Joy Kuo: The Former Accountant Who Now Runs Her Own Art Studio.
By Yesenia Zuniga
Joy Kuo picked up her horse-tail brush and started to paint in her self-owned art studio. She shuffled the ink onto the canvas and slowly drew a mountain. Her studio walls showcase painted Lotus flowers, Chinese characters, and hand-drawn pictures of her grandchildren. Kuo welcomes tourists and townspeople to her shop every day, hoping to share her art with her community.
Kuo’s Studio is in Locke, California — a historical rural Chinatown.
She opened her Studio in 2019. She immigrated from China to the Bay Area in 2015. Kuo worked as an accountant before she was a full-time artist. Kuo grew up in Guangxi, China — where she pursued her education. Art classes and careers were limited in China at the time.
Her parents reassured an art career would not be financially stable. Joy decided to become an accountant and start a new life in America. Kuo retired during her fifties to begin her second career as a full-time artist.
“I retired very early because I have a chance to enjoy my art,” Kuo said. “Art is very hard to make money for a living, so my parents did not encourage me to do it.”
However, the small-town struggles to maintain its 100-year-old Chinese image. The area faces budget issues relating to building repairments and town sanitation. Locke is run by the Locke Management Board. The board is made up of eight members, but only three are of Chinese descent.
The town holds 80 residents and is a part of Sacramento County. As of 2020, the US Census Bureau reports that only 17% of Sacramento County’s population is Asian.
Legal documents like the town’s Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (or CCNRS) have caused issues between the Asian residents and the white-dominated Locke Management Board. The document is only available in English text, and many Chinese residents find it hard to translate it. These residents also have difficulties finding Chinese-English translators.
Residents like Kuo worry the town will lose its heritage because of poor maintenance and fading Chinese representation.
“It reminds me of my hometown,” Kuo said. “When I was little, and before we moved from Communist China, my home was a river town. That’s why I love this little town. Some people say this is no longer a Chinatown, but I don’t think so.”
Kuo uses her Chinese Brush technique to make her paintings and bring a part of China to the town. The traditional water-based art style incorporates water-activated ink. She uses traditional rice paper canvass and neutral-toned inks to paint. Kuo says these colors are the foundation of Chinese Brush paintings.
Kuo’s studio reflects the images of China onto the town. Her hometown and nature inspire Kuo’s paintings. She is the only art studio teaching the Chinese Brush technique in the Sacramento area. Kuo’s artistry represents her Chinese background and pays tribute to Locke’s long Chinese history.
“They’re all unique. It comes from my mind,” Kuo said. “People ask, ‘can you do a painting of me?’ I say no. My blue is not their blue. It all is from my mind. When I want to paint, I know what to paint. I can’t read people’s minds. If you like it then you take it and that’s okay too.”
In 2020, Kuo’s painting of a waterfall inspired by her hometown won her a first-place ribbon for Elk Grove’s Diverse Art Contest. She is a current Verge Center for the Arts member, a Sacramento-based art education studio. Kuo also sells other artists’ work in her studio.
Kuo’s paintings range from $7 to a couple thousand. In addition to paintings, she sells hand-painted silk clothing and crocheted wool.
“I don’t ever plan on stopping,” Kuo says.
You can find Kuo’s work at https://lockeartstudio.com/ .
