Money ruins friendship

 I said this all the time but never wrote it down.

"Money ruins friendship.” 

I have firsthand experience of this truth.

When we were in Vietnam, we were poor. My mother was an artist, a single mother of three, and an art professor. Rice was rationed daily to keep us alive. The simple meal was a small bunch of water spinach,  two pieces of tofu, and a few grams of fatty pork belly cuts. 

We were poor, but my mother had a lot of kind, good friends who always helped out with either money or extra food. 

However, some bad friends took advantage of my family situation to profit from it. 

I remembered there were “friends” who came to the house and asked my mother to produce art, clay relief sculpture samples of her works for sale. With the hope of making more money for the family, she spent a lot of time producing these sample artworks.  They took the artworks and left, never coming back to follow up with the money as promised. 

My mother was an artist. She was poor but generous. She knew that she got scammed. She laughed, calling herself stupid, and put it off. Sometimes she met these friends on the street; they ignored each other like strangers.

These were not her real friends. They were her transactional whoever she happened to cross paths with in her life. 

My mother always told me that money will ruin friendship and relationships.

Her Godson, who we took in when he was a homeless architecture student, became a successful architect later and scammed us out of money when he was hired to build my mother’s first and only house. After that project, he left and was nowhere to be found when we needed him. 

I witnessed how poor artists like my mother were; I decided that I would not be an artist. I studied English to hope for a better job opportunity. I studied English and became good at it. I went to night English classes 5 nights per week until I got a job with Vietnam Airlines.

When I went to college, I had already made some money tutoring small children in English. The money helped me not ask my mother for money anymore. 

In college, I hung out with two friends. We spent a lot of time together. We were compatible. We laughed. We always sat together in class. We were an inseparable trio. 

Their families were not rich but were not as poor as mine. I knew that they were much better off than me. 

After the USSR collapsed, speaking English had become trendy and opened more opportunities for jobs. These two friends used to study Russian. They were not good at English. So they asked me to tutor English for a fee. I named my price, the same money I get paid for tutoring the small children. 

After a few days of silence, one wrote me a letter ( I still have the letter with me today ) that both of them could not afford the price, and they were shocked that I named the price. They thought they would get a much better discount because we were “ best friends”.

I was shocked. I was speechless. I was disappointed. I went silent. I felt betrayed. 

The friendship took a turn that would never be the same after that letter.

I remembered my mother’s saying: money ruins friendship. I did not say anything to these two. I suck it up. I promised myself I would never let money interfere with the relationship anymore. 

I kept my promise until much later; I moved to the US. I had become an artist at US Davis and hung out with a friend who loved my art. She loved both the aesthetic and concept of my art. 

She was a professor at US Davis. She came to my MFA studio all the time. We hung out. We talked about art. She went to my house and became close with the whole family. I gave her some of my important art for free because she was my friend.  

One of them was my first big drawing of Boat drawing, from my series of 10 years of research and drawing about Vietnamese boat people. 

One of her friends from Boston wanted to buy another big drawing for $ 2.500.

Because I trusted my Davis friend, I agreed to sell that drawing in instalments. My mother scolded me for how stupid I was. She admitted to me that she was stupid, but she never sold her art in instalments.

It took that Boston lady 10 years to pay off the drawing !!!!

Every year I had to send her an email to remind the payment or “ please return the drawing”. She would say no, she cannot return the drawing because “ it is a very important piece of art”. Sometimes she sent me a postcard saying this year her parents' house got flooded and she could not pay.

I got so impatient and exhausted. I could not keep up and just forgot about it. Until I went up to Seattle, she emailed me again to ask for the new address so she could continue to pay. Finally, she did pay it off. 

I got mad at my David friend. I cut off talking with her for a while because of this installment business. We still hang out when we can, but I would say no whenever a Davis friend gave me a “business” proposal to sell my art.

Last week, one of my friends who lives in Hawaii texted me the story below.

The Hawaii friend loves art. She loves my art, and again I always give my art to her for free. She used to be an art dealer, so she understands artist/selling art, and art ownership. She insisted that she could buy one of my paintings. The sale was $700, I remember. She is proud of her ownership of my painting. She always showed off her wall with my art among other artists' pieces that she purchased. 

Last month, she posted images of my art and another art image that she bought from another artist friend to share how artists use beautiful art to convey human suffering.

 

Whenever she posts my art on her blog, she shared to me. 

Genuinely, I am happy and grateful that I have a friend who appreciates my art. 

But another artist friend said that the Hawaii friend has to pay her $ 50 for copyright.

My Hawaii friend was shocked. She had already bought the artwork, and her blog was not for profit. 

They gently and politely texted back and forth, focusing on what was right and wrong and the artist's copyright, and finally my Hawaii friend got exhausted. She took another artist's image down. 

Like me before, my Hawaii friend was hurt. She was disappointed. She was in grief and loss over a 10-year-long friendship for $50.

To sum up, a real friend would never ruin a true friendship for $50. 

Again, I repeated my mother’s saying to my Hawaii friend: "Money ruins friendship."

I added, $50 is too cheap to end a decade-long friendship, but a reasonable amount for her to realize that person is not her friend, but a transactional entity who just happened to cross paths with her in life.

Helicopter parents : The dream of two liones or the celebration of Childhood Mid- Autumn Festival

 During COVID, I started paying attention to my dreams and writing them down. When I write down dreams, more dreams appear that make sense, and I could decode the dreams eventually.

 I will share three dreams here that may be related to the previous entry, The storm will come”.

First dream: 

During COVID, I saw two full- grown lions jump out of the big gate. I told Nguyen. Nguyen asked in a concerned voice. “ Two lions jumped out and moved toward us?”

 I said no, “Run away from me.” This dream was easy for me to understand. “ My two children went away from their parents for college.”

One thing was questionable. Beo ( Beo in Vietnamese is Leopard/ He was born in the year of Tiger/on the August zodiac sign was Leo) was a Lion. Mando was not. She was born in the year of the snake. Yet, I still think both full-grown lions were both of my children. 

Dreams work with layers. According to Google AI, psychologically, based on Freud and Carl Jung, a lion is viewed as a symbol of the archetypal hero and transformation, or the powerful animal repression, aggressive desires, or raw dominance.

Many traditions see lions as a sign of spiritual awakening/higher guidance and a reminder to tap into your innate resilience during challenging times. 

Both kids got out/ transformed into full-grown adults to college. 

I got the answer to this dream after a long time of contemplating. 

Second dream: 

After Mano went back to Seattle West Point for her medical leave,  I had a dream seeing her, and I stayed in front of the school's big gate. The tall and heavy gate closed in front of us. I stood next to her/ the background was dark, and the ground got muddy. I know that dreams reflect our reality at that time. The door shut down / the road ahead was muddy and sticky, but I was with her. 

Third dream: 

Very recently, last week, right after I posted the previous entry, “the storm will come,” I had a peculiar dream. 

I saw my first cousin's wife from my mother's side, Ms. Nguyet ( Moon in English), come to our apartment. She gave me a piece of cake and some leftovers of a sweet treat wrapped in a piece of light blue paper.

I never ever had her in my dreams. The last time I met her in person was at my mom’s 49-day death ceremony. 

In the dream, my apartment was clean,  revealing a lot of empty space.

Then I saw three Tiger cups coiling, sleeping peacefully at the corner of the house. The image of three little cups sleeping and coiling reminded me of my old dog Happie. Happie is aging/ He does not do much except for sleeping and resting on his small bed every day. 

It took me a few days to think about how weird the dream was. The more I think, the more layers of this dream unfolded.

 Cake / Moon during this time as mooncake for Mid-Autumn Festival. Actually, we are preparing to celebrate this children's festival by the end of this week. My cousin's wife, named Nguyet/ Moon and she, gave me a cake: a mooncake.

Did the dream invite me back to the Mid-Autumn Festival?  Quite interesting. Actually, tomorrow, Friday 09/25/26, is the Autumn Festival. 

The dream happened after the entry “ The storm will come” revealed an image of the clean and empty house. I shared the story to vent it out. My mind and heart are much lighter after sharing. I do not have the burden of “ telling this important story” anymore. I have more empty space inside my heart and mind to breathe right now. Or continued to deal with emty nest symdrome when all the children grown and move out of the house?

Instead of seeing two lions jump out of the gate like before, now I see peaceful, sleeping little Tigers coming back to a safe house to sleep/ to rest after the storm passes.

I got old artworks that two children and I did back in Davis. Tiger collage with torn paper. We did the whole summer for this project.

Why three? I have two lions /or two children only. Why three.

I thought that the third one might be me, as the dream already invited me back to my childhood.

The Mid-Autumn Festival was always one of the most celebrated times during my childhood. I always got invitations to participate in art competitions as a child artist. We would look forward to the moon cake that my father sent to us. Mooncakes were expensive. My mother could not afford to buy mooncakes for us. Father always sent us a tin box with four mooncakes every year. We could eat them in rations. Mother cut each cake into four. We took time to eat our portion and drank tea. I made lanterns out of bamboo sticks and tissue or newspaper. I even had to cook the rice paste to make glue as buying glue would be too expensive. I did not have wire to build my lantern. I did not rubber band. Sometimes after it done, I lighted up with a small candle inside and the rubber band got burned and detroyed my Lantern. I would go to sleep very sad that night. My mom would said, lucky you did not burn the house down.

The sleeping little tiger was me. 

I am ready to let my little Tiger of my childhood sleep in peace.

I hope.

I made these artworks when I was a child during the Mid-Autumn Festival. My mother saved all of these for me. Now it's my turn to save all of my children 's art for them.

I miss my mother pretty much every day. I miss her, not anymore crying, sad nor depressed, less guilty, but with love in my peaceful heart.

Now, during this time, when the day gets darker soon in Seattle, our art class will make lanterns to light up the darkness and boost spirit and mood, as well as celebrate holidays until the end of the year. 

Making Lanterns is a safe way to help artists to go back to childhood and process adversity and trauma. During these festive activities, things from the past may come up. Sadness and depression may become triggers. But the act of cutting/ glueing the colorful paper together helps to amend the past. We do not use candle for this project. We are better now. we used LED light. When the light inside is turned on, our hearts get warm just looking at it.

 Here are some Lanterns that we made throughout the years. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival. 

Enjoy a piece of Mooncake and beautiful art, please.

The mentor

 Last week was a stressful week at work and for my health.

Working in the healthcare business is always stressful. Everywhere, the political game and power-grabbing dynamics are toxic. On top of that, budget cuts and deficits in healthcare make the job intolerable. 

For a few weeks, I had symptoms of a UTI and needed to see the Doctor.

Turned out I did not have a UTI. This female doctor did not sugarcoat it either. She announced that I have menopause dried up vaginas. 

Visually, I said to myself, “Like a dried-up old well.”

The doctor prescribed me a vaginal creams and gently suggested a shingles shot.    

After the shot, for the whole weekend, I got chilled and hot. The $30 paid-in-cash prescribed vaginal cream helped to calm the burning sensation and ease my mind that at least I did not have a UTI.

Life felt sad, defeated, and depressing last week. Meditation and Qi Gong helped. Sewing helped. Taking time off helped. Nguyen always helped. 

And. 

Katherine Sherwood’s art helped.

A few days ago, I received good news that my long-time mentor, Katherine Sherwood, just received the 2026 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship for Bay Area.

That is one of prestige rewards; among more of less 600 artists who applied, 32 got selected! 

Look at her beautiful picture; I feel much better.

My heart cheered for her.

Her beautiful art cheered me up. I felt happy. 

I met her for the first time in 2004 when I went to UC Berkeley as a transfer student from Mission College in Sylmar, LA.  

She was a tenured art professor in the Art department. 

The first class I wanted to take from her was “Medicine, Disability and Art ”.

The class was popular, always full, and students had to put on the waiting list. 

 I could not get into the class in the first semester, so I ended up taking another class that she taught, called “Special Projects”. 

Throughout this class, students were expected to produce projects that related to four themes:

“Quilting, Money, Food, and Book". 

This class was full of surprises, which exposed me to quilting, sewing, and bookmaking as art. That concept cemented the foundation for my art practice.

One project I produced for this class was my very first quilt, which turned my life and my art upside down unexpectedly and solidly bonded me and Katherine for a long time to come.

(With Katherine and my sister-in-law at my thesis show at UC Berkeley 2005. )

Next semester, I successfully registered for her “Medicine, Disability and Art”. This time, I learnt that art can be used as medicine to heal physically, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. 

Katherine Sherwood had a stroke two years before I met her. I witnessed her art bring her back to life and carry out her teaching to a different level.  

After the stroke, she fought for life wholeheartedly with her art practice and art teaching. 

Head-on. She never ran away from her problem. 

One door shut. Another door opened. You just have to be the one who opens it.

She did. 

After the stroke, her art was quiet but huge. Always in 2- year process of making one piece because she had to learn how to paint again with her left hand.

The stroke guided her painting differently. She had to slow down, make less noise, have an intimate conversation with the stroke, try to understand, embrace, visualize, and come to terms with living peacefully with her condition.

I always find peace seeing her body of work during this time. Abstractly, at first glance, thick layers of paint bind together until they eventually reveal the cracks through the layers. The cracks were deep. They made a silent sound. They appeared painfully, beautifully, vulnerably enough to invite the audience to bear witness without a word.

Life is full of suffering. Artists like Katherine know how to make life less suffering and more tolerant.

( My top table along with her art in one of the shows in Berkeley )

Katherine was a tough teacher. 

I remember vividly that she told students that her art class would never be an easy A. I had to learn how to build my big-sized wooden frame for my canvas. Students’ quilt project should not be a baby-sized quilt. No wonder I could never make a small-sized quilt after that first quilt. 

She officially became my mentor for the prestigious Haas scholarship at UC Berkeley my senior year. Every year, 12 students from different departments got selected for a 1-year scholarship to conduct a thesis project for graduation.

That scholarship helped me deepen my study in art for healing. I got funding to go back to Vietnam for my project research. The final presentation later became my portfolio for the MFA program at UC Davis.  

Katherine walked me through those projects with sharp criticism and care.

She was with me when my mother- in- law was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away in 2005. She was there for me when I sewed a quilt to honor my mother-in-law's passing. We called this quilt “Unfinished Story.” She suggested the name for my thesis show graduation from UC Berkeley. 

 I did not want to do the MFA. I wanted to work and make money.

Both Katherine and Nguyen, my husband, supported and encouraged me to go. 

The whole family moved up to UC Davis for my MFA. The two years at UC Davis were an important development for me as a professional artist. The children started their swimming careers at Davis as well.

We joined another project called Yelling Clinic and reunion in Berkeley a few more times after my MFA.

                          

                      

( Katherine with two Yeller Artists on the Vietnam trip for the Yelling Clinic project )

Then Katherine's husband, Jeff, passed away. 

She reunited with her sweetheart boyfriend. 

My mother passed away in 2011.

We moved to Seattle and were busy with life and the children. 

We still keep each other updated. She went to visit Seattle sometimes. We came down to join her class and exhibitions. 

She retired from her teaching job and dedicated her full-time schedule to doing art.

She told me COVID was the best time for artists to paint and practice solitude. 

After Katherine retired, I see her work circle back to her previous style with bold colors that are dominated by red. She added flowers, fruits, and patterns.  A lot of flowers back to back in each large-scale painting reappear cheerfully to bloom with life and happiness.

She is back with her signature red. She always loves to wear red. Her lipstick is red. Her hat is red. Her glasses frame is red. 

Her art is vibrantly red and full of life. Her art is loud enough to get the world's notice.

I lay down on the bed, complaining that I am sick. I am tired and defeated after last week. 

This morning I looked at her pictures.

My tears rolled down. 

I texted her that I missed her. I missed her laugh. Katherine has the most contagious laugh ever.

Seeing the picture of her sitting, smiling between two walls up to the ceiling, full of art, I had an epiphany.

Life is not just simply years added on that make one get old and dried up.

Life is an attitude, and it would be up to me to fill that dried well up again with life.

I told my children that we are lucky if we have good teachers who can change our lives.

I am lucky to have my lifelong mentor who continues to set a good example of how to live life to the fullest no matter what happens.

                             

                           ( Katherine danced her heart out at our Yelling Clinic show in 2012 ) 

                                  (Katherine and Steve came to Seattle to visit our family in Jun 2025. She knew the kids when they were three and six years old back in Berkley ) 

                                                Life is beautiful!

Drawings on book ( III): First time drawing on my favorite book

I used to draw on old, randomly picked up , discarded books.

For this porject, I picked one of my favorite books. I always have books with me to read while traveling. This time I got a favourite book, Finding Your Element, to re-read while flying.

 The idea was drawing on book and reading at the same time. 

Turned out ! 

It is perfect project for me. The drawings makes sense with some text highlights. Not sure why. I am happy with the results.

Also I used the Instagram trendy techinique of collage- pocket - junk - fat book for this book as well. While traveling, I collected all materials that could be used as pockets to keep all the knick knack items during the trip. Hoaring pocket materials to hoard more items to create a fat junkbook. It was fun !