Untitled Painting of Wind Moving Clothing – Watercolor by Bannon Fu
California – USA
Photo Credit: Bannon Fu

Why is it that some paintings grab our attention more than others? This was just a painting of clothes blowing in the wind, similar to the one in the above photo by the same artist. The artist chose female dress wear, of colorful and diverse shapes, as his subject. In a world of washing machines and clothes dryers, it seems a lifetime ago since I hung laundry on a line to dry.

“It’s beautiful,” I told the woman seated at the table in the booth at the Affair of the Arts 2014 held in Culver City during the weekend of June 7 & 8.

She rose to join me, standing in front of the largest painting in the collection on display. “It’s my father’s work,” she said. “It’s all about the wind.”

I saw much more than the wind. I felt the lightness, joy, and power of the female spirit restrained from soaring freely with the wind.

The artist is Chinese-born Bannon Fu, deaf since infancy. “Wind is the essence of my art!” he writes in his artist bio.

The ten or more pieces in his collection on display are all studies of clothes blowing in the wind, each one unique in color combinations and wind-blown shapes. The wind becomes change in motion: an invisible force made visible.

“I really love the wind,” he says. “Every time I feel the wind, whether it is a light or heavy touch, I always feel a great spirit.”

The great spirit in Bannon Fu’s work lifted my spirit. It stirred the joy within me, stifled by men like Elliot Rodger and Ariel Castro.

This Father’s Day, I call on the good fathers of our world to be the wind of change, the wind that frees the spirit of girls and women of our world shackled by misogyny, sexual privilege, and male privilege. Don’t know where to begin. Here are some ideas from Tomas Moniz, Chris Crass, and the Rad Dad Community.

A Happy Father’s Day! Feel the power of the wind in your life.