Marissa Xiong | Art Director

 My mom often tells me the story of her father, my grandfather, and how he walked three days and three nights with nothing but a walking stick to leave his mountain village and attend college in rural China, as a way to demonstrate how easy I have it now. Indeed, I live a comparably sheltered life to my predecessors—from my grandparents who endured the hardships of peasant life in communist China, to my parents who risked everything to move to America to seek new opportunities. I can’t hope to match the sacrifices they all made for me to be here today, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and I hope my artwork can express my appreciation a thousand times more than my words ever could. My grandfather passed about half a year after I completed this painting, and it's bittersweet to me that he was able to see this painting before the end.