In my somewhat long adhoc journey exploring the art world, never have I purchased any piece of original art… that is until today.

I was in TST to see an art exhibition in which one of my old oil painting friends was showing a few of her watercolor paintings. I stumbled across two very different Chinese calligraphy demonstrations before and after the exhibition. The first one occurred inside the Cultural Center foyer in which a (likely well-known) Chinese art teacher was inking in cursive script (行/草書). He was surrounded by so many spectators that I could only catch a glimpse of his demo from afar. I didn’t see him finish the demo but I could hear overwhelmingly loud clapping hands while I was admiring the nearby exhibition of him and his students.

I went to see my friend’s exhibition afterwards.

After leaving the exhibition and on my way to family dinner, I stumbled upon a street artist who is also demonstrating Chinese calligraphy. There were relatively few spectators this time and I had no problem finding a good spot to watch the demo in front. On a handwritten note, the artist described himself as a calligraphy enthusiast without hands and that we can donate whatever amount if we appreciate his artwork. But wait, calligraphy without hands?! I realized finally that the artist was missing all his fingers as I intently watched him demonstrating. He wrote with great concentration with both hands holding on to the brush. He first inked the letter 佛 (Buddha), it was apparently a commissioned piece, one of the spectators put some money in the can, appreciatively took the artwork and left. I was still marveling at the whole situation as the artist took a new piece of paper and started inking again. He inked the letter 愛 (love). It wasn’t a commissioned artwork this time, he simply put it aside and was readying to start a new piece. It took me only a couple of minutes before I decided to ask the artist for the finished artwork, he shyly said yes and thanked me with a hardly distinguishable voice.

And that was the story of my first ever purchased piece of original art!