Pen Walking Series, 1994-2024

In the Autumn of 1994, I was a student at UC Irvine Studio Art. One day when I was writing my diary with the pen that has traveled with me for years, I found discontinuous lines spewing out of its nib. I realized that the pen has traveled to the end of its life. Therefore, I took a piece of letter size paper, and started to doodle in irregular directions with the pen until the ink was exhausted. This was the birth of “The Last Drawing of His Life”, the first work in the “Pen Walking” series. I later wrote a poem describing this experience. In this poem, I visit a personified pen, who, as death nears him, asks me to give him a hand and help him to draw the last drawing of his life. The strokes on the paper reveal the past we have experienced together, the plans we have drawn up, and even the smallest affection we have for each other. Until the very end of the drawing, where the end is also the beginning, the pen stops at where he set off and could not journey anymore. And this was the birth of the prose “The Last Drawing of His Life”.

Later, for the experiment of “Pen Walking #2”, “#3”, “#4”, and “#5”, I found brand new pens and charcoal, while using up both on a single piece or many pieces of paper. My idea was rather simple, which was to exhaust entirely a pen on paper. Here, the pen could serve as a metaphor for one’s life. The marks left behind by the pen are the deeds one has performed in a lifetime, while the exhaustion of the pencil represents the destiny of the human flesh. The sixth experiment that I worked on later became the “Pencil Walker” (1996-2015). However, due to the limited space available for the artwork, this piece was never completed.

In the winter of 2006, I came back to the creation of the “Pen Walking” series in my ten square meter studio and had the pencils once again draw lines. The act of pen walking is therapeutic for me. It releases my angst, suppression, and anxiety. In a way, it helped me survive the most depressing period of my life. Sometimes, after the catharsis of pen walking, I found peace and solace, and was filled with power and motivations to keep walking.

All the works in “Pen Walking” come in pairs. Every drawing was produced by doodling with one or more pens on a single or multiples pieces of paper. The legacy of a pen is presented by its strokes and fine particles on the paper. “Pen Walking Documents” combine pens the walker, text, and image and present them in a single document.

Implied in “Pen Walking” series and “Pencil Walker” are the analogy of pen as the wheel of Samsara and the shaded, black-looking wall that started with spotlessly white the sum of ill karma that has been accumulated from lifetime to lifetime. “Pen Walking” views the deeds of a whole life in silence and makes one sigh on the emptiness of life, on “There is nothing I can do to change what life is.” Meanwhile, “Pencil Walker” meditates in the face of the sum of ill karma. “If a pen could be the life of a man, what kind of contour I have drawn for my lives in the never-ending wheel of Samsara? If the cycle of birth, aging, disease, and death never stops repeating, does it make sense to work hard to exert meaning in life?”

Living a life of such, you have not transcended. You have desire and hatred, and you hate yourself somewhat. Therefore, you hushed. And your silence, is the pen.

1994年秋天，當時我在美國加州大學爾灣分校念書。有一天，在我寫日記的時候，手中那支伴我旅行多年的筆漸漸寫畫出斷斷續續的線條，我知道它已經快到了它生命的盡頭。於是我拿出一張美國信紙尺寸的白紙，不規則地塗畫走線，直到筆水用盡才停止動作。這就是第一件的走筆作品〈生命中最後的一張畫〉。後來，針對這個經驗，我以擬人化的手法寫了一首詩，大意是去看望一位來日無多的知己－筆，他要我撐起他，幫助他完成生命中最後的一張畫。畫中的筆觸流露出我們共同經歷的過去，共同計劃的方案、草圖，乃至彼此心中幽微的點滴⋯。直到最後，終點又是起點，他停在起筆的地方，再也不動了。這就是〈生命中最後的一張畫〉詩文版的由來。

之後我在〈走筆#2、#3、#4、#5〉的實驗中找來全新的原子筆、炭筆，在單張或連續多張的紙上將筆耗盡。我的想法與作法很簡單，就是想辦法將一枝筆全部耗盡在一個平面上。在這裡，一枝筆可以隱喻為一期的生命（一生）或一次的主體（我），筆觸的痕跡猶如一生的作為，而卸解磨滅的鉛筆則是肉體的宿命。第六件的實驗之作就是後來的《走鉛筆的人》（1996-2015），這件作品困於沒有施做的場地，迄今始終沒有完成。

2006年冬天，我在我三坪大的工作室中重新開始《走筆》系列，鉛筆終於又再畫出線條。這個行為可以抒發、治療、安定我生活中的苦悶、壓抑與焦慮。某方面而言，它幫助我度過生命中最沮喪的一段時間，甚至有些時候，我還經驗到一些滌淨後的平靜與安慰，找到一些繼續走下去的理由與力量。

《走筆》作品通常都是兩件一組，「走筆圖」是將一枝或多枝的筆耗盡在一張或多張連續的紙面上，筆觸與碎屑就是這枝筆所有的遺跡。「走筆文件」是把走筆的行者－筆，結合文字與影像以行為文件的形式呈現。

《走筆》系列與《走鉛筆的人》蘊含著一些隱喻：一枝枝的筆，代表一生生的輪迴。那面本來清靜潔白，如今黝黑污濁的紙與牆，則象徵過去生生世世累積的惡業。《走筆》沈默地全覽一生的作業，使人喟嘆：「不論再怎麼樣，也不過如此」，而《走鉛筆的人》則試圖在累生造作的惡業前冥想：「如果一枝筆，可以是一個人的一生。那麼在漫長的生死輪迴中，我重複走出的是什麼樣的人生線條？不就是不斷的生、老、病、死嗎？這些辛苦有意義嗎？還要這樣繼續下去嗎？」

面對這樣的人生，其實你並未看透。你既渴念也厭棄，你有些痛恨自己。於是，你沈默⋯，而你的沈默，就是筆。