A tree, a bohemian stranger, and a rooster.
Daisy Li, current drawing teacher at Concord Academy, was born in rural Anhui, China, and moved to Canton with her parents after elementary school. Later, she came to the US for college.
Li’s journey in drawing started with a weekend afternoon in college. She was bored and thought, why not draw? So she got herself pencil and paper, and sat in front of a tree. Never having taken a proper art class, she realized she didn’t know how to draw it at all. Just then, a stranger emerged out of nowhere, with a manner almost “bohemian.” “Oh, that doesn’t look very good! Let me try.” He commented — and he couldn’t draw well either. So they decided to find out how to draw. On the dusty, dim library fifth floor, Daisy discovered a drawing book with roosters and started copying it. To her amazement, she did a decent job. And it was delightful. Once she started drawing, she couldn’t stop. She came back to work on the book again and again… Drawing let her enter a mental state she had never experienced before. She felt carried forward by a current as she sank into observation of a bigger world. Nothing was comparable to it. So she abandoned Journalism, her major at the time, and pursued drawing instead. She transferred to the School of Art Institute of Chicago.
A few semesters in, an uncertainty arose as Li explored more art forms. She was no longer sure what her principal medium was. That summer in a workshop in Italy, a mentor told her, “You’re not seeing enough.” Only years later did Daisy understand what he meant: in drawing, one must return to the “original state” — not knowing, only observing — and really see. Inspired by the mentor, Daisy decided to stick with drawing and painting.
At that point, Li still didn’t know if she had the ability to become an artist. It hit her after graduation when she returned to China and realized that she had neither money to support herself nor enough understanding of art. She locked herself in her room to do art for a long time but started losing spirit. What was the purpose of this? She felt lost. Facing a myriad of styles and art movements in history, she still did not know what she was going to create.
E.g., She had the courage to launch a business in a new field, and put her all into it, and then had the courage to quit it. (Not really the direction I want) E.g.,
To bring herself to financial stability, Daisy decided to start an art-education company. The initial prospect of doing it only as a part-time job proved utterly fantastical. It was a big devotion. Every day, what occupied her mind was running the company, meeting deadlines, moral dilemmas surrounding profit… The experience taught her a great deal, but she was miserable. Although art-education business seemed adjacent to art, they were not the same thing at all. Daisy missed simply drawing and painting. And in that unhappiness, she became aware of what she truly wanted to do — art was the only thing that made her peaceful; with art she felt alive. So she quit the company, to many’s surprise. She felt it was the best decision in her life.
However, it had been three years where she couldn’t draw or paint. Daisy wasn’t sure if she could still get back to it, but her determination was stronger than ever. She went to the Jerusalem Studio School in Israel to hone her foundations in painting and drawing. She started from zero again. For one and a half years, she would paint six hours every day. Her knowledge of art history grew, and she felt increasingly grounded.
Still she had more to learn. Daisy returned to China to paint at the same intensity for almost another two years and applied to a master’s program. The graduate school years really helped her evolve her individual route. She had to break the rules and throw away what she had previously learned. She was shaped and formed again. The process was torturous, but she learned to look at art from many new angles.
In art, Daisy searches for meditativeness and ecstasy. But ultimately, she feels, “religion” — piety and love — goes beyond them both. Now postgraduate, Daisy is again trying to support herself while maintaining artistic practice. Life comes into this process so much: caring for parents, earning an income, considering having a child… In contrast with the materiality of things around, the search for religion seems too abstract and ideal.
Daisy realized that in life, the physical and the spiritual come together. “Life itself is so wonderful that it’s beyond everything, because it’s so absurd, and complicated, and also… you’re always figuring it out,” she says. From religion comes compassion — a love for all. In a sense it is also a love for life.
Daisy feels a new agency with her earlier experience. Like all good journeys, her growth to become an artist entails struggles, uncertainties, and many points where she could turn away, but she persisted. “Sometimes you need to have a leap of faith,” says Daisy. “The willingness to do it is everything.”