Meet Mingming Hao!
Mingming is one of PPWS’ Featured Artists for the month of March 2024!
Mingming has been a member of PPWS since 2022.
Mingming’s Bio:
I had always admired artists of all kinds but had never thought I would become one. True, I have doodled for fun as far as I could remember, and occasionally I’d sketch a tree, a bird, or people, but I had never painted until a couple of years ago.
During the pandemic, I made blank greeting cards and donated to folks in a senior building so they could stay connected with one another despite isolation. I took out my kids’ old art supplies, stubby color pencils, and cracked watercolor blocks, to add some flair. I had a great time doing that. The seniors loved my cards and some graciously told me they would like to frame the cards and keep them as pictures on their bureau. This gave me the idea of making framed paintings as gifts. Each month I’d paint between 7 to 16 pictures, frame them, wrap them, and deliver them before their building’s traditional monthly birthday celebration. So in the year 2022, each of the 144 residents in that senior apartment got one of my paintings, each painting different from the other. Many of which you can see on my website, which is listed at the end of this post.
I received many kind thank-you notes. In some of the notes, to my surprise, I was called an artist!
Mingming’s Awards:
I have not submitted to any competitions or won any awards, but joining PPWS was been my best reward! I am surrounded by so much talent, advice, resources, and most gratefully, encouragement. It keeps me going and, as Kang-Lee said at every meeting, “Just paint more!”
Mingming’s favorite things to paint:
I aspire to paint pictures that tell a story or convey an emotion. Until I learn and become more skillful with my brush and colors, I mostly paint whatever strikes my fancy and that I figure I might be able to handle. I love painting animals, and I love to see the reactions of people when they see the animals.
Other mediums Mingming work in:
Watercolor presents such an enormous wondrous garden of variety I still yet to explore and learn. Only rarely do I wander off and dab into acrylic or go back to graphite sketching, mostly due to frustration with watercolor and want to, for instance, do without this darn messy masking business! But inevitably I was lured back to watercolor by its wild brilliancy, bleeding fluidity, and easy transparency.
Mingming’s favorite or most admired artists:
A painting of a local artist I’ve never met inspired me profoundly. It isn’t titled, depicting a mother standing, holding her baby, both wrapped in an enormous thin periwinkle-colored shawl. The baby’s face tucked close to the mother’s smiling cheek, their eyes closed averting the gusty wind and snowstorm pouncing down on them, their auburn hair above their shroud tossed up in disarray.
The artist’s name is Terry Henderson, the owner of the long-closed Boulder Street Gallery. The painting was his gracious gift years ago to the newly opened Mother/Baby unit of a hospital in town. It’s still hanging there greeting patients and families with its unfaltering gentle warmth as they venture out into potentially a tempestuous journey of love of their own.
FAVORITE ARTSY QUOTE
My favorite quote is from Rob, our then-PPWS president. The first night I joined the society, after passing out some paint, paper, and brushes, Rob simply said:
“Now let’s put some pigments on the paper!”
