Wrapping up 2025
Singapore, Meta Break, and Looking Ahead
Happy Holidays!
Our family just returned from a month-long trip to Singapore, and we are still not fully recovered from our jet lag. But it was so worth it.
As mentioned in my last post, Singapore happens to be my birthplace, but I left as a young child, when the ten-year-old newly independent city-state was a poor, developing country. I had last visited in 2004 with my mother, who was also born there.
Much has changed from our last visit. The gleaming, piss-free subway system keeps growing. It is so easy to travel all around the country, which is only 736.3 square kilometers (284.3 sq mi). If you’re curious about what some parts of Singapore look like, you can check out the film Crazy Rich Asians (that’s not us personally—we are not rich). The Singapore founders, with Lee Kwan Yew at the helm, designed Singapore to be a green, high-tech place, with its people’s needs in mind. Even as capitalism reigns, affordability has always been a priority for its citizens. When eating out, if you have deep pockets, you can spend as much as you like at a Michelin-starred restaurant, or buy a bowl of perfectly delicious noodles for less than $5 USD at a food court or hawker centre. I’m pretty sure you can go through an entire year having a different type of cuisine every day in Singapore. Tipping is not customary.
And we felt completely safe there. Singapore has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. There are no guns.
Yes, the punishment for crime is severe (one may recall the very high-profile caning of a young American back in the Clinton years). CCTV is installed everywhere. Drug traffickers get the death penalty.
It was less than a week from our date of return when the Brown University mass shooting happened—one street away from where Ken was giving a talk at Symposium Books. The police came by and told them to lockdown. It was terrifying. My heart breaks for the victims and everyone affected. And I’m so grateful that Ken is okay.
I’m now reading that not one, but TWO, current Brown students are survivors of high school shootings (from Saugus High School near Los Angeles, California and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida). The gunman is still at large as I write this newsletter.
Instagram and Facebook Break
I’m taking a break from Instagram and Facebook until the New Year. I actually hope I can really ween myself off it, but it will be difficult. BlueSky is less insidious—it’s not constantly flashing posts and reels at you to make you scroll. You can find me there. Meta and other social media companies make money off not just our content, but our mental energy and time, which are little-recognized, precious resources.
Looking Ahead at 2026
Looking back at 2025, one book that really affected my outlook is The Courage to Be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi. It made me rethink competition and art shows I enter and the reasons why I want to enter. I have decided that I will only submit entries to a show for the following reasons: to enjoy being part of a community, to support the organization, to compete for a money prize, or if I really like the theme.
I intend to further develop my craft in 2026. I will create more cyanotype scrolls to increase the size of the FC Scrolls body of work. I asked Santa to gift me the Ansel Adams books: The Camera, The Negative, and The Print. I plan to do more darkroom printing. We’ll see if Santa would deem me nice.
Art Updates
I’m thrilled that the collaborative piece Scorched from project Alchemy of the Unknowns is a part the online juried show “Common Ground” at the Photographic Resource Center, juried by Alexa Cushing and Connor Noll, co-owners of Panopticon Gallery. The collaborative project is all about finding common ground.
I have a small, handmade, cyanotype print of one of my favorite images, Song Sparrow Feeding Juvenile Brown-Headed Cowbird, at the Griffin Museum Winter Solstice Members Show. Capturing this image brought me so much joy because I witnessed a brood parasite relationship first hand in my backyard. The biological mother of the juvenile Cowbird (right) had deposited her egg into the nest of the Song Sparrow (left), who then raised the baby as her own. Annie Dillard’s quote comes to mind.“…Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.” This photo reminds me how I’m too buried in my own world to see things happening a few feet away from me. It was a moment I wanted to share with the world.
Another collaborative Holga photo is in the latest issue of “Plastic Perspective”, the Holga community magazine by Anna Starr. You can buy a copy from Etsy here.
Finally, there are a few more days (through Dec 18) to view the Mother Brook Art and Community Center’s Winter 2025 Small Works Sale. I’m sorry I didn’t announce this earlier! I have a few pieces from the Red in Nature series there.
Thank you!
Thank you very much for reading my newsletter. I appreciate your connecting with me in 2025. I wish you all a happy and safe Holiday Season and a 2026 full of joy, balance, and good health and luck.
Warmly,
Lisa