It's hard to settle on one particular way to describe Dolly Wang. Chinese writer living in America, self-made artist who never had any formal training, a person of religious faith who is concerned about society, single mother, courageous fighter in a struggle against cancer. . . . The list could go on and on. You only go around once in life, they say, but the life of Dolly Wang has been fuller than even several lives of ordinary people. And most amazing of all is that the real life of this incredible woman only began when her wedding march through life went out of tune.
Dolly Wang, who in July 1999 returned to Taiwan to hold her first-ever "Garbed in Brocade" exhibit (which was quite a sensation thanks to the creativity and beauty in the works), will soon hold another exhibition of more than 40 of her works at a gallery in Palm Springs, California. Gallery owner Lawrence Kirkwood, who set up the show, has told her: "As soon as I saw your work, I felt a strong sense of passion."
It is perhaps this very passion that has allowed Wang to twice walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Just as she carefully pieces together, inlays, and sews materials in her works featured in Garbed in Brocade-combining elegance, romance, imagination, and historical reality-so has she been able to pick up the pieces of her life and move on after every setback.
Since childhood Wang has been a friendly, gentle soul, an obedient daughter for her parents, and a studious and modest pupil to her teachers.
Not long after graduating with a degree in mass communication from the World College of Journalism (now Shih Hsin University), Wang worked for a time in the news department at the Broadcasting Corporation of China. Then she fell in love and got married, and worked in her husband's jewelry trading company doing the accounts. She also became a contributor to a women's magazine, writing a monthly column on the arts, public service activities, and the like.
Traditional in her moral outlook and fully committed to her emotional and family attachments, she never expected that, as their tenth anniversary approached, her husband would take a mistress. He told Wang that she was "too weak," "overly dependent," and and that she could not really be of help to him in his business unless she became more independent.
A perfectionist by nature and fearful of "losing face" in front of others, she saw all her dreams turn to ash in an instant. What's more, her husband's mistress kept coming to the house and creating scenes. In the end, Wang thought that she would just escape by killing herself. Without really knowing what she was doing, she took a large number of pills, but fortunately not enough to kill her, and she was taken to the hospital and survived.
Her husband felt guilty, but also continued to argue that Wang needed to learn how to be independent. So he gave her some money to go travelling in the US. "Going to the US was the biggest turning point in my life." Wang joined a tour group to the States, but stayed after the tour was over. She lived in New York with two artist friends who were studying there, to see "whether I could survive without any money and without a man."
Every day she went out with her friends, a husband-and-wife artist couple, carrying a camera, notebook, and a backpack full of pottery tools. She wandered the streets, went to libraries, museums, and galleries, watched street performers, learned pottery, and "picked up junk from the streets." Her artist friend Tsai Er-ping told her something that changed her life and she will never forget: "Life is art, and art is life." Tsai and his wife often took her along as they picked up all kinds of bizarre things from the streets, which, in Tsai's hands, became material for sculptures. In the process Wang picked up the habit of scavenging, and produced some works of her own.
In this half year of a bohemian lifestyle she learned how to let go, and found confidence and freedom. Upon her return to Taipei, she knew that her relationship with her husband had changed, but he would not give her a divorce. "I think he knew deep inside that he would never be able to find another woman like the one I was back then, who would live completely for him and follow his lead in everything."
Moreover, her husband, discovering how much she had changed, began trying to restrict her, forbidding her to participate in art or music gatherings, or to write. Their worlds grew farther and farther apart, and the emotional ties between them grew weaker and weaker.
In 1986, her husband wanted her to take their child and emigrate to America. She herself wanted to leave, so she took their son, who was in primary school, to California. Because she wanted to be independent, in America she ran all over the place doing all kinds of jobs. With her son in tow, she lived in California, then Reno, then Virginia, then Seattle, and then back to Nevada. One trip took her all the way from Reno to Virginia by car. With her 12-year-old son "Little Bull" reading the map, she drove off on a ten-day cross-country sightseeing trip. Eventually, because her son wanted to study aerospace engineering, she settled in California.
In her two years in Virginia, besides working in a restaurant and a dentist's office, she studied jewelry design on the weekends. After a while she began to set up a stall at roving arts-and-crafts shows, selling earrings, rings, necklaces, and the like. Inspired by the work of Tsai Er-ping, she created her own unique style, often making pieces out of cardboard and little odds and ends. Her friends all assumed she was a natural-born artist.
After several years of moving around she finally got her divorce. In order to help a friend's child qualify to get an education in the States, she formally adopted the young man (who is about the same age as her son), and the three lived together. Though they were not materially well off, and still moved around a lot, they were spiritually rich and, without really knowing how, always found a way to get by.
After her natural and adoptive sons entered college, Wang originally planned to accept the invitation of a friend and return to Taiwan to go into business. But first she had to put off her plan because of an auto accident, and then she discovered she had cancer.
"At that time [the well-known writer] Chang Tuo-wu came to the US for a trip and stayed at my house, and he was always saying what a nice person I was and how goodness always gets rewarded in the end. So I felt too embarrassed to tell him about my illness-he would have been very distressed." That tells you a lot about how kind Wang really is. Wang's younger sister Wang Chen-kuo says that her elder sister was always like that. She would keep things to herself and never tell anyone about unhappy things.
It was only after Chang left for Canada that Wang hurried off to have an operation and chemotherapy. As a result of this illness, Wang-who had always been working two jobs and running here and there-had to slow down and reassess.
"I was never much good at looking after myself. I always ate on the run, whatever was close to hand. I never had a regular sleep pattern, and often stayed up till all hours of the night. I was always in a hurry to do everything, as if I was running out of time. It was only after I got sick that I realized that I had to slow down and look to the long term," says Wang with a bittersweet smile.
But even after adjusting her lifestyle, she was not idle. She quit her job, and rented a small house in the countryside in California. The landlord allowed her to grow whatever she wanted on the 20,000 square feet of open space. Drawing on her memories of planting vegetables in primary school, she threw herself into farming. She originally thought about making a living by selling organic vegetables. But later, after a friend who saw her planting late into the night by lamplight joked that the scene reminded him of the "backyard steel production" in the PRC's Great Leap Forward-wasted effort by people who didn't really know what they were doing-she gave up this work that was probably too strenuous for her anyway.
Encouraged by friends, she again began to do art. Now, using wrapping paper, bits of cloth, aluminum foil, and construction paper, she pieces together representations of ancient clothing as well as figurines dressed in such clothing. She reproduces fashions from every dynasty in China since the Zhou. Before beginning a work she researches the attire of different eras, then sketches, colors, and designs whatever comes to mind. As she works, past shadows and the terror of serious illness, and even bodily discomforts, dissipate into thin air as she applies colors, pieces objects together, and keeps her mind continually churning over ideas. In her works, people see creativity, a refined and precise beauty, passion, and an embracing of life.
Wang, meticulous, warm-hearted, and talented, is not satisfied with her art work alone. After her illness she prayed to God to help her "find something I love to do, help others and serve God." It seems like Heaven is answering her prayers. So besides her art-the answer to the first part of her prayer-she also helps others. She has organized musicians to give free performances in the community, and invites experts to give lectures or seminars. For example, she has scheduled a December 3rd talk by Hsu Jao-ho, who will be visiting from Taiwan, on the subject of "life and death studies." She has also taken into her home a lady from her church who suffers from cerebral palsy, and is finding out how much thoughtfulness is required to care for someone who cannot care for themselves.
Only such a heart can produce such works of beauty. Let us wish her well, and hope that all her wishes will come true.
p.097
Jesus on the Cross. Wang charred the material with a lighter to express the agony of crucifixion.
p.096
(opposite page) Dolly Wang listens to music as she improvises new creations. Each work is detailed and precise, and made largely from scrap materials. Each piece is thereby unique and cannot be reproduced.
p.097
This "violin dress," extravagant as something out of a Eileen Chang novel, has been purchased by the poet Fang Yuan.
p.098
A "loose woman" of the Tang dynasty. Influenced by "barbarian" customs, women of the Tang wore dresses that showed off more cleavage than even modern fashions!
p.098
Another "nine-fish" outfit fashioned after Qing dynasty styles. It would still make a big impression at a fashion show.
p.098
(left and right) Qing dynasty imperial-style attire, designed by Dolly Wang herself. She has altered the traditional nine dragons on the sleeve to nine cute fish.
p.099
A woman of the Sui dynasty. The sleeves arxe made of diaphanous silk.
p.099
A wealthy woman of the Miao minority. The jewelry is fashioned from tin foil.
