I think that through the narratives of other people you get closer to your own.
I'm also developing my own narrative, because I'm the son of a widow. And so, while working with women and gathering their oral histories, I'm taking a step back to do my own art book and visual work.
I'm very connected to the story, the history, and the trauma people experience.
I am a community social psychologist and a lot of my work deals with social work and helping people overcoming addiction and trauma.
Even if you look in the dictionary you know the meaning of the word or phrase, but there's still the feeling of it.
When I hear Khmer poets, when they recite their poems, I know what they're talking about, I get it right away.
When you're reading from a different language that's different from your own, it's not the same as being fluent.
If I were really fluent and born into the English language, I would probably become a greater writer.
I have a great advantage: I write from the perspective of my own voice. I'm not copying anyone's voice. It's my voice. I have the advantage of being a writer of English as a second language.
I think there are things I can't write in English that I wish I could write in Khmer.
Sometimes I fantasize about learning to write in Khmer. Because if I could write in Khmer, my perspective would be very different, because I'm both an outsider and insider and I see the writing in a different way. My description would be different from, say, a local writer.
I have some advantages of viewing from the two lenses, the two perspectives. I think that a lot of visual artists who come back here from the United States and are Cambodian also write from their American references - looking inside the old culture, and looking at themselves as an American looking into the country where they were born.
I write and I write and a lot of times I go back to the American lens, though sometimes it's a struggle to come from that perspective.
When I was in the sixth grade my friend and I always won writing contests, and we read a lot of books. We were always the ones that read the most books in class. I thought about writing but visual arts weren't part of my vocabulary.
I liked museums but I wanted to be a dancer, I wanted to go into performing arts, or be a writer.
I started to paint in the year 2000. I never thought of going to an art school, even though I loved art.
Every day you are bombarded by so many different things. When you sit down to process everything, it can become interesting visually. You can incorporate a lot of those things that you internalize.
I'd like to do more collaborations because collaboration creates different viewpoints.
This is my first collaboration [with Mary Hamill] so I'm going to learn how it's going to work.
Mary's [Hamill] working from an outsider perspective and I'm working from an insider-outside perspective. In this case, it will bring an added dimension to the visual aspects of the work. Also the processes and approaches that I'm thinking are about learning. I'm playing it by ear to experiment and see what happens.
You have to experiment with different mediums and things around you [making art].
Art is really about how you capture different things you see around you and bring them into forms and words and shapes and meaning.
Everything around you can use. It's like your tools and your material. Whether it's in performing arts like dance, or visual arts, or poetry, a lot of those elements can come and help you, can trigger your creativity. But you have to be open, be aware, and you have to be ready to look.
I read a lot when I was in school in the United States, and even though writing in English is very difficult for me, I wrote in journals.
I tried to write poems in rhyme. I tried writing songs. Sometimes I jotted down a thought. I would keep a log of spontaneous thoughts.
