Early Life
Chin grew up primarily in Lafayette, California. Inspired greatly by his graphic designer parents, along with a fascination with antiquity, and the works of modern, and contemporary artists such as Ruth Asawa, John Baldessari, Jasper Johns, Paul Klee, Julie Mehretu, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, and Wayne Thiebaud, all playing a major part in Chin’s early development. Chin won many awards during his teen years, including a Congressional Award by the United States House of Representatives, in Washington DC. His interest in nature sparked him to study and apprentice under Japanese American Bonsai Masters,Yutaka Kimura, Kunatoshi Akabane, and John Naka, mastering traditional Japanese landscape, and traditional Japanese bonsai cultivation. By age 11, Chin's Bonsai trees were selected to be included in the prestigious National Cherry Blossom Festival Japantown, in San Francisco. At 15, he was selected as the youngest artist commissioned to participate in the Hearts of San Francisco project, benefiting the San Francisco General Hospital foundation.
Read more about this topic: Alan Chin (artist)
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)