“If the system doesn’t work for your wants and needs, then shape it.” Senior artist, Jingming Yu is fashioning the world with her art supplies. With every line, and brush stroke, Jingming creates her own reality on a canvas. She said that these days she likes to look at life, and she likes “to sort of twist it.” She doesn’t like doing still lifes, so she modifies them until she likes it.
She creates her art with a flexibility that allows her to produce truly original work filled with her own thoughts. Lincoln East art teacher Ellen Jaecks-James describes her art as, “A clear expression of her personality…She throws in some humor and some whimsical things in her work as well.” While playing with color, composition, and varying her materials, Jingming’s ability to personify her ideas is unlike any other.
As students at East, we need to understand how incredibly rare it is to find someone that can translate their feelings and emotions into something so beautiful and complex. There are a myriad of creators that only ever scratch the surface of their potential. Obsessed with perfection, artists can lose the trait that produces great artwork: curiosity. According to Mrs. Jaecks-James, “People who aren’t curious are never going to make any good art.” Clearly, Jingming’s ability to grasp her curiosity gives her an advantage over most people. She’s willing to take risks in order to lay down what she wants everyone to see, according to Jingming, “If a mountain lion approached me, and I drew it, it would kill me. But someone would like the drawing.” Evidently, she is not timid when it comes to branching out of her comfort zone. Unfortunately, taking steps out of your comfort zone is terribly uncomfortable, yet, each step is vital to developing your artistic skills.
Apart from her artistic dexterity, Jingming is apart of four clubs. While being in the Art Club and Graphic Design Club, she is the vice president of Asian American Pacific Isalnder Club (or A.A.P.I), and the co-president of Horticulture club. Jingming wants to branch out and find things that she hasn’t done before. “I don’t want to do one thing, I want to do multiple things and be happy with it.” She longs for the course of her life to be filled with dedication and devotion. “ I want to find passion, I want to believe that I could be passionate about something and I want to invest everything in it.” She creates her own rules with daring fearlessness, and has opened so many people’s eyes to true creation, right here at East High School.