I am not single, but I am in a long-distance relationship with my husband. We’ve been together for eleven years, married for three years. He lives in Washington DC, so I painted the flag of Washington DC and the symbol of Chengdu above it. I moved to Chengdu a year ago and he’s been in Washington DC for a year, so we’ve been apart for a year. Thankfully, he will be moving to Chengdu next month. 

We’ve known each other for fourteen years. We met because we were touring the same college campus. We were pen-pals for many years and then we started dating. We actually started in a long-distance relationship. I was living in Seattle and he was living in Denver. We started long-distance, and now we’re long-distance again, so maybe a little long-distance is helpful. 

The last time I was here I came to paint and drink, but I focused too much on the drink so this time I wanted to focus on the paint. Maybe this is why I am not in a relationship, because of wine.

I am the big gold-mustard spot in the middle, and all of the spots together represent all of the couples around me. 

Everywhere I look, like on Facebook, all of my friends are getting married, engaged, and having babies. 

They’re all painted in multi-colored dots to represent that I’m happy for my friends who are happy in relationships and moving on, but I’m also happy here living my best single life in China.

Sometimes in life you find yourself in situations where you can’t always be yourself or say what you feel. 

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Sometimes that causes the end of a relationship. 

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​I am an introvert at heart, and this painting is called With Every Beat My Heart Is a Masochist.