The Pig Scroll
This is the artist statement for the Pig scroll, one of 12 paintings that make up the artwork series “The Audacity to be Asian in Rural America: we owe you no apologies” created in May of 2021 as a part of Springboard for the Arts’ Artists Respond: Equitable Rural Futures.
The Pig Scroll is about inequality and the unjust socio-cultural undervalue of people of color in the United States.
The Pig Scroll
The painting itself measures 27” x 40”, but in its final form mounted to silk brocade, it unravels to 3’ x 6’. The painting depicts a pig head at the top and partial body including its back, tail and one hind leg along the right side; at the center of the painting are two thick strips of wavy bacon. The top half background of the painting includes two gold medallions whereas the bottom half background is filled with Payne's Gray swaths of water.
My family raised me to believe that, of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac, the Pig represents the attributes of good fortune, luck, happiness, auspiciousness and wealth. My maternal grandfather was born in the year of the Pig and this scroll speaks to the socio-cultural value of the Pig in the East juxtaposed with its value in the west West.
My grandparents arrived on US soil in 1997 to help my mother raise me and my older brother after my father passed away in 1996. By the time they came to America, they were in their retirement years having lived full lives and fulfilled life-long careers in China.
Due to the tragedies and traumas my grandparents endured, stories shared with me about their lives in China were sparse during my upbringing and my mom taught from an early age not to ask too many questions about their lives. Though I didn’t understand why my childhood curiosity couldn’t be quenched at the time, I did understand that communication with my Mandarin fluent grandparents was limited to the elementary Mandarin I could utter and the ‘broken English’ they were in the process of learning. The language barrier alone boundaried our conversations to topics of food, health and physical happiness.
Despite never speaking a common tongue, I’m really close to my grandparents - my grandfather especially. They both played a pivotal role in raising me and I have internalized a great reverence for the generations before me because of them.
In the Pig Scroll, I share the story of my grandfather’s prolific career and auspicious position he worked his way up to during his lifetime in China. The medallions represent the wealth he generated and the pig’s head represents the power and influence he earned through hard work and relentless determination.
Despite having risen his way to prestige and prominence amongst his peers in China, the wealth he generated in Yuan was subject to the exchange rates at the time, which, in 1997, equated to ~8.3 Yuan for $1 USD (macrotrends.net). This vast reduction in the value of his savings meant his retirement in his new country would be filled with a few more years of working for wages in order to survive.
After receiving his citizenship, my grandfather got hired at my local public middle school as a custodian. A man who was highly valued in one country for his mind and perspective could only find employment working the job of a janitor, valued only for what his body could offer: sweat equity in the form of physical labor cleaning toilets and mopping floors.
The symbols that represent this are the water that filled his mop buckets and bacon.*
This painting speaks to the common limitations first generation immigrants experience in their career pursuits when they transition to the western diaspora; that the zeitgeist socio-cultural systems are set up in a way that make it nearly impossible the fullness of their value of personhood and contributions to be understood and acknowledged.
*In 2021, I met Hmong, queer, and Korean American artist Tori Ntxoo Hong during their Hinge Artist Residency in Fergus Falls, MN through Springboard for the Arts. Tori and I connected instantly over our Asian and queer identities. At the time they shared about Myanmar’s 2021 Spring Revolution and how some civilians were murdered having been used as literal ‘meat shields’ during the active violence. It was after this time with Tori that I made the decision to use the symbol of bacon in this painting.
Nancy X. Valentine is a fiscal year 2022 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
