1、The background of the design work

    In addition to the above-mentioned works in the section of work introduction, Professor Lin has been spending much of his time and energy on his design work about Taiwan, including, My Homeland, Seeing the Soul of Homeland and the collection Only Taiwan, which is about to be published, a design using watermark on the paper to present the island of Taiwan. What drew Professor Lin’s attention and care to the local culture? When did Professor Lin start his concept for this series of works based on the theme of Taiwan?

　　In 1979, when Professor Lin participated in the Lukang Arts and Crafts Investigation Project, he realized the beauty of Taiwan. He believed that only by starting solidly from the local culture and then integrating the essence from others could the design scale and concept of his works become unique.

　　Later in 1988, he went to Korea to visit Summer Olympics also known as Seoul Olympics. The holistic planning that the Korean designer did make him realize that the Korean design industry had used an international sports event to change the structure of their design industry and thus recreated the global image of Korea. The trip of visiting Nagoya Design Exposition in 1989 also helped him develop the idea of learning from other later on. In the same year, A City of Sadness, a Taiwanese historical drama film directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, won the Best Film Award in Venice International Film Festival. This also sparked the determination of him and his friend to promote the local design of Taiwan.

　　Therefore, in April, 1991, with other four former college classmates, Chiu Yong-Fu, Gao Sheng-Sat, Ye Guo-Song and You Ming-Long, Professor Lin found Taiwan Image Poster Design Association. The spirits of the association were “Loving Taiwan, Respecting Local and Caring design.” Focusing on Taiwanese culture as the main subject, they created a series of poster design collections that was named as Taiwan. These poster works have been mentioned in detail in the prior section, Introduction of Work.

　　Moreover, the series collection of the delicately hand-painted and monochrome sketch of My Taiwan, Seeing the Soul of Homeland collection represented the simple concept of Taiwan Island in forms of different visual images. This has become the distinguished signature style of Professor Lin in his personal art creation. The idea came from a pot of plants, the devil’s ivy.

　　In the winter vacation of 2005, Professor Lin went back to his hometown Pingtung to celebrate Chinese New Year. Unintentionally he noticed that the pothos his father had planted before passing away still flourished. He thought about his late father who had passed away a year ago, and lots of emotions and feelings rose in his heart. He then took the Chinese calligraphy brush and a random piece of A4 paper and drew out the picture that represented his father and his homeland. The painting was a image of Taiwan covered with the leaves of pothos. This is the art work that started the series collection of Seeing the Soul of Homeland.

　　From that day on, Professor Lin has been using this way to paint down the things and events that he saw and heard every day. Thus, the series collection of My Homeland was born.

Devil's Ivy	Homeletters of Taiwan	Dreaming Island

 

　Every day he had to draw out something. This seemed to become Professor Lin’s habit to visualize whatever he saw in Taiwan every day. When he went abroad, he would draw the things he saw in that country on a post card and sent back to himself. He said that the post card has been mailed and was postmarked. This was the testimony of that specific moment of the history. Starting from 2007 and till now, he has accumulated over seven hundred post cards. In 2009, he gathered these hundreds of post cards and created the work of Homeletters of Taiwan.

　　In addition to using Chinese calligraphy and fountain pen to sketch out the image of Taiwan on a post card, another everyday ritual of Professors Lin’s is to use calligraphy pen and stylus to dot out the art work of The Island of Dreams dot by dot on the 2x4 feet or 3x6 feet big-scale Chinese rice paper. Professor Lin loves The Moldau by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana deeply. Bedrich Smetana is the father of music in Czech. When Smetana was composing the symphonic poems of My Fatherland, he was expressing his attached love for his homeland which Professor Lin could relate to as well. For his love for Taiwan is as profoundly as Smetana’s love for Czech. Therefore, he used the images of his art to express the beauty of Taiwan.

　　The passion and care that Professor Lin had for Taiwan created his unique personal style which represented the images of Taiwan in diverse topics. No matter in the design or art industry, when you see the design in the form of the shape of Taiwan, you can immediately associate it with the art work of Professor Lin. He planned that after his retirement, he would visit the 319 villages and towns in Taiwan to appreciate the unique beauty of the places in Taiwan with heart. Let us look forward to more of the fun and meaningful images of Taiwan by Professor Lin!

 

　2、Our feedback

　　When interviewing Professor Lin or visiting his exhibition, we not only admired his unique design ideas and techniques, but also loved his art work. Sometimes, we even argued with each other about which works was more beautiful than the other. Even though we have already expressed our own personal reasons of why we love the work of Professor Lin in the section of the Love from Fans, we still would like to see just exactly which work is the most popular one.

Butterfly Orchids (Phalaenopsis) Butterfly Orchids represent the beauty of Taiwan.		Devil's Ivy The inspiration is from Lin’s father’s potted Devil's Ivy in their hometown, Donggang. Devil's Ivy represent the vitality of Taiwan.		Formosan Landlocked Salmon It is a distinctive subspecies of salmon in Taiwan. Formosan landlocked salmons remind people to cherish the natural environment in Taiwan.
Ribbons Ribbon-rapped Taiwan, bouncing up and down, indicates the powerful vitality of this land.		Taiwan Mountain Range This work is inspired when Lin was looking at Doulan Mountain in Taitung. It shows people the majesty of mountain ranges in Taiwan.		Twisted Roots and Intricate Gnarls It represents the firm foundation of Taiwan, defending the land in any storm.
Flame The flame represents the energetic Taiwan.		The Sea of Cloud The pattern of peaceful cloud extends and floats in the sky like flowers.		Central Mountain Range This work reminds Lin the scenery of Central Mountain Range he saw from a bird’s eye view.
Drifting Taiwan Cloud-like Taiwans are drifting in the sky, just like its own history.		World of Color, Taiwan of Beauty In this colorful world, do you see a beautiful Taiwan?		Homeletters of Taiwan This work is composed by 397 postcards sent back to Taiwan from overseas. Each card bears the nostalgia of the sender.

 

　　Most of the website design teammates were also members of an outside-school sports club called “The Iron Kids Expedition Team.” In a winter writing camp held by school called “The Iron Kids Writing Camp,” we conducted a task to find out which art work of Professor Lin was most liked by kids of our age. We first picked out twelve works of Professor Lin before the camp. Then we let each camper in the writing camp circle out the painting that he or she liked the most.

　　During the voting process, the campers discussed with one another and expressed their opinions. The lively atmosphere made us feel very excited and fun. The result of the poll revealed that the art work of the Flame which symbolized the vitality and spirit of Taiwan was the most popular card.

Exhibition	Viewing
Discussion	Voting