What we are made of - star stuff! /  by Mirena Rhee

I always crush on NASA really hard! I am no longer on Twitter because it always ends up derailing my train of thought into comments and such useless bot stuff. So I just sign on and first read Elon Musk to check on the state of the muskanity and then I check NASA for all the star stuff to see where all the rovers are and what's happening.

There are so many NASA accounts, I used to follow them all on my old Twitter account but that ended up sucking a lot of my time which I could use creatively on something that I really care about so now I'm always selectively pinpointing things like what's happening with the Webb telescope.

And I found this absolute gem of an illustration created by a lot of awesome people at NASA's Goddard space flight center.

Periodic Table of the Elements: Origins of the Elements

link to nasa page https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13873

link to hi res image https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013800/a013873/PeriodicTableOrigins.jpg

We are made of stars for real

Periodic Table of the Elements: Origins of the Elements by NASA

Periodic Table of the Elements: Origins of the Elements by NASA's Goddard space flight center.

I was looking at the image and I'm like so how did these elements disperse throughout the universe?


It has been probably a couple of years since I stopped typing, I now almost exclusively use voice to text and just edit. So I quickly yelled at my phone how did the elements travel through the universe and another wormhole opened up.

I ended up on another amazing site of NASA made for kids which means it fits me perfectly


Enrichment of the Space Between the Stars

read on - i don’t wanna copy and paste.
https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/educators/lessons/xray_spectra/background-elements.html

we are the bomb!



Second Life and 3D Virtual Worlds are back, again /  by Mirena Rhee

My first job as a digital artist ( i discount my work in architecture and 3D architectural visualizations because architecture is not art unless it is the work of an exceptional artist like Zaha Hadid,  even then it is too bound by gravity ) was making 3D Virtual Worlds design and art for a small company called VWorld Technologies. At the time I was also building in ActiveWorlds and naturally my first world was a Martian Environment. My boyfriend and I were hanging out in ActiveWorlds and bonding while building stuff and chatting. It was the best time. My boyfriend at the time was building a Moon Landing simulation at another lab using software called Motivate. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

On a very personal level I'd like to find out what makes me like using the computer that much and building in it. Is it because there's a certainty and clarity to a digital world? Is it the fact that you have a god-like ability to create anything?

The push for 3D virtual reality is the need to create a version of the world where we are in total control. I'm like of course - in the real world we have absolutely zero understanding of who we are, where we are, and what's going on.

The smartest people in the world are trying to figure out how exactly the brain operates and they take very small steps with little creatures like birds, studying and building data models and trying to wrap their heads around.. their heads. Can we realistically study a system that we are embedded in? That's why we need machines - the third eye.

Have you ever looked inside one of those things [computers]? It's a whole hierarchy of angels- all on slats. And those little tubes-those are miracles.

—- Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

Now I am rather an authority on gods, so I identified the machine -- it seems to me to be an Old Testament god with a lot of rules and no mercy.

Fundamentally I believe we humans need to have control of our environment, it's a survival instinct. We have so little control in our lives because of entropy. With computers we have found a way to contain entropy at least within the context of the machine.

Our personal view of the universe is so fragmented we are in dire need of a world with little entropy where we could feel safe from the coldness of space.

But it is a cave alright, the same cave Plato talked about, with shadows dancing on the walls. He knew his stuff.

The reason I am writing this is because of all the talk about Metaverse and Facebook, I am sure data models have given Facebook a reason to fear obsolescence. I am thinking that Facebook could literally disappear in a month. Such is the fate of digital constructs and business models. A small, absurd, tiny, piece of paper with scribbles on it can last 500 years. This was my discovery while studying the old masters and art. There was a 5000 years old tiny animal sculpture I saw at the Morgan Library that blew me away. I have since learned to respect the fragility and endurance of small, deep works, made of durable materials that resist entropy.

I found that great ideas resist entropy the best, followed by the written word.




30 questions about the brain - I proposed to play Exquisite Corpse with scientists from the Future of Mind at Columbia & the Harlem community /  by Mirena Rhee

Earlier this year I made a proposal to scientists at the Columbia Zuckerman Institute to play together Exquisite Corpse, along with the larger Harlem community. Investigators at Zuckerman Institute work to transform the understanding of the brain and the mind.

What is really interesting is that scientists are called principal investigators.

And I thought that to describe what I do as an artist is that I am a principal investigator of everything. My task is to pierce all veils, and strip down everything to first principles.

The principle investigators ask a lot and very interesting questions like:

“What happens in my brain,” asked Dr. Aronov, “when I have a one-time experience that I remember for my whole life?”

While I was reading about the principle investigators’ work - I started asking questions in my head, and speech to text them in the cloud:

30 questions about the brain

1 What is bigger the universe or the mind, because we can imagine the entire universe and imagine what is beyond it, so in the sense the interior of our brains hold larger than the universe or is it?

2 Are we figments of someone's imagination?

3 How can we imagine so big when we're so small, we are not even visible from space, we're corpuscles?

4 Does anyone else in the universe think?

5 Does anyone else in the universe see what we see?

6 Does anyone else in the universe know there is a universe?

7 Will the memory of Michael Jackson still live in some form when our universe dies, as a fraction of an atom that once was a memory?

8 are we animals or gods

9 Why do people when they encounter my paints on the street - they start painting immediately?

10 Are we simply the sum of our parts?

11 why brain difference is labeled disease and not just variety

12 Do animals suffer mental illness

13 is creativity flight and fight or entirely separate drive /motivator

14 Why are models beautiful, which part of the brain makes that judgment, how does the brain decide someone or something is beautiful are we trained just like AI or monkey on beauty are we influenced by suggestions when people like things that we decide that we also like the things although we might not but just want to participate

15 are we just a bump in the background radiation, denser field, tiny blips or the future of the universe

16 will machines ever become sentient

17 will I be able to upload myself and live in the cloud one day

18 can my brain live in entirely different body like an octopus

19 What is the difference between decorative and fine arts really?

20 is the brain like my laptop i close the lid and it's all out

21 Why do we sing in the shower?

22 Why do we dance when no one's looking?

23 why is yellow a happy color

24 What is it to have?

25 How exactly do I remember the smell of my grandfather's tool drawers?

26 Why are we interested in Space?

27 What is this fundamental difference between us and machines?

28 how games fundamentally affect the brain and generation of dopamine?

29 Can a machine one day be a best friend?

30 What will humans and machine brains look like in a thousand years?


Hands Landscapes - preliminary pen and ink drawings I made for paintings I am working on /  by Mirena Rhee

Hands Landscapes pen and ink drawings 4 x 6 inches on hot press board, 2022


A famous NYC gallerist told me that my drawing are too brown, I like brown, it's the color of old times when Leonardo and the likes made real art, that now is priceless and held up 500 years. Now that I got a lot out of my system - I am back to brown.

I have never met a person that doesn’t like my drawings, it’s impossible to show what they are really like on the screen. because they are three dimensional on microscopic level. The micro and macro work together.

A very old drawing of mine, I used this "building block" to make this drawing
https://www.mirenarhee.com/hand-painted-ocean-and-fruit

and this animation:
https://youtu.be/zi7VYuRMw-k

My drawings are made to last 500 years, always with pigment inks on rag paper using dip pen and ink. The dip pen and ink makes incredible surface that can’t be replicated by simple micron pens and the like. It’s not a marker and leaves grooves in the paper and the drawings are like etchings, one of a kind etchings. this is why I was never interested in making prints as the reproduction is so much more inferior to the original - I quickly lose interest. This is why i do not have any faith in Instagram or YouTube and other digital distribution channels, they will long be gone and forgotten but my drawings will remain. If you're lucky to get one of my drawings while I'm still around good, once I'm dead they're going to be very pricey cuz they're going to be rare.

Our technological advancements are a direct result of democracy /  by Mirena Rhee

I believe our technological advancements are a direct result of democracy. Used to be there was just one guy that told all people what to do. Now there are all these little guys checking with each other. If you have worked in the silicon valley you probably know that people really listen to other smart people.

Last winter I was listening to a lot of lectures on the history of Egypt from one of the professors that is the pre-eminent expert in Egyptology, and it goes on for about 4,000 years and I'm like how's it possible they didn't advance technologically that much. One day it just occurred to me that the pharaoh made the entire country do whatever they wanted singularly, if he decides to make a pyramid the entire country makes a pyramid and nobody thinks about anything else cuz everyone from the top to the bottom think about the pyramid.

In democracy now we have all these guys thinking about things all over the place, we also have people working for free and checking out stuff that are important for other people. And I think the French revolution was one of the most important events in history, this was where decisively people said no more monarchy and lady's wearing crowns.

You know I'm such a terrible fan of the British monarchy, every time I read something about it I'm like how anyone stands these people, they're probably nice but, I mean what does that mean to be Royal and prance around, it’s just ridiculous it's embarrassing. I believe it's embarrassing to have a monarchy in the 21st century.

It's just the whole queen thing, you've lived old enough to see rovers on Mars, it's time to change it up a little, give up the palace, make it a museum and move on. Give up the crowns and all the red carpet. To me it's just a greedy and ridiculous spectacle. But I guess British people like it.


I want to create problems that I find solutions to /  by Mirena Rhee

I'm absolutely crazy about NASA and space, I'm a space geek and a sci-fi geek, since I was maybe five actually not sure but I remember very well being glued to the TV on Carl Sagan's Cosmos and then watching really weird British TV show I think it was called Blake's 7. it was so corny but I believed everything about it and I was completely engrossed in that world.

The other day as I walked randomly into the New York public library I picked up a book which looked interesting and it was by a photographer who spent some time at NASA photographing astronauts training for the repair of the Hubble telescope. I couldn't finish the book with the promise that I will come back later. But that little glimpse resulted in a binge of NASA documentaries - I watched several of the documentaries, and while I don't want to get boggled down in details and links to the shows, you can basically Google best documentaries about space and documentaries about NASA, and watch them all.

In this though there was a footage from a scientist from CERN, which is not a trivial place, with really great minds and the scientist was saying that NASA is about solving problems that no one could solve. I have to also say that NASA is about creating problems that nobody else creates.

I want to be that kind of artist, where I create problems for the first time, and solve these problems for the first time.

I want to be the engineer of my own problems and the solver of these problems. I have always had the capacity to solve complex logistics on the fly and make things happen that a pretty skeptical things and usually it's a skeptics would never attempt. Some of the time it's just too many permissions involved too many unknowns if the cops would show up or the park people or something else. Assembly decided to solve these problems as they come, because given the bureaucracy some of my proposals would never see the light of day. So I have to act and deal with the consequences.

Today was going to be vaccine booster day but became reading in the Public Library Day /  by Mirena Rhee

Got my booster shot at Walgreens and walked down 5th avenue. I saw a strange machine, I hope they're not drilling for oil. I really love construction sites in New York City, they're really dynamic. Once a building is built it's kind of dead weight.

Unless it is the..

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library - New York City public library at 40th street and 5th Ave in Manhattan, and wanted to show it to you - it is one of my favorite places in New York City, a Palace.

One of my favorite excitements and favorite thrills in NYC is to walk into the library and pick a random book I have never seen before, or just a random book. I never understood why people spend hours at restaurants, stuck at tables with mystery food. The only thing I want to be stuck with in New York City at a table is a book.
I was not allowed to film inside the library much but this is my favorite place in New York City.

Third floor is great, it has got graphic novels, science fiction.

They even have the Persian book of Kings, illustrated in full color. Written 11 centuries ago and illustrated in the 1500s for a mighty king of Persia. It's out of this world.

I wonder if this king could have possibly imagined that one day all the plebs would be allowed to roam around much better palaces.

A palace which even has a red carpet on the first floor.

Seven floors of bright spaces warm clean beautiful with free Wi-Fi. Seven floors of books floor to ceiling and media and computers and all kinds of magic with all of human knowledge and culture in it free for the taking.
It is one of the most magnificent spaces, where you can acquire unlimited knowledge.

The mighty kings from history like Alexander of Macedon and Napoleon, all these bloodthirsty dudes would have given their right hand to Lord over a palace like this.

Why is there never a line for the library?

I've always wondered why people stand in line in shops, what could possibly be so enticing us to make you spend your life force standing around. Unless of course they're giving out the elixir of immortality.

comet art /  by Mirena Rhee

Couldn't sleep last night and stayed up early not being able to sleep rolling around trying to figure out if it's going to be possible to do comet art, basically sending chunks of ice towards the Sun for fun.

You know thinking is such an underrated activity but it's so fruitful, in your mind you can imagine and do anything. This is where all things start. Thinking should be a subject in school and university.

Yep, I'm afraid of needles.

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have A Dream Speech /  by Mirena Rhee

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have A Dream Speech is one of the greatest speeches in American and World history. This is what it sounds to believe in your life’s work. One of the biggest problems we have today with public speech is that none of it is sincere and no one puts anything on the line, and we do not know where the speaker stands. You know how journalists on twitter say - opinions mine - they say that when they speak otherwise the opinions aren’t theirs. Whose then? Whose opinion is in the papers and the public bulletins, and who do you answer to when you speak. 

As one great artist once said "The Messiah is the Message". If the Messiah is a Muddle there's no Message.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only."** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."1

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

I am taking courses in History of Painting and Rhetoric, and working on White Room II /  by Mirena Rhee

I'm taking European Paintings: From Leonardo to Rembrandt to Goya online with @edxonline. Check it out! https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:UC3Mx+CEH.1-ENx+3T2021/home

The best courses I took in art history and specifically European Painting were given by William Kloss, M.A. I have never read a better course in anything. The Great Courses still offer these and I highly recommend them all. I am still in the middle of the above course and haven’t formed an opinion.

I'm taking Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasive Writing and Public Speaking online with @edxonline. Check it out! https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:HarvardX+AESTHINT15+3T2021/home

The above is based on Harvard professor James Engell's on-campus course, "Elements of Rhetoric." It is the best i have ever read on Civic Discourse. If you want to know what important civic leaders said on various matters - this is a must reading. It is also a course, i’d say, on democracy. Professor James Engell serves Verbal art of the highest order.

Why am I bothering? I believe Art has moral and ethical obligation to society in the 21 century, the way Renaissance art had obligation to humanism. Before Renaissance art served the church. Before now art served the art market. We need a socially responsible art for the 21 st century, art for the betterment of humankind.

i am also working on ideas for White Room 2, an expanded edition, where an entire room will be upholstered in primed canvas, with upholstered furniture sourced from Manhattan streets.

minimalism and soft beds /  by Mirena Rhee

As you know I'm a big proponent of a minimalist lifestyle. That comes from a solid place of studying lifestyles in Korea and Japan where lifestyles are minimalist by necessity and by design. There's very little terrain and a lot of humans so they figured out there's simple, natural way of living.

Minimalism encompasses several areas like simplicity, frugality, low carbon footprints, anti-consumerism and non-consumerism. Minimalism is visually empowered ( I am not saying Zen is minimalism or minimalism is Zen, one is a philosophy and monastic practice, the other a lifestyle) by the aesthetics and philosophy of Zen, which I studied in person in Kyoto.

When I visited Korea and Japan I slept on heated wooden floors especially in Korea. When I visited a lot of the Zen temples in Kyoto people were required to take their shoes off and we all walked on brilliant tatami laid on top of wooden floors that were licked clean in a perfectionist way. There was no dirt between the wooden planks.

tatami – A pattern of tatami mats and wooden screens at the Tenryuji temple in Arashiyama, Kyoto.

Doesn’t this amazing, peaceful environment beckon you to just lay down and sleep on the bare floor? It did beckon me and frankly I said good bye to all my Silicon Valley sitting on a computer for 14 hours back problems. I have never seen a better solution to floor covering and sleeping arrangements, as well as living arrangements.

I have a lot of art stuff and things which would be a burden to put away daily, and frankly I do not want to hide my art materials, I like to live with them in my life on a daily basis. But if I were to be asked what the most luxurious palace on earth looks like - this is it below.

Incidentally this is where I got a near Nirvana experience, on this tatami floor in Arashyama in Japan, looking out into this garden. None of the material things I have seen since look good to me except perhaps Japanese painted screens. I had a crush on Japanese gardens long before we saw each other in person, inexplicably, it was a love at first sight for me from looking at them in a book. We were long distance for about a dozen years.

What I learned on these journeys is that Japanese people sleep really well and are very comfortable on the floor in washable futons. I sleep on my floor in a washable futon. It seems like a very natural and hygienic way to sleep. I can wash my floors everyday even with a simple disinfecting wipe, and I can put the bedding in the washing machine every day if I want to.

As I was walking on 5th avenue today I noticed a luxury sleeping bed store and I took a look. I took pictures for everyone to see the kind of abomination this luxury sleeping involves.

This layered cake will never see washing during its entire lifetime. Can you imagine the bacteria and the dirt and dust that will collect over the years in these layers and springs? I mean it could be years and decades collecting dust and pollutants. Can you possibly sleep on this or on top of it, just the thought of it makes me cringe.

The less is more often quoted by design and architecture people is actually pretty valid here. Get yourself some wooden plank or whatever floor and then put a simple futon on top of it that could be easily washed, and sleep.

Soft Beds - the Luxury Bed abomination that will likely make you ill - look at this sandwich of bacteria and dust

I'm very grateful /  by Mirena Rhee

I wanted to write this essay because I was compelled to express the extreme emotions and the extreme events that surround making art.

And I know that in the minds of many people artists are very simple - they do some doodles, sell them to someone and then it's a complete circle.

Well what happens when you dream of projects that nobody wants?

Sometimes projects emerge as very simple thoughts and these thoughts gradually grow into visual things, now these visual things may sometimes need thousands of dollars to happen.

I'm not saying this just to throw thousands of dollars around, I'm just saying that to construct a project there's got to be someone to back it up.

That somebody could be the artist, that somebody could be a collector, or a Medici of the art, or it could be a commercial backer.

I don't do commercial art so for me that's kind of out of the question. I do not want to make art that's influenced by Instagram kind of liking, where an algorithm intelligence drives approval for relatable, replicable and easily understood projects. Especially ones that haven't happened yet.

I want to express my profound gratitude to Anita Durst, the creative director of Chashama who supported my project, gave it a platform and even jumped in and created a performance literally on the fly.

All of a sudden I made this silly white room art installation and hundreds of people all of a sudden thirsted to paint. And people had an incredible time painting, people had a ball. But they did not know it beforehand.

(For White Room Art Installation) I put the canvas up and set up the entire configuration which was pretty elaborate although you can't really figure it out at first glance. I had an elaborate setup with clothes protection and gloves and shoe covers and entering the room was basically an experience, everything from the brush cleaning cups to the painting plates everything was thought out beforehand and nothing was left to chance.

Including the fact that I had directions painted All over the room.

White Room. Paint Anything.

All the little details that I created for this project (White Room) were small knowledge that I learned on previous projects, I used to yell at people to invite them to paint but I figured out it's very unproductive and in one of my most recent street art installation I figured that I could simply print the directions and people will read them and figure out what to do. This is what happened so I implemented that small knowledge unilaterally.

Besides taking care of the making of things the mental aspect of making art is literally mind-blowing as in sometimes you want to blow your brains out. There's this anguish which I've read even Van Gogh's letters, there's always this pressure of the art bulging from below.

In my darkest moments I have to report to you that I had a friend, a single friend who simply said on the phone to me "you have so much to offer". I'm really grateful to my friend Ian who never gave up on me.

Art making is really difficult so I'm always looking for inspiration from all walks of life. I've often been a major freak about space and science fiction and so a big follower of NASA and spaceX, and its a founder.

Elon Musk recently said that he's neither optimistic nor pessimistic about his stuff, he simply feels they need to be done.

I decided to adopt that philosophy for all my future projects, paintings and ideas. These are the kind of projects, paintings and ideas that will never see the light of day if it weren't for me to champion it.

Also, I've been thinking whenever things get very difficult and I'm like, you know, I'm just going to give it up, no more installations, no more painting. I'm just going to fix my life. But then I'm thinking to myself, so just imagine if Elon Musk had given up after all the rockets exploded? I remember the time he was not a darling of any media and I remember occasionally going on Twitter to follow on some of the rocket stuff. It was really all grunt work for Elon and his spaceX all along. Grunt work where you put your nose to the floor to the ground to the plow and you just keep pushing.

Nobody owes me a thing, there's no art fairy, I absolutely don't want to make art that makes likes or clicks or anything of that kind, I want to create deep work that touches people.

Even if it touches five people, I want people to be touched and to really be glad they take part in art.

I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with my installations in Central Park - I applied for a grant with Sony and have a couple of other projects I wanted to present to them. I want to grow the work and not settle into a routine or a "thing" because I am not a shop.

I really have plans for drawings and paintings which basically I have a 50,000 years worth of plans for. I really miss working in oils, and there are a lot of things that I have in my head visually.

I really want some time to think about the installations I would like to do robotically on Mars, this is so far-fetched, kind of seems silly just to say it but I want this to have deep meaning and to think about it seriously, with the mind of an engineer, and the rigorousness of a curator.

I've always imagined robots on Mars making marks on the surface of Mars, like cave paintings plotted robotically. Or Nasca drawings plotted robotically. The robot rovers we currently have on Mars can realistically scrape the surface and drill holes, but they could also leave tracks and take pictures.

So I'm thinking about using the cold weather to be just cozied up at home, with the weather being really cold outside and with some of the covid shut downs, I really don't want to go anywhere on any sort of resort and be away from my art. I really am bored out of my mind when I am supposed to do some daily activities with no intellectual or visual challenges like vacations.

Currently there are all these free courses on one of my favorite websites edx.org, you can learn anything in human knowledge at college level. These courses are from Harvard, MIT and really the best places in the world. Love learning about stuff that's none of my business.

I mentioned earlier that art making is very difficult, and it's not because making anything that looks like art is difficult I mean any drunk person with a brush at the bar or any monkey or elephant could paint with their tusk 🦣.

Making art that is rigorous and that has never been done before or seen before, making art that really touches people and confronts them with experiences they have never had before, on the sidewalk or in the studio. I really want to go back to my roots of drawing and work on my painting. So all of this requires major sacrifice and for myself I've decided that my sacrifice would be things from the material world, like clothes, gadgets and vacations, entertainment, furniture and so forth. I've decided for myself that because I feel I have to do the things that I need to do and I haven't figured out a way with unlimited resources, actually that would be impossible with the laws of thermodynamics, so I've decided that I will live a very minimalist lifestyle with very minimal consumption in every sense, and every effort that I make monetarily will go towards art. I have absolutely no qualms about it, and I never miss things.

Congratulations NASA on finaly deploying Webb Telescope in my studio in Brooklyn /  by Mirena Rhee

Webb ended up in my room
@nasa @nasajpl NASA has been seriously messing up with people lately saying that @nasawebb is someplace in space, it's in space all right, it actually ended up in my studio in Greenpoint and started unfolding its sun shield right in front of my painting, it has been doing it to my friends too. I'm like can't you guys pick empty storefront, or rooftop or something, there's barely enough space for both of us

Splashes of Color in Central Park will be a series of ephemeral installations in Central Park which I will photograph to create stop motion animation /  by Mirena Rhee

Splashes of Color in Central Park will be a series of ephemeral installations in Central Park which I will photograph to create stop motion animation celebrating the Park and the Natural Environment through Art.

I would use most of the funding to hire women artists and other artists from underrepresented communities. We will come together to create ephemeral roving installations throughout Central Park which I will photograph to create series of stop motion animations. The artists will hold Giant Paper Hands and Red Cloth between them to create streaks of color in the winter landscape of the park.

We would hold the colorful artwork in our hands and move through the park non-destructively and without obstruction to paths drawing temporary colorful lines. We would not attach artwork to trees or bridges or any other objects, and we will not harm branches or stalks. We will use our hands and bodies to move the artwork around the landscape.

The photographs will trace the movement of the artists and the colorful artwork, a stream of color thought the muted January landscape of the park. The splashes of color will move over rocks, hug tree trunks, rest on benches, hang over bridges, and glide over the landscape.

We will intersect the colorful art with the vertical lines of the trees and the sloping shapes of rocks, and frame the muted greens of the new grass with dashes of red, orange and yellow.

As we move through the park I will direct the group and take photographs. I will put together the photographs into animated sequences. These stop motion animations would be my deliverables.

To celebrate Central Park - oasis of nature, an urban refuge and a center for street culture

This will be a creative act to celebrate Central Park and the natural environment. During the pandemic I created installations in Central Park as a way to cope with stress and deal with isolation and met many people who told me they were able to cope with the pandemic in the city by coming to the park every day.

I go to Central Park very often to take long walks and to think about future work. Along these walks I would take photographs and pay attention to the colors of the trees and the landscape. It is a way to relax, exercise and think about future projects. I pay attention to very small things like leaves and branches. Central Park is never the same, it changes with the seasons, the time of day, the weather and the mood of people.

In the summer It is frequently full of artists, musicians and performers, drum circles and dancing. This is where the community comes together to spend creative time with strangers.

So the idea of this project actually happened after one of these long walks.

The colors of Central Park in January and February are very muted and the mood a bit more somber.

After one walk in winter early this year I took photographs with my phone and noticed the very muted palette, the shapes of the trees and the sloping surfaces of the rocks, the muted new green of the lawns. Sprinkled across the landscape in the winter landscape in Central Park were these Red Ice Rescue Ladders which naturally contrasted with the landscape and serve to save people and dogs in case they fall through the ice.

I felt wouldn't be great to have splashes of orange and red, dashes of color slicing throughout the landscape.

Through my long walks to the park I've noticed many places like small and large rocks and other features in Central Park that could lend themselves to a splash of color.

Giant Hands Installations

My idea for this project grew as a natural progression from almost 25 installations with Giant Hands made with paper and acrylic paint I created over the last 4 years, in and around New York City and Central park.

These were one woman operation where i would be the artist, the drawer, the painter, the stage hand, public relations, photographer and videographer.

For the past 4 years I've been making ephemeral installations in Central Park and other places using Giant Hands made of paper and acrylic paint. Especially during the lockdowns in Manhattan I noticed that people were very happy to see them, colorful splashes in the landscape.

I would put up the hands for a few hours, take pictures and then I will take him down, fold them in take them home on the subway.

Over the years I have learned the rules to working with art in the park like not attaching things to structures or vegetation, do no damage and be mindful of the people and the environment.

On Thanksgiving Day this year I asked people to hold colorful Giant Hands over the Bow bridge in Central Park as a symbolic gesture, I was very surprised to find people respond enthusiastically. I named the installation Rainbow Bridge.

For our roving installations we will use 36 Giant Hands painted in bright orange, yellow, red and blue colors, and 50 yards of Red Cloth.

The 36 giant hands I created over the past 3 years gradually, starting with one and then developing 12, which I painted. Eventually I was invited by a New York City art organization to make an installation in a former bank and got a chance to grow the hands to 36. This year I painted them all and created more installations in Central Park in the same ephemeral manner.

The red cloth is a homage to the artist Christo Yavashev, his installation the gates and other work, and especially his installation Over The River which was never realized.

Since then I've used the red cloth in various ways in the studio and in the park, and it has serves to remind me that we artists never work alone and in isolation, and that we owe to the many artists that came before us.

Sometimes people in the park pick up on it and they say that it reminds them of the Gates. So in a way this will be a little tribute as well, owing to the past but looking out into the future.

The Hands

I've been working with hands since 2010. The hand is a symbol of our civilization, we create and destroy by it. When you look at our built environment especially in New York City you see these enormous skyscrapers that were essentially built by hand.

Handprints are present in cave art from 40,000 years ago and scientists claim that tracing a hand on a wall of a cave is the first time humans represented a three-dimensional object with a two-dimensional line.

A New Approach to Creating - to create efficiently and sustainably

One of my favorite artists is Christo Yavashev, he sadly passed away but his Gates project created in Central Park in 2005 is still vivid in my mind.

It took Christo 30 years to convince New York City authorities to let him create the Gates in the park and many of his projects like Over The River never saw the light of day because of environmental concerns.

It is my dream and intent to create efficiently and sustainably. I feel that we can create much beauty and make interventions in public spaces without investing millions of dollars, concrete slabs and steel beams. I sometimes joke that my installations cost the carbon dioxide of my breath and the ticket for the subway.

This is why early on I realized that I would like to have a new approach to creating, I like to create non-destructively and ephemerally. I make my installations very easy to transport and deploy, I could literally take my installation on the subway.

Daydreaming reality

I've always been a bit of a daydreamer, I've never been shy on thinking on large scale at least in my mind. I grew up on science fiction novels and my blueprints for great things came from space operas, where strange creatures roam the universe and fold space.

It is my dream that possibly one day our civilization would rely on creativity to create on a grand scale in the universe. I thought what better time than to start now.

The Colors of Central Park in January

The Colors of Central Park in March, and the Red Ladders

The Colors of Central Park in December