Professor’s Career Shift Was a Work of Art

When one of Ning Yeh’s students is too frightened to make the first stroke of an ink-laden brush onto a delicate sheet of raw rice paper, Yeh remembers his first childhood art lessons and splashes a little water on the dauntlessly blank paper.

The act is both symbolic and practical.

A rusty case filled with rolls of rice paper was one of the few possessions Yeh’s late mother managed to take with her when his family fled from China to Taiwan in 1949. He first learned the art of Chinese brush painting at age 7 on the once valuable rice paper, stained with water marks from his family’s escape to Taiwan.

“As we traveled through the ocean waves, the paper was soaked. But it was still a treasure. It was the best paper of a kind that was only produced in a certain part of China,” said Yeh, a 50-year-old brush painter and fine-arts professor at Coastline Community College.

“For years and years in Taiwan, we could not get anything from mainland China. We were quite fortunate to have this paper, although it was damaged and had water marks all over it. So if I have a student who is scared facing a blank piece of paper, I’ll just drop a little water on it, to make that paper friendlier.”

Though Yeh is a fourth-generation brush painter, he spent his college years preparing for a diplomatic career in Taiwan. His father, a general under Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, did not encourage him to become an artist. But his mother secretly arranged for lessons.

Yeh came to the United States in 1969 on a scholarship to study international relations, earning a master’s degree from Cal State Fresno.

He went on to earn a doctorate in Asian studies and government from Claremont Graduate School and taught university-level social science classes for about a year.

“We were running into difficulties on the diplomatic front, especially since Nixon visited China. Taiwan had lost all diplomatic ties,” said Yeh, a Huntington Beach resident. “It became increasingly difficult to picture myself as a diplomat for Taiwan. There was no country that I could go to. It forced me to focus attention on my art.”

In 1973, Yeh began giving demonstrations on brush painting at the L.A. County Fair, which generated students and enabled him to shift from teaching political science to art. And he has used his art as a vehicle of diplomacy, bringing stories and symbols of Chinese culture to life in his paintings.

“This is actually a much better way to communicate and share a tradition and a culture. Every door opens automatically through art. There are really no barriers. People just let me in.”

At Coastline Community College, where Yeh has taught for the last 22 years, a 10-year-old instructional television series produced by the college, “Chinese Brush Painting With Ning Yeh,” has continued to generate interest in the art. The program is broadcast during the school year on 800 public television stations in the United States and Canada.

“It’s not just technical instruction in how to do a stroke, it is the window of a culture. In Chinese culture, most of us are governed by Confucianism and Taoism, so these are the philosophies I try to incorporate in my painting.

“When I tell my students that the line is the father, the ink wash or the color shading is the mother, and the dots are the children, these are Confucian ideas.

“Most of these brush strokes, most of these colors or inks, are folks who I have invited into the painting to enjoy life. So when they behave in a certain way and relate to one another, then it becomes something you can relate to. A composition works best when every member of the party is having a good time.”

The brush stroke of even an accomplished master contains the element of chance because the highly absorbent rice paper bleeds at the slightest touch of the brush. It is an art that incorporates the “Chinese way of letting go,” Yeh said.

“You do have the element of fortune, which is unpredictable; uncontrollable; it comes and goes and you follow the flow. But then there is the training and practice, the part you develop as an artist--that’s your own virtue. Virtue comes in handy when fortune strikes.”

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The unpredictable nature of the art is reflected in the Chinese word wei-gee, which means both danger and opportunity, Yeh said. And as a frequent traveler to China and Taiwan, he also sees both danger and opportunity in the reunification of Hong Kong and the development of economic ties between China and Taiwan.

“If you look at the investment in the mainland from Taiwan, unification is already taking place. It’s just a matter of how to recognize politically what’s already happened.

“China is on a course that’s irreversible. When I was in China recently, I felt like I was reliving the time when Taiwan started taking off economically. It’s just a matter of time.”

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Profile: Ning Yeh

Age: 50

Hometown: Hunan, China

Residence: Huntington Beach

Family: Wife, Lingchi; two grown children

Education: Bachelor’s degree in history and diplomacy from National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan); master’s degree in international relations from Cal State Fresno; doctorate in Asian studies and government from Claremont Graduate School

Background: Has taught Chinese brush painting since 1973 at community colleges and private workshops throughout Southern California; founding faculty member and instructor of fine arts at Coastline Community College since 1975; teaches part time at UCLA and Cerritos College; host of Coastline’s first locally produced instructional television series, “Chinese Brush Painting With Ning Yeh,” which won an Emmy for best instructional television series in 1988; 10-year-old series is carried on 800 public television stations in the U.S. and Canada; author of six books on Chinese painting; his works have been featured in numerous publications and exhibitions in the U.S. and Taiwan during the last 21 years

On black and white: “The ultimate contrast is between black and white. The black is the ink stroke and the white is space. Chinese brush painting is more than just painting the black; it’s what the black is doing to the white, to the space. The simpler it gets, the less room you have to hide.”

Source: Ning Yeh; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times