Thursday, March 29, 2012
Fave Quote of My Daily Reading
"I listened to him with open amazement, wondering if he realized the irony of his current situation or the karmic disaster he was heaping onto his daughter. Sins of the father must be redeemed by his children. Maybe that was why our dead ancestors watched over us: guilt"
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Me! in the Golden Gate Express!
http://www.goldengatexpress.org/2011/10/06/student-parents/
Khay Hembrador poses with her son on Oct. 3. She attends SF State, works three jobs and takes care of 2-year-old Kairese in between. Photo by Andrew Lopez
Going to school can be difficult with the burden of high tuition costs, long work hours and an endless amount of homework assignments. While most students struggle to carry the heavy load associated with going to school, SF State student Khay Hembrador takes it in stride while holding her 2-year-old.
Hembrador, 23, sets her eyes toward graduating in the spring with a degree in Asian American studies; however the situation is proving to be difficult. She works three different jobs and does her homework while her son Kairese constantly craves her attention.
“I hate letting go of my time with him. I feel so guilty,” Hembrador said. “I should be home taking care of him.”
Hembrador stays with her parents during the semester and, although they help out when they can, she has to drop off Kairese with the babysitter during the week. A typical day starts when she wakes up at 7 a.m. and drops off Kairese at the babysitter. She arrives to work at the Asian American Women Artist Association by 9 a.m., then when she’s off at 3:30 p.m. she heads to SF State to make it to class by 4 p.m.
Weekends are no time for leisure; some days she has to work 12-hour shifts. Monday and Friday she teaches a karate class at Karate Team USA while her little one watches off to the side.
Hembrador’s karate instructor Andrew Rodriguez has known her for almost three years and admires how hard she works at keeping multiple jobs and going to school, still making time for her son.
“She’s handled it pretty well because everything she does is for her son,” Rodriguez said. “She makes me feel like I got to get three jobs just to keep up with her.”
Before Hembrador became pregnant with Kairese, she was trapped in an abusive relationship that resulted in a miscarriage. Her parents saw her second pregnancy as a tragedy, but Hembrador saw it as her drive to succeed. Now that she has broken away from the abusive relationship and has full custody of Kairese she can concentrate on creating a better life for the both of them.
“I wasn’t thinking straight back then,” Hembrador said. “But now Kairese motivates me to reach my goals.”
One of her biggest struggles is finding an affordable place for child care. She currently pays her babysitter $800 a month, but hopes she will be able to get into free childcare at the Early Childhood Education Center located on campus.
ECEC Director Sarah Johnson said the center takes in about 81 student parents each semester, with undergraduate low-income families receiving first priority. There are more than 150 families currently on the waiting list.
“Families on the list can wait up to six months to a year,” Johnson said. “We try to accommodate everyone including students who’ve graduated still seeking childcare, but we have to enroll based on undergrad status and household income.”
While she waits, Hermbrador focuses on other ways to get by.
Hembrador said whenever she gets to spend time with Kairese outside at the park or at Chuck E. Cheese’s the goal is to get him tired because she can’t do her homework while he’s awake. She either has to leave the house to do it or wait until around 11 p.m. when he falls asleep. She usually gets her homework done around 3 a.m., which means she must consume at least three cups of coffee the following day.
Not only will getting Kairese enrolled in the center save Hembrador money, it will also allow her to spend more time with him.
“The best thing I can do for my son is to graduate,” Hembrador said. “I’m doing this for the both of us.”
Arts of Pacific Asia Show - featured blog
http://www.waltermason.com/2012/02/arts-of-pacific-asia-show-san-fancisco.html
Arts of Pacific Asia Show, San Fancisco - Guest Post by May-lee Chai
Arts of Pacific Asia Show, San Fancisco - Guest Post by May-lee Chai
Guest Blog by May-lee Chai
After Walter asked me if I’d contribute a guest blog, I went in search of something wonderful to write about for him and found the amazing Arts of Pacific AsiaShow here in San Francisco!
The annual San Francisco Arts of Pacific Asia Show is really spectacular, featuring exhibits from more than 75 art galleries from around the world and the San Francisco Bay area. I felt quite posh to be rubbing shoulders with the usual crowd of collectors and art aficionados. (The media rep for the show, Agnes Gomes-Koizumi, told me the shows have been attracting investors from around the world, especially China. At the organizers’ ceramics show, a Chinese collector shocked everyone when he pulled $430,000 cash out of his knapsack to make a purchase. “China is a new monetary market,” Agnes said with great understatement. Alas, I’m afraid people were much less impressed when I was only able to pull my little digital camera out of my handbag.)
This year’s show was the first ever to feature contemporary Asian art as well as the usual displays of Asian antiquities. And while I like to look at centuries-old textiles, bronze Buddhas, Tibetan rugs, tomb figures, and all the other fascinating artifacts as much as the next person, I must admit it was the contemporary art that caught my eye .
First off it was impossible to miss the giant red, steel-and-fiberglass sculpture of a fortune cookie that loomed in the center of the hangar-like Fort Mason CenterPavilion . The shiny fortune cookie by artist Brian Zheng of Guangzhou, China, reminded me of the tricked-out Corvette you might find in the center of a fancy car show, and the $1,000,000 price tag suggested the recession isn’t hitting everyone equally!
The contemporary art show was co-sponsored by the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), which is the oldest national organization in the U.S. dedicated to promoting the visibility of Asian American women artists.
“The organizers wanted us to bring in new people, a younger audience,” AAWAA representative Khay Hembrador told me. “People are really surprised to see the political art. We’ve got the slave girl pillows out front!”
Indeed.
San Francisco-based artist Cynthia Tom’s “Chinese Slave Girl Pillows” were arresting and impossible to forget as they lay nestled together in a bamboo basket, the slave girl’s face peering out poignantly from within.
Cynthia told me she printed an early 20th century photograph of a Chinese girl working behind barred windows in San Francisco’s Chinatown on fabric, which she then hand-sewed into little pillows. “I want people to nurture the girl, pat her pillow, treasure her, take care of her,” Cynthia said, so that the slave girl’s spirit would be cared for in a way she never was in life.
Several of Cynthia’s acrylic paintings were also on display, including my favorite, the delightful and mysterious, “Cloud Walkers.”
Another favorite was artist Shari Arai DeBoer’s “Science Tarot Cards .”
Shari was one of five artists invited to contribute designs—she created the watercolor/etchings for the Suit of Swords, which in this deck illustrates findings in physics and math. The cards are sold at the California Academy of Sciences, online (Amazon) and at various fairs in San Francisco, where they have delighted both the spiritual adventurers and Silicon Valley elements in the city. “The techies were so excited,” Shari said. “It combines both their interests!”
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| Artists (l-r) Cynthia Tom and Shari Arai DeBoer |
Shari is a trained architect whose refined artwork featuring etching, photo-etching, and watercolor is exhibited throughout the city.
Artist Xiaojie Zheng’s paintings perhaps most personified the themes of the Arts of Pacific Show as she combines both traditional Asian art motifs with distinctively contemporary images. Xiaojie studied art formally in college in China before moving to Holland to study art on a scholarship. In 1999 she moved to the San Francisco Bay area where she has been working ever since.
In her acrylic painting, “Reconciliation,” Xiaojie portrays herself as modern-day Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, wearing a yoga tanktop as she perches on a lotus while clutching the many tools needed to complete the tasks in her daily life: a cell phone, rolling pin, paintbrush, shopping bag, photo of her children, etc.
“We’ve had a great response to the art,” Xiaojie said. “People are kind of surprised to see us. We are not Asian artists, we are not [strictly] American artists, we are in-between. We are Asian American artists.”
Readers who are interested in seeing more work by AAWAA artists can check out their website: www.aawaa.net.
The Arts of Pacific Asia Show has two annual shows, in San Francisco and in New York City. The public is welcome to attend. For future dates, check their website: http://www.caskeylees.com/SF_Asia/Info.html
***
Guest blogger May-lee Chai is a writer based in San Francisco. Her books include the novel Dragon Chica , the nonfiction book China A to Z , and the family memoir The Girl from Purple Mountain . You can check out her blog at www.mayleechai.wordpress.com.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
FLAX art show
Khay Hembrador - Statement
Therapy Series: “Therapy”
My artwork is a series that addresses the relationship between first and second generation children and their immigrant parents. These pieces pay homage to the generation before us that fought for ethnic studies and has brought us closer to our collective dream of equality. I find therapy in music, breathing, and most importantly - speaking and expressing love to everyone I encounter. It was the generation before us that has allowed me to be who I want to be, love who I choose, and be comfortable with my self image.
(the images of the other series "Speak Love" and "Breathe" are not shown in this)
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
My Artists Bio
I am Khay Hembrador, I was raised as a traditional Roman Catholic, second generation, Filipina, mixed with White (Polish), and Chinese... Born of an immigrant mother that was a product of colonization, and struggles with a tourist-visa father. I was raised by an aunt on the weekends and an uncle who betrayed my trust with men at a young age. My family struggles dysfunctionally to honor traditions, but I keep strong by challenging these traditions, breaking my family’s patterns of abuse and ignorance. My passion to create art comes from the angst and anger of my past experiences, powered by the knowledge and education that has been embedded in me through my college education, and my ambition to be a catalyst for change.
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