Military Veteran Yilan Chang Dukes to Graduate – Fall 2022
Yilan Chang Dukes arrived in the United States in 2008. She had been born and raised to that time in Mainland China, the only child in a family where art was an important part of life. Her mother’s artistic passion was dance. Her grandfather and uncle were musicians.
After coming to the United States, life has not always been smooth for Yilan and trauma dogged her path, even after she graduated from high school and worked for a year at a packing company. So, at age 20, Yilan joined the United States Army. There she enjoyed a new lifestyle and saw herself participating in a cause that was bigger than herself. In the army she learned new things and became a water purification specialist. At the end of her stint in the military, she decided not to re-enlist. She came back to Tennessee, got married to an army colleague and became a mother to a little girl.
Though her marriage didn’t continue, she had begun studying at Pellissippi State, where she began as a math major, Yilan signed up for some foundational art classes and rediscovered a passion for creating works of art. She poured herself into the art that she had loved as a child in China.
Yilan believes that printmaking falls in the sweet spot between drawing and crafting. She loves working with materials that allow her to make more than one print. She enjoys the process of printing and then modifying and printing again. While working on a stone or with a copper plate, she finds great satisfaction. She enjoys the smells and the textures. It is “hard core”, she says, and it even reminds her of the materials that she used when she was in the military. Sometimes she even thinks that the paper prints are just a by-product of the actual art found within the stone and the copper plates.
Yilan’s final capstone project is a set of images based on a collection of Classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling. These 491 stories are short, sometimes as short as two sentences, but serve to critique societal problems. The tales and Yilan’s interpretation of them in her artwork have allowed her to touch base with part of her identity that she had not previously understood.
Because she is an older student, Yilan has a deep perspective on how art can touch life. She says, “I encourage people to try and embrace their passion. Don’t be afraid to express yourself and your identity. Try something new. Don’t believe the ‘starving artist’ myth, because none of us can totally control our futures. Art is a forgiving field of work compared to others and artists are amazing people. I have learned so much from my peers.”
Many people have influenced her and her work while at the UT School of Art from professors who helped her hone her skills to other students who helped her express inner feelings that can be both negative and beautiful. She is grateful to faculty, including those in printmaking, Beauvais Lyons, Althea Murphy-Price, and Koichi Yamamoto. She had high praise for other faculty also, her peers, and staff. “I aspire to be like these great practicing artists,” she stated.