#116: Artistic journey, Self-realisation and Life philosophy with Monica Tong
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Kia ora, ni hao and hello. Welcome to the Chewy Journal podcast. I'm your host, Camilla Yang. My guest today is Monica Tong.

Monica was born in China and raised in New Zealand. She spent eight years in the finance industry in New Zealand and Australia before she turned to her passion for art and design. She studied and practiced as a multimedia artist in Los Angeles and currently lives in London.

We talk about Monica's artistic journey and philosophy, stereotypes, changing careers, and many more. I hope you enjoy this episode and don't forget to check out Monica's amazing work. Okay, let's start from the terminology of Chiwi, because not many people know what it means. Can you explain from your point of view what's Chiwi and how do you define the characteristics?

I don't know if it's correct to say that you invented that term when I first come across it because we use hashtags in Instagram. And then I was like, oh, actually, that's a perfect term to describe our community.

identity for example because before what is widely understood is we're kiwi asian that kind of included all the asian people in new zealand or from new zealand chinese kiwi are also a particular group of people who come from china and lived in new zealand and perhaps are still living in new zealand

But some of us, like us, have been further exploring the rest of the world. So yeah, I think people who have...

experienced and lived and perhaps some have worked in China, which means that we have carried our part of the cultural identity who are Chinese and who have been educated and culturally influenced in Chinese culture, as well as who have

studied and worked in New Zealand. Yeah, I think Kiwis are, from my narrow understanding, very adventurous, very hardworking, and keen to take on the world, like keen to

try everything really but everything we try we try to like be our best and just work hard at it I don't know if it's a very biased representation because of the limited amount of people that we know and also just speaking from our self my own perspective

Yeah, because I know you are very adventurous. You live in China, New Zealand, Australia, America, and now in the UK. So tell me, what motivates you to move around and explore the world? That probably...

It's partially coming from the Kiwi culture. When young people finish university or even some before university, they do like a gap year. You see a lot of young Kiwis around the world that are doing their working holiday or their gap year experience.

For me, it's kind of a thing that even from university that I wanted to try out. Like I wanted to see the rest of the world. I want to be on working holiday. And that just sounds very cool. I think it's like a part of the culture, I guess. I can see that more and more younger generation in China having the similar experience or part of their plan rather than everything else.

In our older days, probably it's very strictly planned that you go through this structured education and then you go to university and then you find jobs and then you get married and have kids. And that's probably what the...

society expects of you. And coming to New Zealand and also having lived in Australia, there are similarities towards this working holiday or like a gap year that people do before they settle down, before they decide on their career or their future plan. Some people wanted to experience to see the rest of the world and wanted to experience

experience a different lifestyle before you make choice. It's very beneficial for me. But of course, a lot of people who probably have traveled a bit and then got a good job and then they settled down. And some people just carried on like me. So yeah,

Definitely when I was in New Zealand, I was like, okay, Australia is the closest countries to go. So I went to Australia for my first master's in finance. That was my previous career and previous degree.

And then I traveled Australia while I was there, I traveled all the Pacific Islands. And then for work reasons, I moved back to New Zealand and then got stuck in corporate banking for a while.

Because we used to live on an island, people's curiosity always like look out was like when they look for places to travel is always quite far, like Europe and America. Yeah, take us 24 hours to fly from New Zealand here. To anywhere, anywhere significant with a big piece of land. Yeah.

I think in New Zealand, the working culture is good that we promote work-life balance. We also promote any curriculums that is outside of your job. So linking to right now, many of the Olympians...

of New Zealand Olympians, they all have full-time jobs. They were lawyers, real estate agents. They all have full-time jobs. And similar in my previous working environment, people who work with me in the bank also play for black caps, also play for a lot of Olympic sports, the Ironman, go

golfing, water polo, rowing. It's a culture and a country that promotes those. It's not just about your job and those either hobbies or professions outside of your job is also hugely encouraged. Mm-hmm.

I think that's why probably people work harder and more efficient at their job. And then they have the time and resources to do whatever they are also passionate about outside of their jobs. There are many roles that people play. And similar to me, I was trying to find my other passions and also what interests me and take it further just other than hobby level, right?

So that kind of encouraged myself to search around the art world. At that particular time, I attended adult class in the evening. And that was kind of the beginning of my ceramic journey as being an artist. At that time, I was just doing it as a hobby while I was working. Every year, obviously, work is...

like as a banker, it's pretty stressful and also take a lot of your time. True. And also there are like networking events after work. Keep you busy. Yeah. So like I took every possible opportunity to travel and,

And of course, four weeks of leave, paid leave, is quite generous compared to a lot of other countries. But it's not enough for me. So I wanted to take longer leave for really like seeing the world, not from an eye of a tourist, but more...

Having more in-depth understanding of how other people live, what their lifestyle is like, what is their living environment, what struggle they face, what...

do they enjoy about a particular city where they decided to live or migrate to. I think I just have like huge passion in that. Of course, like seeing the incredible landscape that are so different everywhere else.

Bear in mind, like New Zealand has one of the world's most wonderful places with the beautiful landscape. You won't see some difference. Yeah. So say, for example, the national parks in America, each of them are so unique and it just feels like you are...

on Mars you know like so different yeah things like that just amaze you and also like the nature just make you so humbled in front of them and sometimes you know in in

In finance, you feel like, or people make you feel like you're very important because you're in charge of their money. And also you're in charge of the future growth of the company and whether they're supported enough to achieve their goals.

And sometimes it just feels like if I stop working, the world may stop because of that. And it's not true. So I try to take myself out of that lens just to see the world in a bigger picture and to understand how we should appreciate and treasure the nature has offered for us and also how we can look after it.

So it's less like human-centered world, I guess. It's the importance of us finding the balance. So when you moved to America, what makes you decide to pick up ceramics as your major, then go all in to create art in this area? It wasn't a straightforward decision. It wasn't I knew what I wanted to do. So I actually took a leave

Without pay, companies in New Zealand are very supportive of additional to what I was mentioned. So when you decide on either you wanted to travel the world for one year or if you wanted to try a completely different field,

You are allowed to take leave without pay up to, I think, normally one year or two years, depending on how... How long have you been working for that company? Yeah, yeah. So my boss at that time approved 18 months actually was very generous of him. That's great. He said...

You're still young. The world is your oyster and try whatever you want to explore and just leave no regrets. I was really appreciating that decision and I was supported in that way. So I decided to give myself a year at first to figure out what I really wanted to do with that time and with the backup time.

support that my company still like I still have a role in the company and if I decided to go back anytime so that is like the financial backup and also the guarantee sort of security net for me that I don't have to worry too much and then I because it's a very unknown world that I'm entering and I had no previous experience in any like foundational art related experience

I went to LA and then studied quite a general studio arts degree. And that covers all the foundational classes such as art history, drawing, design, and a lot of like working with materials like jewelry making, metal work, woodworking, ceramics, as well as painting, painting materials like oil painting, watercolor painting.

acrylic, charcoal, you know, all these like material that are very, very new to me. And I actually first picked interior design and I thought, you know, I like beautiful spaces. I like, you know, decorating my own places. When I was working during the weekends, I always go out like just window shopping for interior. And that was something that's really pleasing to do. And when I studied for it,

For me, it's kind of like a combination of engineering and art. It's like using both of your brain that you have to be very calculative on numbers as well as being visually competent for colors and spatial arrangements.

I finished that really quickly and thought that was not enough because my professors were actually very famous architects. They are like doing architects. Probably they work with some like suppliers that do the styling, the interior styling.

So those people who don't do anything structural, but with my first study, it was very like you have to learn all the design and the structural kind of side of things. And I thought that's very rational. That's not arty enough for me. But first I was kind of like a stepping stone. It was an easy way in. And then later,

Because under the influence of my professor, he was an architect as well as an art historian. So he really encouraged me to study art history. And since then, I fell into this black hole of what is so-called the art world, like painting, any forms of visual arts. It was just so interesting. And I feel like, okay, I haven't got enough time to study all of those things.

At that time, I decided to just leave my previous career behind and just go further into the study of fine arts. So you applied for the Royal College of Arts in London? Yeah, yeah. So I studied a year further at the previous college, Pasadena City College, to kind of enhance my...

foundation around art. At that time I was also doing ceramics and painting and I had to make the decision which media do I feel strongly about to apply for further study which is my second master. I think material-wise ceramic is the material that is much more direct and

Well, before firing, it's called clay and after firing, it's called ceramics. So a lot of people are like, oh, clay and ceramics. What's the difference? So, yeah, working with clay is very direct. And also it's a material that really, since human society formed, existed in our entire history.

It's a material that has been worked with and we are very familiar with it. And yet it has still a lot of possibilities that people are trying to explore every day. So I feel it's a very humbled material. It's very versatile. It's very flexible, forgiving, and you can make beautiful things out of it.

I believe people who work with clay, like me, have this kind of sense of

I don't know, time traveling when you work with the material, when you touch the material, it just sings to our senses on a different level. And you feel like, oh, people who, you know, from the thousands of years ago have worked in similar way as we do today. And when I go to the museums everywhere in the world, I see their ceramic collections that is documented, like say 3000 years ago.

the forms that they make and the patterns that they created on the surface is just so stunning. And you feel like your soul's being touched by people who are, you know, over thousands of years ago. So it's kind of like indescribable feeling. I'm still in love with like multi-media, like kind of practices, but this is the main media that I work with because of that reason.

I see. Yeah, I remember I read one of your thesis on time, space. I just feel like you combine the Eastern philosophy and some Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy together to your artwork. So where do you get your inspiration? I call this material, also it's a very important material to me, Clay, is that I think it's my teacher's

This material has been teaching me a lot during the past five years when I first kind of slowly moved out of my previous career to this new career. Beforewards, I wanted to, like most people probably, wanted to take control of your life, take control of every single thing. Hopefully, you want things to be going as you planned,

And you want to be a perfectionist. I don't know how much of being a Virgo that adds to that. But I just want everything to be in control, to go as I plan, to be exactly what I want to be, which was probably a good thing in my previous profession. But to a certain level, it is impacting my well-being, my physical and also my mental health.

So working with clay, as many people, if you have experienced this material, that is not going to go wherever you wanted it to be going at the first place. Yeah, so many uncertainties. That I wanted to write a book about a thousand ways to go wrong in ceramics. Yeah.

If you haven't taken a hobby class or haven't experienced ceramics in your life, I strongly encourage you to do that. Just, you know, take an evening class or like a weekend taster class.

to feel the material, to feel how it's responding to you. And it actually taught me how to learn from it, how to listen to it, how to be responsive of its behavior and of its quality, and then work together with the material.

and show its personalities. It may sound weird because you're kind of personalizing the object that you're making, but that's how I was taught by my first ceramic professor who is a Japanese-American artist. Ah, I see. So she has probably consciously or subconsciously embedded a lot of her philosophy into

into the teaching and definitely like when I was first working on the wheel the pottery wheel or throwing wheel you won't get a good result and things won't center for you because it requires a lot of practice and it requires a lot of a different mindset and

At first, the first half year when I was making, most of my work are not centered. So they're all like wobbly. And I was so disappointed and I was kind of discouraged. And my professor told me, as long as you are the center of your universe, and that kind of

Give me a wake-up call. What does that mean? Being the center of your own universe doesn't mean that you are self-centered. It doesn't mean that you're selfish. It doesn't mean that everything goes around you. No, it actually doesn't mean as it sounds. So I was sitting on it for a while, and I was thinking about that. If you have found your center,

Everything else around you doesn't really matter. Like anything that's going around you, external factors doesn't really affect you. So I think that's a really good philosophy for my early career being an artist is that we...

are so afraid of what's happening around us being against our way. So for example, your bus was late and then your, you know, your, your train was canceled or, um, applications that you do, you get rejected and, and we are just so as being acceptance of like things, uh, not going right for you. And as long as you find your own center, um,

Then it doesn't really matter as long as you're healthy, as long as the people who you care for are around you and are healthy, are happy.

then everything else doesn't really matter. Like things, external factors doesn't really affect you. So I think that's probably sending me onto the right path of being mindful, being self-cared and also like being really happy and true to my own passion and true to my own goal of walking.

what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. And like letting the external voice or external noise that is always around us being like secondary. So hence, you know, similar philosophy around the Taoism that it's about finding the right balance. It's not about any power that is dominating.

and then also the wabi-sabi about giving space and time to an object in built rather than

a very subjective way of you are making something that is beautiful. Seeing the imperfectness out of, out of anything that is really like teaching us, be appreciative of, of life in general, being appreciative of, you know, just the wild nature that could,

It could be just wildflowers by the riverbanks rather than a really well-planned garden. Yeah. That could be also another form of art, but...

appreciating like the everyday object at the everyday life it's very important as part of my practice you also answer my next question how do you deal with self-doubt because you know before you're working in the bank you you have done a lot of achievements but when you step into a new industry there must be a lot of things you can't control and everything is new to you and

you probably lost your confidence many many times yeah I still like I'm just talking about from a personal perspective I feel myself being a female have added on to that and I'm not saying that it's a disadvantage but it's just something that I have been aware of a lot of artists that I've

No, have very harsh self-criticism. I totally understand. And anyone who are creative, anyone who are entrepreneurial, who are pioneer in any field, probably all have experienced self-doubt and also whether you are strong enough to deal with it. Otherwise, you can be easily defeated. As I was saying, like before you have the external noise

And at the same time, you also have the internal noise. The internal noise is like the negative part of you debating with the positive part of you. You probably like have days like me that early days in my change of careers.

Today is great. I'm doing great things. I'm creating art. I'm doing these unbelievable things that I couldn't do before. I know how to paint. I know how to throw on the wheel. I know how to make a beautiful object.

And then second, the evilness come out from your negative self and goes that this is not perfect. This is not nice. You know, you see a little like kind of dent in your object. They accidentally knocked in and you'll feel like,

I'm trash. I used to be able to take control of everything in my life and I used to be recognized for it, highly paid for it. And now you're doing all this hard work for nothing. The noise sometimes goes like you are never be able to sell your work. You won't be able to make any money. You can't even make a living and support yourself from your art. And yeah,

If you are a good artist, you probably are going to starve. And if you are a great artist, you'll be famous after you die. And, you know, like things like that is just things I have to deal with most of the time in my early career. And sometimes I just don't have the courage to

pick up what I wanted to do for the day. It takes a long time for myself to learn how to accept that part of yourself. And I think towards anything or any challenges that you wanted to overcome, you probably first step is that you're aware of it happening.

Some people probably criticize themselves being imperfect and not aware that it's very harmful to yourself. And also then you don't know how to learn how to deal with it, finding ways to deal with it. So first, I think I'm speaking for many females that I know is that it's good that we have this self-reflective system.

which means that we can be more adaptable and more agile to changes, but also means that we need to take care of that part of ourselves and just not to be so harsh. Focus more on the small achievements rather than the gaps that need to be improved. Focus on the steps forward, fast or slow, you are moving towards your goal and that's good enough.

And, you know, the rest is if you know that you are doing the best as you can, the rest is leading to the time and opportunities that are out of our control. You know, things will come your way and the universe will work for you at some point. I am hugely encouraged by my fellow colleagues who I work with.

are single moms carrying huge more family responsibilities as well as changing their career being an artist and be more hopefully from what they've learned to change more people's life in terms of teaching other people

um, female to be more focused on their, uh, wellbeing and focus on their self-balance between, um, their responsibilities and really just how to live for yourself, how to be happy. And the benefit of that, it's not just for you, it's for the, your family is for your kids. So I learned hugely and encouraged huge, hugely by them. And I was, um,

You know, I have no other responsibilities apart from myself. And why can't I do that? Yeah. So I think I'm still on the journey of learning. I can't really say that, oh, I have mastered it. I have no self-doubt at all. But I just wanted people to know that it's okay.

to um have self-criticism and have self-doubt but don't let that overtake what you can achieve because everyone is different everyone is powerful in their own way yeah you you can find your own niche to um see what you can offer the world and you may have multiple talents

focus on what you can offer rather than what you don't have. And I think it's kind of the number one rule in being happy, right? Focus on what you have and not what you don't have. Yeah, appreciate. So do you still remember when did you sell your first artwork and what were your feelings back then? Oh my gosh, yeah.

It was indescribable. Like I was so over the moon. I was like, really? Someone is happy to own one of my piece and they paid for it? It sounds really naive. It just sounds very, I don't know. I don't know if it's,

because of i don't think it's because of the money it's more kind of like a recognition yeah i say yeah yeah in my previous job i was really highly paid and you know company gave me like paid holidays and cars and you know like all those monetary rewards financial work material rewards um

Also, like I was really appreciative. I was really happy, but it's not comparable to like I sold my first piece for like $20. I couldn't analyze that. I have maybe some psychology major people can help me with their professional knowledge. What does that mean? Does it mean self-realization? Does it mean achievements that's beyond reality?

physical or material award or satisfaction? Is that the highest needs of muscles hierarchy? Is that what it actually means? I think people may find different ways of

achieving that like I was chosen to be an artist maybe I was chosen to be a ceramicist in that regards and I just feels like I'm the most free in working with clay and it helped me to um search my inner self and better understanding myself and the connection to the world um

I was so happy. I couldn't describe anything that's beyond that. So, you know, we were all born in a Chinese family and sometimes we do get the peer pressure from the society and from the family. So what's your family's reaction when you gave up your finance career and become an artist?

I read your book. It's really a true reflection of what all of us have experienced. I won't say all of us because I do know very few friends who have been supported by their family because of their art career or...

Very, very few. And I won't say it's easy for them. I'm not saying that they're taking it for granted either. You know, there are historical reasons and I don't blame any of them.

but mainly from like a culture perspective and historical reasons, having, you know, war and uncertainties and change of social structures. And I'm trying to understand a bit more of that because I'm Chinese and I wanted to know for the benefit of me doing art, how can that be impactful for the future Chinese society?

or Chinese young artists or young people, just the future generations really, how important it is to be creative and innovative, challenge the status quo. I'm happy to see more changes towards the better ways of appreciating art and learning a different way of seeing through a creative practice. Yeah.

whether it's in the school system or outside of the school curriculum is important. And I think it has to come from parents because when we were little, how much do we know? We only know how to play with sand, with play-doh or whatever. And then we have this urge to create, right?

And we have this curiosity about searching the world, searching, finding our own understanding of what's around us. Of course, like parents from our times are like, from my time is like study is the most important thing. You have probably a handful of choices to be a doctor, which my mom was a doctor so that she wanted me to be a medical doctor.

And then my dad, who is an entrepreneur, but funny enough, he wanted me to be a lawyer. Oh, okay. Or a property lawyer for very specific reasons. And yeah, so like very limited expectations to be like successful, really, like to be highly regarded in the society, right?

And I don't think it's any single one's fault, but it's really the society's expectations of us being successful as being in one of those professions. And of course, I still have huge respect for healthcare workers, of medical doctors who are really pushing the boundaries in their own fields to, in this context,

current situation in any human history that are working in their fields for the benefit of wider human society. For people, really, I don't think people who are in that field are solely for the money or for the social status.

But it's not for everyone. So I personally think that we are people, we are individuals, we all have very individual personalities. And we cannot be like a machine-made product that is just going through the same system, going through the same machine and made us into these ABCD kind of characters, right? Yeah.

So I think, of course, it's like down to the education system, people who work in that field to challenge and to improve that system to be better. And I hope that we are not like measured on a very specific terms of you're a good student, you're a bad student, you are successful in, you know, because you get 100% in your exams.

I won't say that the social pressure is going to go away because people compare. I don't know. In general, the root problem of yourself being unhappy is that you use what you don't have to compare to other people.

You don't use what you have to compare to other people. And then you're like, oh, I need more. The desire. The desire of the unfulfilled, the unfulfilled desire really is the root problem of people nowadays are less happy and created all sorts of like unhealthy impact on yourself. Yeah.

and on the society. But for me, I wouldn't say it's a solution. I can only say that it's kind of like a motivation for me to, again, show my family that I can possibly make a living in this field. And the only way to challenge it is to be creative. Yeah.

To challenge the society, to challenge their traditional thinking of this is a really poorly paid job. I think over time, it has been my fifth year of changing my career, and I think they're slowly changing their mind.

And also I think it's a gradual thing. My mom started to go to museums and galleries. Oh, wow. And I think that's a huge step forward. Yeah. And also like backing back to our previous topic, when you find the center for yourself, right?

the things around you slowly move towards, you know, where you want it to be. Like it may take time because you are happy doing what you truly passionate about. People can feel the energy and people can feel the benefits of that. It's kind of like the side effect and the ripples of, you know, a stone in the water that,

that kind of philosophy, you know, the ripple effect that goes outside of what you truly wanted to do is very positive. Exactly. Yeah. Let's play another stereotype game. You know, we're in our...

early 30s and you know what society put on the pressure for women like us so how do you confront this pressure like because you know in Chinese culture if you are 30s you are not married not have babies you are like yeah

Yeah, so how do you face this kind of challenge? Yeah, I think more and more people these days are like us. I won't say in either way it's good or bad because there are still health benefits if you give birth to children in a younger age. But I think because of the society is changing and also our longevity in lifespan is changing.

physically and also socially, there are more things we can do in a lifetime, which means that probably...

A big number of females are not going to focus on having kids at a younger age. It's a huge thing in Asian culture, but I also have found some similarities in people that I know from a European background.

It really depends on like where the family is coming from. But it is a very social, like a big social issue in Chinese culture and where we came from. Really, like if you're not married in your 30s and if you're not giving birth before 40, you're like, you're done. You're over. You're done. Your life is over. Yeah.

which is really, really sad, you know, because there are people like us who wanted to challenge the status quo and wanted to live for our own life. And there are more and more people like us. It's not just, we're not just a minority now. Um,

And it's kind of like a trend in the society that people wanted to focus more in their career, in their own passion and wanted to achieve more. And I think the society should encourage for that because there are so many different ways of living because of the variety of

human species I don't know what to call us we are maybe a one species you know just a variety that makes this world much more interesting yes um mm-hmm

So one thing against like the physical health thing that I've done is I decided to freeze my eggs before I come to Royal College of Art to do my two-year Master of Arts education. Then I can have the option of having kids later. And also it gives me a peace of mind to...

really just focus on my research, focus on my study rather than anything else. It really has given me a peace of mind that I don't have to think about it. Because of the evolution of technology, again, thanks to people who work really hard in the medical field, are stretching the possibilities of the physical restrictions of being human.

So I think taking advantage of that has given me more options and opportunities in the future. So how do you define success? I wanted to read you one of my favorite pieces. This is a piece of writing that I found. I couldn't remember the name of the book, but it is on the intro page of the book that I have found.

just before I took a leap of faith and moved to Los Angeles for my first part of my change of my career study into the art world. And I call that probably the fate because I come across to this piece of writing. At that time, I was 27. I was, you know, getting close to the age of 30. And I was wanting to know,

what is the whole purpose of us living and what does success really mean? Like we want to live for a reason and then we want to be successful. And there are so many ways to define success. But this piece of writing so far is still my favorite. It's by Ralph Wando Emerson. You probably have come across him before. He's a very famous writer and philosopher. So the whole piece goes...

To laugh often and much. To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. To earn the appreciation of honest critiques and endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty. To find the best in others. To leave the world a bit better. Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.

To know even one life has breathed easier because of you have lived. This is to have succeeded. So beautiful. So I think it's a beautiful piece of writing. It is. Yeah, indeed.

So I just feel like, you know, myself being an artist right now, if my practice have, you know, have a slight ripple effect, a positive impact on even just a single person that I have

encountered or my art piece have encountered some people having like a positive change in their life and maybe just a slight change in the perspective of seeing the world is very you know successful to me already.

I'm not saying not to dream big because big dreams come from small steps. As long as we're all doing what we can truly just, you know, to ourselves, to our own passion. And I think that success, that happiness that comes from the success can benefit many, many others.

I remember when you were in the market and some people walk by and when they look at your artwork, and I can see their staring eyes and they are so happy. I think, yeah, your work do impact the individual lives. Currently, beside my own practice, making works for shows and exhibitions, I also teach

people who are in people who are affected by dementia as well as um sometimes i teach children yeah just because of um for for children i i love their you know the raw energy the courier's

the curiosity that come, you know, with their age and also just everything interests them and the way that they see the world is very interesting. And we all came from that stage and many of us have forgotten how to see the world with the curious eyes. So that's the one reason I love to work with children. And then another way

that I work with, um, elderlies are because they have lived a long life. Many of them have experienced many different things. And at that age of, of life, what you see, what you treasure the most are the things that really matters the most after a whole, you know, a good 60, 70 years, um, of experience. And, um,

especially people who are affected by dementia, it is really sad to see the way they lost their cognition and their senses, really, the memories and the senses. But when they come to clay, when they come to this quite raw material, they still have a really great sense of pleasure out of it.

And that, in a way, it's a therapy to, I hope, for my practice is to slow down the impact of dementia. Of course, still so far in the medical field, it says that this disease is not curable. You cannot improve, you cannot cure it. I hope in the near future it can be.

But through art therapy, that we can slow down the process and we can give them better quality of life for the rest of their limited time. And the impact on themselves and on the family who are affected

affected by this disease it's quite rewarding for me like from my observation it's very rewarding yeah I think art is magical it reminds me my grandpa suffered from dementia before he died but

But he still remembers how to play piano, how to write a poem. And he enjoyed it so much. Yeah, lovely to see him still playing piano, although he forgot everything. Yeah, so that really comes down to... I won't say that's my definition, but it's the...

the definition of success that has impacted me the most so far is to have these kind of positive experiences

change on on people's living condition and also um to even just to find that out you know like just like you said how much your grandpa has enjoyed music in his life it's probably really one of the most important thing that he he loved about living about life so i think that's really really beautiful that's cute

Last question. What's your ideal day look like? Oh, ideally, if there is nothing to worry. Yes. No chores. Any, probably just the, you know, the daily routine, the chores and everything else. I probably will be very happily waking up in the morning with full energy and just

delve into my work really like hopefully one day I have a studio that is close to my home and to start working with with clay and when I am Tired or wanted to take a break. I can take a walk in in nature yeah, and just to really breathe and live life and be creative and

And hopefully, yeah, just have more of my work seen by people and that would be great. So where can people find your art? Can they buy online? Yeah, so I have been showing some of my work online and also there are some physical shows thanks to the improved technology.

so far that we are allowed to have physical shows yeah we can put the link underneath and yes people can have a look and understand more background about my practice great okay thank you so much Monica for your time oh thank you it's a pleasure chatting to you Camilia all the best see ya same to you bye