Dream is one of my favorite words /  by Mirena Rhee

Little girls dream of dolls. I dreamed of spaceships and aliens. I was a natural fit. I became a Star Wars artist.

This is for all the underdogs, for all the weird kids and the misfits. The young and not so young adults who read strange books and ask odd questions. Who feel there is nothing going for them and that there is no hope. They feel stuck and they feel rejected. But they have dreams and imagination.

I am here to tell you there is not only hope, but even your wildest dreams will become true and a lot more.

This is meant to entertain and inspire. This is for dreamers and misfits who like to do great things, and who want to live 500 years. This is also for people who live in their heads, in science fiction, in comets and black holes and video games.

This will inspire you to do something in the world that not anyone else can do.

It is the anti 4 hours workweek. It is very popular these days, and there are people proud of it, that they work 4 hours a week. Every cow chews for more than 4 hours a week. A woodpecker probably works more than 4 hours a week. Are you a woodpecker. Grown men want to sit by the pool. Toads sit by the pool. We are not toads. I do not want to be a toad. I want to be the first performance artist on Mars. I have 50,000 years worth of projects in my notebooks.

By the time you finish reading this, start thinking of the next 50,000 years of projects of your own. The video games, the paintings, the drawings, the art, the illustrations, the rockets you are going to blow up in your backyard, the rovers on Jupiter that you want to build, the space time you are going to fold, who knows. Come up with your own job that you want to do in the world. Do not wait for someone.

I wrote this to inspire anti beach dreams. Why would someone dream of a beach. You just get a ticket. Burn on your passions instead, on dreams, to create, to do. To learn and to inspire others in turn.

This is also the anti-life-hacking and anti-hackpreneur lifestyle book - man that looks bad even as a word. All the preneurs out there want to be by a beach. I was getting sick of seeing grown men sitting by pools, and sandy shores. Sand dunes are by the beach. I don't want to be a sand dune. I wanted to give kids and young adults something else to aspire to rather than scheduling flights all over the place. Anyone can go anywhere these days - buying a plane ticket is not a profession. I want to inspire kids and young adults to come up with something of their own that they can do, and to dream of their life's work, of great and amazing things to do rather than a lounge chair.

Dip'n Wipe aka Finger Bath /  by Mirena Rhee

An installation where a small tall table is covered with white primed canvas, and lided cups with paint are placed on top.

It's kind of a stranged cocktail table.

The plastic lids are cut with two cross cuts right in the middle so you can dip your finger in paint and take it out but the acrylic paint in the cup doesn't dry up quickly. It's just like the plastic cups for drinks where you could put your straw in.

When you pull out your finger covered in paint you wipe it on the white skirt.

Welcome to the Mirena cocktail hour.

Not sure if this kind of installation could be liberally mixed with alcohol because some might try to lick their fingers.

Emails from Dad /  by Mirena Rhee

As I'm writing my book on my life in New York I'm currently at my travel as a census taker in Georgia. As I read through the emails from that time I encounter emails from Dad. He would ask how I am and tell me he loves me. I read the emails and cry a bit. I know he's dead but his love will never be extinguished, and maybe through this book it will live forever.

Happy New Year! This is how I flirt by email /  by Mirena Rhee

On Oct 28, 2020, at 7:07 PM, Mirena Rhee <****> wrote:

Hi B. great yeah my number is ******, shoot them all over please, are you gay? I have a lot of gay friends but I want to avoid flirting over email:)

You made some fantastic pictures so please send me more.

Anyway yeah sure I personally consider the material world a veil, it is a very compelling veil, but a veil nevertheless. My biggest nightmare are suburban houses with kitchens where people sit around surrounded by unnecessary things staring at objects like televisions, it is the most unfun thing. 

My purpose as an artist is to bring into the material world things from the ideal world. Ideas are the most enduring thing in the history of humankind, where everything else except the pyramids has crumbled.

We're living in a place with a giant black hole in the middle, and we're surrounded by places with black holes in them. There's this anxiety in us humans about the material world and it is totally understandable, we operate in the material world but I am not sure our brains are firmly in the material, maybe they hold little bridges to what lies beyond, at least this is my experience as an artist.

Usually when I crave material things I usually attempt to obtain cash in some way, I try to have it a fun way. Recently I worked for the Census and got a chance to interview people in 30 million dollar condos and across the street at the public housing where in the corner there are all the lookouts for the drug lords in Chelsea. I also interviewed the homeless at soup kitchens, and finally they send me to rural Georgia in a tiny Toyota I drove on dirt roads interviewing people from all walks of life, from trailer parks to wealthy donors to the president.. 

I have zero respect for wealth and big houses but tremendous respect for the human experience.