Artist Chau Huynh [p.2]

By creating ”The Split,“ Huynh attempts to stitch the divided country back together.

“It will take immense effort, tireless work and many stitches to heal The Split,” says Huynh. “I hope our generation and generations to come will work together to heal our historical pain.”

“The River” portrays the boat exodus of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese from Viet Nam. During the exodus, thousands died from starvation, attacks by pirates, and disastrous weather. This quilt remembers and honors the victims. “The River“ features two prominent images: fragile boats and burning incense against a gray backdrop representing the tumultuous seas. The boats show the peoples’ tenuous means of escape and the burning incense symbolizes the people’s spirituality and hope for a better life.

Two quilts, “Letter to My Mom” and “My Father,” depict Huynh’s personal experience. In “Letter to My Mom,” Huynh stitches every word from a letter she wrote to her mother 25 years ago. The cursive script resembles the writing of an 11-year-old child.

“As I sewed each letter and word, all the emotions of those difficult years came flooding back. I thought I had lost my mom,” Huynh recalls. “But tears of sadness became tears of joy when mom survived leukemia and came back to us.”

Huynh’s mother was diagnosed with leukemia in 1983. At the time, there were no treatments available in Viet Nam. Huynh’s mother was in and out of the local hospital for three years, during which time she spent six months in intensive care. While her mother was in the hospital, Huynh gave her a drawing of her brother, sister and herself along with a handwritten letter. Years passed and Huynh’s mother became the only leukemia survivor in that local hospital. The doctors were shocked and perplexed. When asked about her miraculous recovery, Huynh’s mother showed the doctors the drawing and letter Huynh had written. Huynh’s mother told her doctors, “I have three young children and I have to survive to take care of them.”

Unlike the other quilts in the exhibition, ”My Father“ is a collage of images. Each image in the collage represents an event Huynh associates with her father: three abandoned children, a fan, and a funeral.

“When my father left the house, he took with him a Sanyo electrical fan. It was the only valuable possession that we had at the time and the only thing that provided some relief during the hot Sai Gon days. We needed the fan, especially for my 2-year-old sister. I hated him for taking it.”

Huynh’s father died from lung cancer in 1993.

“After his death, I began to learn more about my father,” says Huynh. “As time passed, I realized that my father somehow loved me very much. I tried to hate him for so long because I wanted to please my mom. I still do not love him yet, but I have stopped hating him. Perhaps one day, I will be able to love him again as I did when I was a child.”

The two last quilts in the exhibit depict Huynh’s experiences and reflections upon arriving in the U.S. In “Two Flags” she merges the flags of North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam as a symbol of hope, healing, and reconciliation. Huynh weaves the opposing colors and patterns of South Viet Nam’s flag—three red stripes on a yellow background—and the flag of North Viet Nam—a yellow star on a red background—into one cohesive image.

Growing up in Viet Nam, Huynh knew only one flag—the Communist flag she was taught to respect and salute every morning. When she came to the U.S. in 1999, she witnessed a different attitude toward the Communist Vietnamese flag.

“The Vietnamese Americans hated the Communist flag and referred to it as the ‘bloody’ flag,” Huynh recalls. “I remembered how proud these Vietnamese Americans looked when saluting their flag, as I was saluting mine.”

The two flags which symbolize both suffering and pride, made a deep impression on Huynh. Like the story of Au Co and Lac Long Quan, the flags have different patterns, but they use the same base and colors: yellow and red. The flags share the same origins, and combined, they tell the history of the Vietnamese people.

The last quilt in the exhibit, “Unfinished Story,” depicts two lotus plants growing in a pond. The long stems extending toward the pond are imbued with red, the color of blood. Blood drips from the leaves and becomes amorphous shapes that resemble eyes staring into space.