Anna Wong: An Artist, Educator, and Role Model

By Lena Fung Warmack

In room 101 at Jefferson Elementary School, Anna Wong gathered her class of 20 kindergarten students at noon to begin their Cantonese language session. The children bustled around the classroom from their workstations to sit on the gray-carpeted floor and huddled in a semi-circle around their teacher.

"Show me 'si soaw'," Wong said as her class repeated, "wash your hands" in Cantonese and used hand gestures to demonstrate.

Wong's classroom is filled with shelves packed with children's books, cabinets stacked with paste, glitter and crayons, and counters stuffed with board games, jigsaw puzzles and toys. Pictures and drawings crafted by her students cover the walls including artwork made out of brightly painted Popsicle sticks. Chinese paper lanterns, patterned in shiny gold glitter and tinted with splashes of yellow and orange paint, sat atop a miniature desk tucked away in a corner of the classroom.

Wong helps one of her students.

"I carry my passion for art through to my teaching," Wong said. "Art is so important because it is another way of communicating and expressing your thoughts and feelings to other people; it gives everyone a unique way of expressing themselves."

"She's the best teacher in the world," said Wendy, a parent of one of Wong's students who showed up at the end of class to pick up her daughter.

What many Jefferson school parents do not know is that Wong, who has worked as a full-time Chinese bicultural teacher for 12 years, is also an artist.

At the age of 53, Wong has been sought out by numerous galleries, including Pro Arts in Oakland, to exhibit her mixed media artwork. "She can take a contemporary subject like Newt Gingrich and make it a picture," said Betty Kano, executive director at Pro Arts, who described a particular piece that showed at the gallery.

"I'm not your mainstream Caucasian culture," Wong said. She describes her work as a celebration of life. "I just develop what I feel good about and what is interesting to me; I feel very deeply about things."

Wong is a member of the Asian American Women Artists Association and has exhibited her work in five shows this year, a heavy load for someone who has a full-time job and a family. Wong said she has never gone out of her way to showcase her work in exhibits. "I really never made it a priority of putting myself out there," she said. "I'm really satisfied with what I'm doing."

Wong hopes her work will inspire other Asian American artists and she also wants to link her four children to their roots. "When I die, I'm the last connection to the Chinese culture for them," she said as tears welled up in her eyes.

Wong credits the support she receives from her husband Tom, who is white and works at a ceramic tile retail store, and four children [Breandain, 23; Christopher, 22; Siobhan, 19; and Anna, 17.]

Wong grew up in a Chinese community nestled in San Francisco where her father worked as a cook and her mother as a seamstress.

Wong's "On the Round"

She grew up with two younger siblings, Al and Alice. Wong's grandmothers, grounded in Chinese tradition, lived with her family. "It was not something that was a burden; it was part of our relationship our family dynamics," she said, adding that one grandmother taught her to be strong and independent. Wong said she remembers her parents' stories, about their lives in China and their family history. "These stories really shaped me and who I am," she said. "It [art] draws out of me how important my ties are in connection to my parents, and my past and what I want to offer to my children."

"Lineage," a mixed media piece that showed at the Pro Arts Gallery, commemorates Wong's roots by displaying images of her family members on goose eggs from the branches of a small tree. "I used eggs as a symbol of the creation of life," she said. "I used it in conjunction with a tree because you think of a family tree."

Wong said she tries to convey tangible links to one's ancestors and past. "I want [the public] to realize that they [also] have their own stories to tell and that they have a connection with the past, present and future [through] their families," she said.

"Art is like math; numbers," she said. "It's not confined to just one culture because art crosses boundaries."

"Brave Newt World," is an artwork made out of origami paper, with a black and white image of Newt Gringrich's face covered with newts -- small salamanders. Wong created the piece in response to the conservative and controversial politics of Gringrich in 1995.

"Newts tend to bury themselves under rocks and they don't really come out that often," Wong said. "I felt that he buried his head under the water and wasn't really listening or caring about what the people wanted; he just carried out his own agenda."

With "Have You Eaten," a mixed media piece made out of paper and rice grains, Wong uses a rice bowl -- a centerpiece in traditional Chinese meals -- to show the significance behind an important cultural greeting.

While a student at San Francisco State University in the 1970s, Wong had debated what to study. "My parents wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer," she said, but with Tom's support, she chose a different path and graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor's degree in art.

Wong's "Brave Newt World"

Initially she set that training aside. "I thought I needed to do things other than art," Wong said, and she became a student teacher for two years at an alternative high school in San Francisco. When a position at Jefferson opened, Wong quickly filled the vacancy. Her four children attended the elementary school.

"I make time to make my art," Wong said, despite her heavy teaching schedule. She works out of her Berkeley home where she has a cozy studio, stacked with artwork, a collection of photo albums featuring Chinese people from the 1900's and books on different cultures and artists. She keeps a Shinto shrine, and a carved cabinet, which holds three Chinese tablets that say: "prosperity", "abundance", and "compassion." Champagne walls surround the room and a 1940's sage-colored couch faces her white drafting table.

"When I went to her studio, she was really talking about her intense compulsion to work in this very consuming way," said Betty Kano, Pro Arts Gallery executive director.

"You lose yourself in it; you don't think about eating or cleaning," Wong said. "The only time I get up is when my legs are really sore."

Wong said that she enjoys the adrenaline rush she gets during the thinking and creative processes while creating her artwork because to her, art serves as a platform where she can share her viewpoints.

"You just never know what she is going to try next and do; it's just amazing" said Beverly Thiele, a teacher at Jefferson who caught a glimpse of Wong's Chinese masks.

To see more of Wong's art click here.