache and cowboy duds. He was an openly gay Asian-American man during a period when the city’s Asian diaspora was treated as invisible. (Only 10 years prior, Chinese activists had realized the state census hadn’t bothered to even count hundreds of immigrants living in downtown tenements.) He also made it so that pinning him down on the basis of any one identity was impossible. Wong wasn’t deaf, but he used ASL. He hung out with Puerto Ricans, though he didn’t speak Spanish. He often felt anxious, but he used parody to sublimate his insecurities. In some outsider circles, he was an insider.” (from “Human Instamatic: Martin Wong’s Visionary Paintings of New York continue to Intrigue” by Tessa Solomon, Art in America, June 7, 2021)
Wong labeled himself ethnically as Chino-Latino because his father had Mexican heritage. In his paintings, he meticulously documented his urban environment and the lives lived within it using homoerotic imagery, poetry, and language to explore multiple ethnic, racial, and cultural identities, as well as to celebrated his own queer identity.
Image 1: Front cover featuring “Kato”, 1992, Acrylic on linen.
Image 2: “My Secret World”, 1978-81, Acrylic on canvas.
Sweet oblivion : the urban landscape of Martin Wong [essays by] Marcia Tucker … [et al.] ; edited by Amy Scholder. Author / Creator Wong, Martin New York : Rizzoli : Distributed by St. Martin’s Press, c1998. 85 p. : col. ill. ; 26 cm. English c1998 HOLLIS number: 990078744150203941
In memory of Hung Liu who passed away last August and in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
Hung Liu was a Chinese American artist who once said her goal was “to invent a way of allowing myself to practice as a Chinese artist outside of a Chinese culture.”
Liu was born in 1948 during the revolutionary era in Changchun in northeast China,. Her father was a teacher imprisoned for his involvement in anti-Communist politics. During the Cultural Revolution, she was sent by the government to the countryside to work on farms for “re-education.”
In the 1970s, Liu studied at Beijing Teachers College and Central Academy of Fine Arts, and earned a graduate degree in 1981. But she grew restless with the officially-sanctioned Socialist Realist style and subjects. In 1984, she was given a permission to travel to the United States and enrolled in the MFA program at the University of California, San Diego.
Liu settled permanently in the Bay Area. She started teaching at Mills College in Oakland in 1990, eventually retiring in 2014.
Her death in August 2021 came less than three weeks before the scheduled opening of a career survey, “Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands,” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. She was the first Asian American woman to have a solo exhibition there.
Her work incorporated photo-based images that combined the political and the personal. Many of these images were of figures forgotten by history such as laborers, immigrants, prisoners, and prostitutes. (From “Hung Liu, Artist Who Blended East and West, Is Dead at 73” by Holland Cotter, The New York Times, August 22, 2021)
Image: “Sister Hoods”, 2003, Oil on canvas, 72”x 72” Summoning ghosts : the art of Hung Liu Oakland Museum of California. Liu, Hung, 1948-2021 招魂 Berkeley : University Of California Press, 2013. 216 p. : ill. ; 28 cm. English 2013. HOLLIS number: 990136645170203941
We are dedicated to promoting, celebrating, and supporting our Asian American and Pacific Islander creators, readers, and community. Below, check out some incredible books by our AAPI creators to read all year round!
Debating Darcy by Sayantani DasGupta
In this Pride & Prejudice retelling, Leela is ALWAYS #1 in speech and debate competitions. But when she meets Firoze Darcy, more than just her winning streak is at stake…her heart is, too.
Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim
Inspired by a true story, two friends risk everything in a daring attempt to escape the poverty and oppression of mainland China during the Cultural Revolution.
Zara Hossain is Here by Sabina Khan
Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant Zara Hossain’s family has waited years for their visa process to be finalized so that they can officially become US citizens. But it only takes one moment for that dream to come crashing down around them.
The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan
Rukhsana is finding it impossible to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations. Luckily, it’s only a few more months until her new life at Caltech. But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart.
I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn
When Kimi visits her grandparents in Japan, she is relieved to escape her problems back home. But soon the trip becomes a way for Kimi to learn more about the mother she left behind, and to figure out where her own heart lies.
Caster & Spell Starter by Elsie Chapman
Aza Wu knows that real magic is dangerous and illegal. After all, casting killed her sister. But to save the legacy of their family teahouse, she enters an underground casting tournament and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
K-Pop Revolution and K-Pop Confidential by Stephan Lee
In this romantic coming-of-age duology, a Korean American girl travels to Seoul in hopes of debuting in a girl group at the same K-pop company behind the most popular boy band on the planet.
The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim
When Anna’s not looking after her brother and sister or helping out at her father’s restaurant, she’s taking care of her mother, whose debilitating mental illness keeps her in bed most days. When her mother finally gets out of bed, things go from bad to worse. And as her mother’s condition worsens, Anna and her family question everything they understand about themselves and each other.
The Great Destroyers by Caroline Tung Richmond
Jo Linden was born into a world where wars are won with giant mechanical soldiers and the nuclear bomb was never invented. Yet the Cold War still rages, and international rivalries between democracy and communism are now fought at the Pax Games, an Olympic-style competition that pits young pilots of mechas against each other. In a global arms race between superpowers, playing out in violent games that only humanity could create, comes a chilling story of clashing titans, ruthless competition, freedom, and the girl caught in the middle of it all.
Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Justina Chen
When Viola Li returns from a trip, she develops an extreme case of photosensitivity. But Viola is determined to maintain a normal life, particularly after she meets Josh.
Upcoming Reads by Asian American and Pacific Islander Creators!
Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan (On Sale 8/2)
Mira must decide whether to re-connect with the woman who placed her for adoption…but isn’t sure she’s ready for what she might learn. Told in dual perspectives, this novel follows Mira and her mother eighteen years apart.
Beneath the Wide Silk Sky by Emily Inouye Huey (On Sale 10/18)
After Pearl Harbor, Sam documents the bigotry she sees towards Japanese Americans. When the US announces that those of Japanese descent will be sent to “relocation camps,” Sam must act or lose her voice forever.
archipelago dreams for @thewashistation’s new collection, Artists & Culture of SEA!
am really happy to be part of this collection, alongside other amazing SEA artists ✨ i designed a tape that collages uniquely Filipino icons and objects – rolled up together all dreamy-like (and i’m so in love with the gold foil! aaaaaa!!)
i love the esoteric art that already exists here in the PH, and i hope that this lil tribute to things i love abt my culture makes a nice addition! are there icons you already recognize? ✨
pick this bb up and so much more from the other cool SEAsian artists atthewashistation.com!
I know it’s a little late, but I learned this year that May is both Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish Heritage Month, so here’s the Bats.
From left to right-
Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ashkenazi Jewish), Kate Kane/Batwoman (Ashkenazi Jewish), Minkhoa Khan/Ghost-Maker (Singaporean), Cassandra Wayne/Batgirl (Chinese), Damian Wayne/Robin (Chinese & Ashkenazi Jewish) and Bao Pham/Clownhunter (Vietnamese).
I know it’s a little late, but I learned this year that May is both Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish Heritage Month, so here’s the Bats.
From left to right-
Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ashkenazi Jewish), Kate Kane/Batwoman (Ashkenazi Jewish), Minkhoa Khan/Ghost-Maker (Singaporean), Cassandra Wayne/Batgirl (Chinese), Damian Wayne/Robin (Chinese & Ashkenazi Jewish) and Bao Pham/Clownhunter (Vietnamese).
Happy#AAPIHeritageMonth! This self-care kit for Asian Americans applies all year round (and maybe even for years to come).
The post in this link analyzes how Asian men are being hidden in anti-Asian hate crime data. It’s unbelievable that this is even happening and allowed to continue.
Thisnext post analyzes how journalists are part of the problem (including Asian journalists who uphold and defend racist white-controlled platforms/institutions).
(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)
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