The artist Huong paints at the Mendenhall Glacier in 1982. Huong opened taught at community colleges and opened art galleries in Kodiak, Anchorage, and Juneau during the 70s and 80s. She will return to Juneau this week for the first time in 25 years.
Story last updated at 8/25/2010 - 12:23 pm
JUNEAU - For some, the tranquility of Alaska provides respite far from the madding crowd. For artist Huong, it was much more, a haven from war and the loss of identity after coming to the U.S. as a war refugee more than three decades ago.
After her extensive journey, "long lost painter" Huong will be returning to Alaska this month. Some of her artwork will be on display at Gallery of the North in Juneau in early September. She will also be traveling and talking with people around the state, both to reconnect to her spiritual home, and to explore the cultural climate to add to her enormous globally scaled art projects.
In 1975, Huong fled Vietnam with her son during the war, escaping on what she calls "the boat of life," and arriving in California several weeks later. She was unsure where to turn, how to escape the loss of family, of home, of country. She said she didn't want to talk about the war with anyone. She wanted to escape her past.
Huong headed north, and ended up in Kodiak, where she began to feel at peace. Working with Native artists, she learned to carve and paint, and found herself being pulled into the serenity of the community and the landscape there.
"I smiled again, I forgot all my past," she said. "So Alaska to me means a lot, a lot, a lot. The spirit of Alaska is in my heart."
Huong was also a journalist before arriving in the U.S. With only limited skills with the English language, she said that she could not continue to write. Instead, she put down her pen and picked up a brush. The new medium allowed her to continue to express herself in an international language, and coming north was key in the transformation.
"I became a painter, and Alaska gave me the environment," she said. "Alaska rescued me, I was in paradise. I not only found a new home. The cold, the anger in me, the pain, it took the Bering Sea to cool it down."
Over the years, Huong met with success in her new home in Alaska. She taught at community colleges, and opened art galleries in Kodiak, Anchorage and Juneau.
Huong has not been back to Juneau for 25 years. She said she looks forward to visiting her favorite place to sketch, the Mendenhall Glacier, if she can find time between all of the media interviews.
The artist's wanderings took her out of Alaska in the mid 1980s, when the U.S. economic recession hit the state. She traveled through Canada and across the Lower 48, spending four years on the road with child in tow. The road finally ran out when she reached Florida and said she didn't "want to swim further to Cuba."
She met her husband, an avid art lover who took her kayaking in the Everglades. Afterwards, she said she traded the vision of arctic art for creating paintings inspired by the "river of grass" she discovered in Florida.'Long lost painter' Huong returns to Juneau
Far from running away from her past, the continual themes of war and peace run through Huong's various projects. Her biggest message is the passionate pursuit of worldwide peace. She draws on both her experiences as an émigré from Vietnam, as well as a witness to the two protracted wars the U.S. has been involved in for much of the past decade. Through her work she confronts both her past and the future of the global community.
The truth is powerful, the truth is the most import for me," she said. "The Afghan War has gone longer than the Vietnam War. ... How many generations are going to pay for this insanity?"
Her "War Pieces," dedicated to victims of war throughout the last century, depict the despair and confusion of displaced people, citizens of "the fourth world." Her Peace Mural project - capturing the theme of the United States in transformation - has created a work comprised of thousands of paintings, together standing eight feet tall and several hundred feet long.
Despite being heralded with acclaim wherever they are displayed, Huong said that her expression of her mind and experience has garnered her harassment, and some have questioned her patriotism to her new country. She, however views this as paradoxical.
"You stop anybody on the street, and ask 'What do you want?'" she said. The answer is always 'Peace.'"
Huong's newest project, "Bleeding in the Gulf," is likewise extraordinary in scope. Capturing this year's BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the hundred-foot-long mural displays what she refers to as "the wake-up call."
"What is this policy that we move forward?" she said. "What do we learn from this, where do we go from here?"
Huong said she is planning on interviewing as many Alaskans as possible, to help add another chapter to her mural.
She said it is our job as citizens of the world to embrace what we hope to see, painting the broad strokes to help right the wrongs for the future.
"If we don't speak for the new generation, who?" she said.
To follow the continued projects of Huong, visit her website at www.huong.com or www.peacemural.org. Check in at Gallery of the North at 147 Franklin Street in Juneau to find out more about the upcoming display of her work.
Richard Radford may be reached at richard.radford@capweek.com.
