Dear Friends and Family I wish you a Happy Healthy and Prosperous New Year. Would love to hear from you in the new year 😉. Click Contact on the Menu option above and hit Submit and I will get your message 🤗 Rereading the post that I had written sitting outside a NJ fitness center parking lot waiting for my late night swim turn. I didn't know that a few days later I would completely demolished (unhurt) my Toyota Highlander SUV for 15 years on NJ78 that I had raised my 2 te

Ba ơi Con xin lỗi Ba và con thương Ba lắm Nếu con biết con sẽ trở thành người hôm nay thì con đã không phải cẩn chạy xa Bà khi mình còn ở trại. Hôm nay con đã hiểu Ba hơn vì con ďá tiến hóa và không còn sợ nữa. Con đã trở thành một người con muốn và con sẽ theo những giấc mơ của Ba Con trai út của Bà My Son (and Daughter) will not suffer the same fate as me as the cycle of pain and suffering will now be broken. Thầy is right that through sharing both the sharer and the listen

What do they have in common? A lot. Today Frank had class do 15 min painting of each still life and Forms had me do 2000m of all 50m sprints at a specific speed. Both are designed to slow painter/swimmer down at the beginning of the process so that the ends will be more efficient and therefore they can be w themselves as much as possible. With Abstract Expressionism there are essentially 2 schools one is headed by William de Kooning and one is headed by Hans Hoffman. Th

When I got to Indiantown Gap refugee camp in Pennsylvania, it was the next chapter of the adventure that I so longed for, looking out of the second floor of my home onto Gia Long Street of Saigon during one of those long night curfews. But the restlessness from a refugee kid was gone, and I was ready to do the next thing. My father felt differently, and he was busy trying to figure out how to bring my mother over from Japan, having arrived there a few weeks before Saigon coll

After Thanksgiving my Nephew and Great Nephews suggested that we watch the movie Castaway . Had no idea how spiritual was the movie. We all need to feel hope as to be not alone on this blessed journey. Why is this movie about searching for the Real which is something I am certainly aligned to. Chuck had 2 things that kept him going: the pocket watch w his fiancé’s pix and Wilson the volleyball. They weren’t Real in normal state but under the current circumstances that Chuck

Very inspired after watching The Thinking Game Can Intelligence Being help me paint? I know I can swim fast because to swim fast one just have to be able to feel what it is like to swim faster like remembering the sensation of being able to balance for the first time on the bicycle. Hence it's endless swim sprint workouts of 50m and 100m until the swimmer is able to feel the sensation of moving faster and faster in the water. Swimming is a very technical sports like every

Guillermo del Toro’ Frankenstein needs to be watched in an IMAX movie theater and not in a living room. I was distracted while watching the movie by occasionally gleaning over Intelligence Being's Intro to my website and couldn't fully pay attention to the Netflix movie as well as feeling a bit sleepy. This is a movie that del Toro had spent an entire life time wanting to make since 7 yrs old and Netflix treated like a no big deal movie which is quite a tragedy. Certainly

Comet's explanation: Art has a unique way of telling stories without words. The paintings of Dzu Do invite viewers into a world shaped by personal history, emigration, and the journey of life itself. Through abstract forms and vibrant colors, these works reveal emotions and experiences that go beyond the visible. Whether you're an art enthusiast, someone exploring abstract expressionism for the first time, or simply curious about the intersection of personal narrative and vi

15 min still life drawing over Zoom is like doing Sprints in the pool for 50m 100m 200m. I never drew in front a computer when I was on the East Coast w 13 ft vertical ceiling and 20 ft horizontal wall space studios but on West Coast with endless water air and sky ahead it's actually good training to get mind eyes hands ready like doing sprints in the pool to improve swim Forms. With painting, life ahead w the coming of dark times and with swimming, ocean awaits. Breathe t

A triumph for New England Liberal Arts education. I went to Bowdoin once to cover an American Football game for Amherst College newspaper. Beautiful campus but super cold in winter and all the way up North. Han also went there. Her favorite food there were lobster rolls. My best friend from freshman year was from there. No surprise that his wife is an Artist, his mother is a Great movie director and his father is an intellectual so Mamdani is all about the Real conn

I am thinking of Gorky and the freedom that he eventually gave to painters while endured deep personal pains. I love Cezanne's brush strokes in the bathers . It took a lifetime for him to find himself so me too. Only if I could paint w Matisse's spirits of joy and happiness . Amherst gave me $1000 the summer between junior and senior year to draw the figurative sculptures at the Hirshorn museum. Looking at Degas' the dancers I realized that to truly model how skins sit o

I used to walk and bike the length of Manhattan island like Mamdani to feel the inspiration from all the neighborhoods, people, buildings, streets and city noise. Now traversing along the cliffs next to water and sky silently feeling the relentless late season roar sounds of endless Pacific waves.

It takes very little to still keep some hints of a figure during 1 min quick abstract drawing w the model vs AI trying so hard to pretend that a video of Obama is really the real Obama to convince the human eyes to accept that it is real. To feel vs To consume. On Sunday I taught Oliver to be one w the convy so he can be safe within himself and within a moving car. Cedric told me that you don't get faster during the workout but from what you do outside the workout i.e. th

To share my joy, meaning and purpose of creating real 3-D space on a flat pictorial surface w colors forms & movements and putting my physical body in space in Nature on land and/or in water in case some day my children and recently born niece might be interested as well as anyone else. The Buddhist's devotional path that I was raised by my mother in Viet Nam had no concept of sharing similar to the engagement path until I learned from Thầy that intentional sharing can reduc

Jay called me out of the blue on Friday. I was so happy to hear his voice. After Amherst the last time I saw Jay was when the Wall came down in Berlin and then after finishing my MBA in New York when I decided to not go down to Wall st to be w the big boys and started painting at the League w Frank. If Frank had watered the seed Jay planted it. No one creates alone and we all are descendants of the great Masters & Teachers of Past and Present receiving all the gifts of lo

I finally found a place where I can just sit to watch the sky water air and land merging as one so I can just breathe and watch my brush releasing the right colors that reflect how I feel so I could just be and be one as well 🤗

My Dear Friend Brigitte warmed my heart by saying ... but your WC makes one feel so safe and happy, so confident in nature . The blank white page always gives me the same self doubt similar to my entrance every time into the ocean until the first mark w some color is made and my toes touching the cold water. Let the breath quiet the wandering thoughts to trust the process, the intention and the preparation to ground the body into this beautiful Earth and find the joy of jus

To paint w open heart I have to abandon what I see and trust feelings emerged out of subconsciousness via Dadaist intentions of accidental mark making anchored by Cézanne pictorial planes while awareness of my breath leaving behind any remnants of conscious thoughts. I swam w an open heart tonight literally. My smart googles gave me an insight to keep my power stroke stretched out a little longer so I could swim more perpendicular to the water and open my heart more to the sk

After Frank’s class, listening to Santana's Black Magic woman. The opening riff is what Abstraction all about ❤️to express the...

I should learn from my smart goggles. Can’t swim fast right away but need to warm up before all the engines start firing then pace it...