Conversations with Trinh Mai

Today we’d like to introduce you to Trinh Mai.

Hi Trinh, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. Can you briefly walk us through your story?

My father has an immensely creative mind, and my mother grew up in a family who deeply appreciated music and literature, so my family has always been very supportive of my artistic endeavors. I was a very creative child, always tinkering with sticks and found materials, collecting stones and bugs and naming them with accompanying charts, and creating environments for them. My parents worked very hard, so I would spend a lot of time by myself after school, and I believe that this is what nourished my curiosity for the natural world and gave me the freedom to explore. This surely fostered my imagination and creativity.

Although I loved art always, I didn’t find my voice in art until my third year at San José State, while I was facing a lot of personal difficulties. I found solace and comfort in large-scale abstract oil painting. I lost myself in the broad, enveloping surface, and found joy in the color, while throwing my grief into the viscosity of the oil, aiming for no premeditated result, but rather wandering through the experience. I found it astounding that painting could be so freeing. Once I began telling stories about my family history, I started introducing the figure—painting, collaging, and drawing the people whom I love, the people who ushered me into this life of faith, and love, and meaning. Today, I am continuing the work of documenting family history using media that is dictated by the story that I am trying to tell—my late grandmother’s used tea bags, mourning bands from family member’s funerals, my late cousin Ngọc Anh’s threads, cotton and dirt collected from the fields that my husband Hiền and his family used to work on when they first arrived in America, even medical tape which he used to wrapped my fingers to help them heal from injury. I recognize my privilege of having been born in freedom, and my work examines the wars that my family (and we as humanity) have had to face, the endurance that we harness to walk through it, and the faith that gives us steady footing.

What should we know about your work and your practice?

I take joy in telling the stories from history, and them braiding them into present day. I like to think about how we can apply history to our current life situations. I think that one of my strengths is the ability to take multiple ideas, examine each in their unique purposes, weave them together, and introduce them into a work in a way that draws our attention to the individual experience. At least, this is what I hope for. The work’s aim is to share in the experiences and through this, discover more answers (sometimes answers to questions that we didn’t even know to ask).

I am most proud of the community members and students with whom I’ve worked—how they take inspiration and utilize it as a driving force to go forth and bridge their own histories and inquire more deeply with their own lived experience that has the potential to inspire others. I’m not sure if I can precisely say what sets me apart from others, except that I am an individual. I believe that every one of us has a unique voice, and the more we cling onto it, and seek its expression, the greater and truer the work becomes.

Has it been a smooth road? If not, what were some of the struggles  that you experienced along the way?

I’m not sure that I’ve ever remembered any part of my life that could be described as smooth. It’s been quite the bumpy path, with sharp turns as we ride along the edge of mountain sides, traversing dense forests as we strain to see the path that our ancestors have carved out for us, with the hope of clearing the way for the successors. We’ve been lost at sea, found the current, and arrive in unknown territories. We’ve slipped on black ice, but somehow regained our balance. It has been a difficult road, but the lessons have been necessary and beautiful, and reveal to us who we are, while also revealing to us the hearts of the people by whom we are surrounded. Wisdom is acquired through the trying moments that life darts at us, but perhaps this gaining of wisdom is worth it. (I am not claiming to be wise, but I hope that at least I can grow a bit closer to wise through it all.)

One of the struggles that I’ve had along the way is grappling with the idea of working a steady-paying job vs. dedicating my life to the diverse, important projects that I’d like to explore. Curiosity and the desire to step into the unknown, and glean knowledge from it, is one of the significant driving forces for my practice. What would it be like to collaborate with a string quartet and facilitate a workshop on painting music? How could I partner with a person living with dementia and make work in response to their memories and their work? What might happen if I worked with veterans in hopes that we could talk through our wounds together? What could I learn from working with refugee students who have recently arrived in America?

I know that this is a psychological issue when wrestling with not having a steady-paying job. It has been a common mental struggle for the past 20 years, ever since I decided that I was going to pursue my calling in art. I know it’s a mind issue, because when I’ve sat down and examined the fruits of the labor, these projects—although not yielding pay every two weeks—are close to equivalent, if not more, than having a steady job, that I’d probably not be quite qualified for (I’m not great at much else other than art and ideas). But even more importantly, they fuel my heart with unexpected outcomes, they offer me opportunities to serve diverse groups, collaborate with interesting people, and constantly challenge my predispositions. It is this battle of mind that is among the most difficult battles. Every now and then, I grapple with this, and my husband responds with, “Again, Babe?” Ha! I’m immensely grateful for a husband who so willingly puts up with me and consistently encourages me.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?

I inherited my father’s meticulous nature. He can be rigid (I inherited this too), but also has a deep appreciation for art, beauty, color, and arrangement. My mother and brother have a good balance of creative and engineering minds, and also have a love for beauty and meaning. I’m grateful for inheriting the balance of both, with a natural propensity to problem solve while building. This is further nurtured by a husband who, too, is very analytical. These modes of thinking are further developed through my love of labor. From a young age, I noticed that my parents not only practiced hard work, but that they took so much joy in it. They loved building a career, a family, and a life together. They loved sewing these seeds and watching them germinate, bloom, and bear fruit. I’ve adopted their work ethic, and the love for it too.

Perhaps the most important driving force is my faith. It instills in me an optimism that is beyond positive thinking, but more in the knowing that if something is done justly, in sincerity, and in love, beauty and meaning is born from it. Faith helps me hold on to the knowing that our hardships are never in vain, nor are our conscientious efforts, which inspires me to think long, and diligently, and hopefully, into how we can make it into something beautiful that we can learn from and look to, should we need the remember (we always do). Faith is as essential to my creative practice as it is to my life walk, although faith, life, and art seem to be so interwoven, that it’s difficult to differentiate.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://trinhmai.com/
• Instagram: @trinhmaistudios
• Facebook: Trinh Mai Studios
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTc7qGoj8k8ztymzcxRKa0FfA79tvBQcO
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/trinh-mai

Image Credits
With Such Sacrifice, 2022, buttons, copies of Ba’s (Father) paperwork to sponsor his family to America, hand embroidery, graphite, ink, my late cousin Ngọc Anh’s thread, and photos from family archive encased in handmade vellum envelope and also, this label under all the other photos: With Such Sacrifice, 2022