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Ming Franz Splash Ink Style

	Sunday, December 14, 2008   Artist makes splash with painting style   By Lee Ross Mountain View Telegraph
	Ming Franz has an almost metaphysical relationship with ink.        Using a technique called “splash ink” — she basically pours yellow, blue and red ink on several stacked sheets of rice paper — she creates order from chaos.        “You create a very beautiful abstract form, and then you have to look at this form for days,” she said. “I turn my page around until I see something. … You let the ink speak to you.”        Originally from Ping Tung, Taiwan, Franz uses techniques steeped in Asian tradition. Before she worked in splash ink, Franz did brush-painted landscapes, a Chinese painting tradition that is centuries old. She said she still incorporates landscapes into her splash ink paintings.        Living in California's Bay Area, Franz began experimenting with the seemingly postmodern art style and found that the art community had an increased interest in her work, but not just the younger set of art lovers.        “Old Chinese men stare at my painting for hours,” she said. “(Splash ink) is actually not new in Asian society.”        The style ink may have its roots in a similar technique from the late 600s, the p'omo art of China's Tang dynasty.        The style is also seen later, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in landscape paintings by Wu Shixian, the “Splash Ink Monk,” but Franz said she was actually inspired by a painting by Chang Dai-Chien, a renowned brush painter living in California who created well-known splash ink landscapes in the late 1960s.
	Franz said her contribution to the art form is the addition of western watercolor pigments and watercolor techniques.        Her paintings have met with a good deal of success, she said. Franz has won a national award for her artwork and generally has one or two pieces accepted for just about every art competition she enters, she said.        “(Splash ink) totally changed my life in art,” she said.        She also teaches her technique, which she said can help her students break out of an artistic rut. Franz said students are more creative when they lose a little bit of their control over the painting.        “This type of painting is like freedom. You're free to do anything you want,” she said.        Use of the technique also gave Franz a greater appreciation for the abstract splashed brush strokes of Jackson Pollock, an American artist from the mid-1900s, she said.
	“In the early days I look at Jackson Pollock and I say, 'What is that?' ” she said. “Now I can feel that energy … I'm drawn in.”        She said the same type of thing has happened to her in her own painting.        “I can paint like I'm in the painting. I forget myself,” she said. “It's some kind of feeling I just can't explain.”        Franz has several paintings on display at Kokopelli's Restaurant and Kantina in Cedar Crest. Anyone who would like to study with Franz or would like to see a demonstration can call 281-4956, e-mail mingfranz11@yahoo.com or go to www.mingfranzstudio.com . Franz has also published a book and DVD, “Splash Ink with Watercolor, Looking East Painting West.” Both are available at her Web site.

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