Catherine Cho--Artist of Many Talents

Due to this song, the Catherine Cho most people imagine is a pale, thin little woman with knitted brows who sits by the window pining for her lover. The real Catherine Cho, however, is full--figured, rosy cheeked, lively, and prone to laughter. "I'm already 50," she says, "but I don't mind telling my age since I've got a young heart. . . . Life is really very fine-getting together with friends, laughing with them, crying with them, thinking with them. . . ."

Catherine Cho comes from a cultured, literary family. Her grandfather, Cho Chunyung, was a famous calligrapher; her father, Cho Yi-lai, a professor at Peking University. The house was a treasure trove of ancient books, scrolls, and paintings. "I grew up playing hide-and-seek among stacks of books," she recalls.

Having studied poetry, calligraphy, and painting with her father and grandfather from an early age, she could naturally be expected to pursue an artistic career. But "at that time, students who went to the U.S. mostly studied science and engineering, and I was no exception," she wrinkles her nose, makes a face, and smiles. "So I picked architecture, since it's the closest to art."

After graduation, Catherine Cho dropped architecture and spent the next ten years as a full-time wife and mother, painting and writing for her own amusement whenever she could. But after her son and daughter were both in school, she went back to college again--this time to study art. Her doctoral dissertation was a study of the Chinese painter Ch'i Pai-shih (1864-1957). She now teaches at San Francisco and San Diego State Universities, at the latter of which she was voted most outstanding professor.

It was during this back-to-school period that she got to know the late Hsu Kai-yu, chairman of the Chinese department at San Francisco State and the author of a number of books on Chinese poetry. "He supported me and encouraged me. If I did anything good, I'd ask him to take a look. Without him, I wouldn't have painted so many paintings or written so many poems." At the thought of Professor Hsu's passing three years ago, Catherine Cho's eyes express a seldom-seen sadness. "Mutual understanding is a deep and pure kind of friendship. . . ."

But this lady is not one for melancholy. She often says, "People all have pain. It's like a doughnut: Don't just look at the hole, but think about the part you can eat." Catherine Cho pours her feelings into her poems and paintings.

What draws one at once to her paintings, mostly abstract and semi-abstract, is their color--fresh, bursting floods of color that at the same time express a wealth of subtleties and nuances. And her life is just as full of color as her pictures, from her clothes to her pencils and notebooks. "I hate to see bare white," she explains.

The world of her poems is also flooded with feelings. Take, for instance, "First Love," touching and tender in the original Chinese:

Many years ago so many years

In the sky above a round, full moon

On the earth below a couple of kids

Linked by fate

Holding hands laughing and talking

The tap-tap echo of their steps on the street

Following them up to the door of her house

When suddenly he took his heart

Jump

Jump

Jumping up to the tip of his tongue

And put it into her mouth, filling it

Two rosy clouds

Flushing her cheeks

Sank into the pools of his heart

And ever after

Whenever he was alone and the moon full

The two rosy clouds

Would tug gently at his heart strings

drawing forth

Thread by thread an intoxicating melody

Taking him back many years ago

So many years

But Catherine Cho also mixes a healthy dose of reason with emotion. Her philosophy of life is illustrated in "Old Couple":

A book soaked in water

Is like an old couple

Tangled up bottom and top

No matter how carefully you separate them

It's hard to come up with two complete pages

Those pages and pages of pictures and stories

Just let them lie

Sticking together

Peacefully clinging together

Writing theses with one hand and creating paintings and poems with the other, incorporating both worlds of thought and feelings, Catherine Cho is a remarkable artist of many talents, full of life and creative energy.

[Picture Caption]

Whether fixed in a stare or flashing brightly, Catherine Cho's expressive eyes speak volumes.

The author/artist's beautiful calligraphy is apparent in this manuscript of her poem "Yesterday's Yesterday."

Bright clothes, a gaily colored notebook, and colorful surroundings are a Catherine Cho trademark.

The artist at work in her studio, called "Sunrise Thatched Cottage."

"Bewitched by Spring Sun"

"Ch'i"

Whether fixed in a stare or flashing brightly, Catherine Cho's expressive eyes speak volumes.

Whether fixed in a stare or flashing brightly, Catherine Cho's expressive eyes speak volumes.

Whether fixed in a stare or flashing brightly, Catherine Cho's expressive eyes speak volumes.

The author／artist's beautiful calligraphy is apparent in this manuscript of her poem "Yesterday's Yesterday.".

Bright clothes, a gaily colored notebook, and colorful surroundings are a Catherine Cho trademark.

The artist at work in her studio, called "Sunrise Thatched Cottage.".

"Bewitched by Spring Sun".

"Ch'i".