This document provides notes from the artist Shalin Hai-Jew about their latest slideshow titled "Meanders" which explores working with alcohol inks, watercolors, synthetic papers, and digital image editing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some key points include that the pandemic provides context but is not the focus, and that the artist is experimenting with new techniques like using different papers and digital editing to transform some works. The artist notes challenges with equipment and the process being visceral rather than conceptual, but aims to achieve meaningful imagery through this exploration.

1. Meanders
A beginner’s play in alcohol inks,
watercolor,
(non) synthetic papers,
and digital image editing…
Shalin Hai-Jew
May 2021

2. 2
Overwatch

3. 3
Underfoot

4. 4
Disenchantment

5. 5
Disturbance

6. 6
Grace

7. Meanders
• “Meanders” is the latest in the slideshows about coping with the
SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic.
• The pandemic does play the role of a narrative, a justification, an
overlay to the works. This framework is actual.
• The focus on the pandemic is not to extend painful memories. The greater
risk is rewriting history or forgetting. For many there is the allure of
convenient versions of the world, including non-facts. People are slipping,
even now, into fantasy versions of the world, at great risk to themselves and
others.
• I’ve jumped headlong back into the world and interactions, albeit still
generally masked in indoor spaces.
7

8. Meanders(cont.)
• I keep waiting for the spell of alcohol inks and synthetic papers (their
sense of yuan) to break, but there is no sign of that yet.
• There are still the occasional images that stop my breath. There are a few
times in life when I understand in an embodied way what it is to have my
breath taken away, to be stunned by a visual.
• Since the start of the series in January 2021, this has all been about
true formative and experiential learning…seeing how things work.
This is fun “hard play” for me. I like putting thought experiments into
action.
8

9. Meanders (cont.)
• “Self-taught” is not a derogatory but part of lifelong learning.
• Learning from others on the Social Web would mean emulating
dramatic swirls and dramatically decorous work. Others’ talent does
not transfer directly.
• What I can take away directly is the enthusiasm.
9

10. Meanders (cont.)
• Each new element in an alcohol ink painting changes the dynamics of
the work. It changes almost every other element on the page. The
direction of the work shifts because that is how fragile the work is
until it dries and is left in that state as a fragile final state.
• The work is visceral more than conceptual.
• Sometimes there is no in-world analog to the visual, and that is
okay…because this is also about the imagination, the visceral imagination.
• The goal is to achieve a kind of “escape velocity” beyond the art
materials…to something with transferable meaning (so the
conceptual is relevant).
10

11. Meanders(cont.)
• The alcohol inks move differently on synthetic paper. They often dry
very fast unless the synth paper is primed with isopropyl alcohol.
• Visuals tend to be amorphous, and it takes some effort to create shapes with
edges and colors…tipping the paper…blowing the inks, and other methods.
• One day I hope to look at referent images and try to recreate them,
but that step seems far off yet.
• Some of this work involves visual guile and illusion-making, which is
based on knowledge of how people see and perceive and process
visuals.
• If I have a signature, it is something of natural scenes with a touch of the
sinister and of threat…and 3D depth maps that hint at the real (but with a
major touch of the artificial). Maybe.
11

12. Meanders(cont.)
• I am taking notes on yellow sticky pads for new ideas to try. As I
immerse in this space on the occasional free morning or evening, the
ideas just emerge.
• The works still seem wild and weedy to me, in many cases, not
cultivars.
• The uses of foam brushes to paint backgrounds and add textures
enables some different and more diffuse visual effects.
• There are “holdbacks” or works that never make it into slideshows.
Some works are “feeder stock” and are merely digitized and distorted
into a digital variant and run only in the digital variant form. This is
the use of digital editing to salvage inartful works.
12

13. Meanders(cont.)
• There are still struggles with the older scanner and resulting striations
and banding.
• It is a challenge to keep the scratch disk clear to do more complex
digital image processing. It is a constant challenge to dump files as
soon as projects are completed to make room for new work.
• I’m not sure why both painted and digitally rendered visuals that are
really visually unappealing are at the same time so funny and
amusing.
13

14. On white sketch paper
14

15. 15
Insensate

16. On white synth paper
16

17. 17
Moonlight

18. 18
Ember

19. 19
Unrequited

20. 20
Cinnamon

21. 21
Cypress

22. 22
Rainbow

23. 23
Shoots

24. 24
Eruption

25. 25
Incursion

26. 26
Sky

27. 27
Growth

28. 28
Fruit Drink

29. 29
Smoke

30. 30
Swimming

31. 31
Deceptions
(Warning Colors)

32. 32
Ephemera

33. 33
At Dusk

34. 34
In Sunlight

35. 35
Underwater 2

36. 36
Movement

37. 37
Orange

38. On translucent synth paper
38

39. 39
Root

40. On digital variants
40

41. 41
Clockwise

42. 42
Microcosm

43. 43
Coat Hook

44. 44
First Wave

45. 45
Fold

46. 46
Rose Heart

47. 47
Staining

48. 48
Onshoring

49. 49
Bean

50. 50
Palm Tree

51. 51
Imaginary

52. 52
Ash

53. 53
Overflight

54. 54
Spawn

55. 55
Pulse

56. 56
Dry

57. 57
Road

58. 58
Pressed Flower

59. 59
Nest

60. 60
Seep