Bernice Bing (1936-1998) was a pillar of the San Francisco arts community in the 1950s and 60s. A Chinese-American lesbian artist, her work has largely been left out of the art history canon.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today, we’re talking about a pillar of the San Francisco arts community in the 1950s and 60s. A Chinese-American lesbian artist, her work has largely been left out of the art history canon. Today, we’re talking about Bernice Bing.
Bernice, or “Bingo” as she was called, was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1936. Bernice had a difficult childhood. At the age of six, her mother died, orphaning Bernice and her sister. Over the next few years, the sisters spent time in orphanages and with their maternal grandmother. However, they were predominantly raised in white foster families.
Bernice’s experience growing up alienated her from her Chinese heritage as well as from the Chinese-American community. As a kid, she was rebellious and found it hard to concentrate in school. In fact, art was the only subject that kept her attention. Her love of art earned her a full scholarship to the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1957.
Bernice entered the college as an advertising major, but quickly changed course when she discovered painting. She attended a class led by abstract painter Saburo Hasegawa who exposed her to Zen calligraphy and Buddhist philosophy; two subjects that became influential in her later work.
While studying, Bernice supported herself by working as an artist. She became a fixture of the San Francisco art and Beat scene. Her studio was above the Old Spaghetti Factory, a hotspot for nightlife. She also entered the first cohort for the San Francisco Art Institute's Master’s program. In 1961, she graduated, and debuted her first solo exhibition. Her work drew inspiration from classic masters and implemented her own, more abstract spin on the old pieces.
During this era, Bernice became more spiritual and began incorporating Zen Buddist calligraphy into her paintings. In 1963, she moved out to the city to the Mayacamas Vineyard in 1963. On her break from the city, she worked on painting the spiritualism she found in nature.
In 1967, Bernice enrolled as one of twelve people in a residential program in [ess-elle-en], a center for New Age psychology and philosophy. There, she and the other artists worked to develop their ideas on spirituality. She learned meditation techniques and began painting with darker colors to explore her “demonic unconsciousness.”
After Esalen, Bernice became an advocate for the arts in San Francisco. She led the Neighborhood Arts Program to bring street fairs and art exhibitions to Chinatown. In 1975, she co-founded Scrounger Center for Reusable Art Parts, which collected scraps, crafts, and junk, to create new sculptures. She later became the director of the San Francisco Arts Commission.
In the 1980s, Bernice set off to travel China, Japan, and Korea. When she returned, she joined the Asian American Women Artists Association.
In her later years, Bernice moved to a small town in Mendocino, California. She supported herself as a waitress, a cook, and a counselor, while continuing to paint. Her artwork in the 90s returned to earlier themes of Zen Buddhism and calligraphy, now with the added layer of reconciling her experiences in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres.
In 1998. Bernice died from cancer.
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