Season's Greetings
Greeting card intervention (Self-portrait as ideal family), 2003.
Digital print, 3 x 8 in., edition of 50.
I sent this card to friends and relatives during the holiday season of 2003. Single childless art student of little means living in a rented studio apartment in the Castro, I photoshopped pictures of my face, taken at ages roughly appropriate to the figures, onto an image found in an internet search for “ideal Asian American family.”
My intention was more commentary than deceit, yet the responses from family friends and relatives—many of whom have known me since I was an infant—were telling:
“Why didn't I know about this?” “How come I wasn't invited to the wedding?” “Now I have to go buy a present!” “His parents must have fixed him up with a relative from Japan. That's why they all look so much like Scott.”
My favorite, after all the laughter had subsided: “Even though I wanted to congratulate you, I was secretly disappointed, because with all those mouths to feed, it meant you would have to give up on your art.”
